Instead of a liquor cabinet or wine cellar, we have an array of coffee makers to readily access a buzz—a collection so vast, it might border on hoarding. We are the proud owners of two Nespresso machines, one Keurig, two French presses and a glass pour over thingy. And a contraption that brews cold brew? (I’ve never understood what makes cold brew cold brew.) Oh, and let’s not forget the instant coffee John keeps handy if he needs to mainline caffeine through his veins real quick, or the giant bag of protein-infused mocha-flavored espresso powder mix I bought from Sam’s to give myself a solid shot of anxiety over ice mid-afternoon. That’s nine ways to consume coffee in our home. Seems reasonable to me. I can’t have vodka, so fork over the caffeine.

We’re both addicted to coffee but for John, much like furniture and the clothes on his back, it’s purely functional, a means to an end. For me, the first cup is an elaborate ritual involving various additives and homemade almond milk. Have I mentioned I lived in Los Angeles for 14 years? You’d get thrown to the coyotes for drinking real milk out there—I did what I had to, to survive. Also, when I gave up alcohol, I learned to treat myself to kitchen gadgets that make life worth living. A milk frother and a nut milk bag are considered necessities now. I don’t know if I could mate with a non-coffee drinker to be honest. They wouldn’t understand the need it fulfills in my soul. Then again, I used to insist I wasn’t compatible with Star Wars fans or gamers, and here we are.

We also sub dessert for alcohol in our household quite a bit. Our kitchen always contains a steady supply of sweet treats, homemade and store-bought, even though I’m mildly snobby about the latter. Oreos are acceptable, but Chips Ahoy are not. I’d actually rather feel my feelings than eat Chips Ahoy. I’ve spent decades gaining and losing the same 15 pounds but even if I’m shunning dairy or sugar or processed food or anything starting with the letter “C” that week, in hopes of making all my dream-body dreams come true, sometimes a bowl of ice cream really hits when I’m stressed. I can’t pop the top on a beer bottle but I can whip the lid of some Talenti gelato, and that first spoon dip into the glassy surface is just as satisfying.

There is never not bubbly water in our fridge. It’s a real issue when there’s no cold Waterloo or LaCroix on tap. We have an inside joke pretending to be hammered on sparkling water but I don’t know how well it would perform for an audience so nobody’s taking that bit on the road. Too many Frozen references. (We watch a lot of Frozen.)

Occasionally, curiosity seeps into my brain…what would it be like, layering the element of alcohol into our relationship? My fantasies include tasting then ordering some bougie bottle of wine at a trendy restaurant; innocently sipping bitter IPAs at a local brewery while our daughter runs around; or mixing each other elaborate cocktails after hard days.

Sometimes, it’s just plain old fear of missing out. Recently a friend recounted drinking red wine in a hot tub with her husband during a mountain getaway without their kid, and a pang of jealousy washed over me. I want to drink red wine in a hot tub with my husband on a mountain getaway without our kid! In theory. In reality, do I really want my inevitable sloppiness and a hangover that makes my eyes bleed? So I don’t wonder enough about clinking coozies in a romantic setting to conduct an experiment. I know what happens when I drink and he’s told me what happens when he does. Abstinence appears to be the smarter path, if we want to keep functioning.

In my imagination, in a marriage of “normal” drinkers, alcohol takes the edge off; loosens everybody up and makes the hard conversations easier, and the fun moments readily accessible. Instead, we have to mine a little deeper to find our fun, and there is nothing to soften the edges of the harder conversations. We can’t mask what we’re feeling with a buzz. It’s all out on the table. On the flip side, there are no booze-induced fights. And nobody can blame it on the alcohol. If I’m a jerk, it’s all me. Maybe that makes us move through conflict faster? If one of us upsets the other person, alcohol isn’t there to exacerbate the anger but it’s also not there to numb it.

I used to worry being sober would negatively impact our social life as a couple. What if we didn’t get invited to dinners or adults-only gatherings because we don’t drink? Will people think we’re too boring to be around? How do I make small talk with this random stranger at a kid’s birthday party beyond the mind-numbingly boring exchange of information about whether our kid eats vegetables or poops on the potty yet? (Mine does neither, for the record, but I really only like to reserve that intel for close friends and any individual with eyeballs on this essay, obviously.) Turns out, our middle-aged union has served us well. Most of the friends we’ve made since we got married refrain from alcohol-fueled ragers and also, no one really cares if we drink or not. If they do care, it’s not like I’m aware of what I’m not getting invited to and conveniently enough, I hate being out at night!

Cake and kombucha are about as crazy as it’s going to get for us. We do make an effort to chase some adventure outside of our normal routine, activities that elicit what alcohol does for most people—a temporary suspension from the banality of daily living as an adult. For example, we tried hot/cold therapy at a place called Sauna House. It entails rotating from sauna, to cold plunge, to rest-on-a-heated-bench-while-hydrating, on repeat for two hours. The 45-degree water dunk definitely made us feel a tad high. If I were in a different season of life, I’d absolutely get a membership at that place and make it my entire personality. For now, I’ll just make it getting married and having a child later in life, while sober.

It makes me nervous to write about God and religion. Always worried I’m going to say the wrong thing or offend the wrong person, I just want to acknowledge up front that I’m just another bumbling human trying to figure out what it all means and how to happily exist in the realm of the physical world while also maintaining a sense of spiritual alignment that isn’t determined by external truths. You know, simple stuff!

Let’s break the ice with some embarrassing stories from my past that are relevant to this topic. From about 9 to 11 years old, I flaunted a serious mean streak, bordering on straight-up bully. This same phase contained a vandalism stage within it, so clearly I was experiencing some sort of rebellious outcry, but let’s stick to one dark confessional at a time.

My skin crawls remembering my, as we say in the South, ugly behavior. A few stories involve a cohort who is still a friend today, and thankfully also not an asshole anymore. Just wanting to clarify, I wasn’t always alone, not that it makes it any better, but because I’ll be dropping “we” as I describe some of these real life Mean Girls antics.

There was a kid in my fifth grade class who wore overalls a lot so we all assumed he lived on a farm but I don’t recall him ever confirming—we did make it his identity as apart from us. One time we lied, saying we’d found a girlfriend for him and her name was Henrietta, and then we cut out a picture of a farm girl in a magazine and told him it was her. There was another guy in that class who we made up a song about, with lyrics that included “has a knack for being a nerd” and sang it whenever he was around. I guess we tried to pass it off like these people were “in on the fun” of us making fun of them, but knowing now how fragile everyone is at that age, I’m sure they were just traumatized.

I would see the latter guy years later at forensics competitions, where we were both competing from different high schools, and profusely apologize for how mean I was in elementary school. Eventually he told me to stop saying sorry, that he forgave me, but I wouldn’t blame him at all if he never did. His mother even cornered me in an elevator once and asked me why I was so mean to her son, as she should have. He and I are connected on social media, and he’s definitely more successful than me so karma did indeed prevail.

Mean Mary was still going strong when she hit sixth grade. An additional victim, who one might have labeled the quintessential “nerd” back then (he’s probably a multimillionaire now) was the butt of a lot of our jokes. Once during history class, I was trying to make the unofficial hottest boy in our grade laugh, because obviously hot boys just devour a funny lady—the ultimate turn-on, and wrote “I love <insert former nerd, now probable mogul’s first and last name here>! He is my boyfriend” on the top of my hand (very unfunny bit, for the record). When I went to my next period, there was a test and the teacher pulled me out of the room to ask if I was cheating, assuming the writing on my hand was intel. Melting into the floor with embarrassment, I told her it was actually my attempt to make fun of another classmate. The disappointment in her eyes shamed me to my bones.

I don’t know what instigated my bullying trait but believe it or not, I’m pretty sure Jesus removed it. That bitchy girl basically ceased to exist after one weekend in January of 1995, when she went on her church’s youth group beach retreat and asked Jesus to be her Lord and Savior on the shores of Orange Beach, Alabama. Did I have any idea what “Jesus died for your sins” or “ask Him to come into your heart” meant at the time? Not really. But I got the general gist that being a Christian was doing what Jesus would do—W.W.J.D bracelets were really popping off at the time—and He certainly wouldn’t ball up tiny pieces of paper and throw them in the hair of the larger-bodied girl sitting in front of Him in 7th-period English. That passive aggressive bully behavior was also in sixth grade, pre-my Jesus talk on the sand. Was I that desperate to be seen as cool, to make up for the fact that deep down, I felt very inadequate? Yes, that, and another attempt to make a cute guy laugh—did I mention that neither of these fellas ever wanted to date me despite my attempts to humor them? Shocking indeed. Anyway, I vividly remember returning from that beach weekend and making a sincere effort to be kinder to the kids I’d taunted.

The principles that Jesus taught alleviated the mean girl within but I didn’t stay committed to actual church attendance or Christianity. I started to feel jaded about religion in college even though one of the biggest reasons I chose the university I did was, when I went to visit, I stayed with another girl from my hometown who was also very religious, and we hung out with all her Christian friends—it felt like good girl, alcohol-free utopia. Then I finished high school, started drinking and joined a sorority, and lo and behold, the Christian crew didn’t really appeal to me. The real seeds of skepticism started to sprout through a small group I joined. I will never forget the night a friend and I argued with the other women in the group, who all insisted that if someone wasn’t Christian, they were going to Hell. I just couldn’t bring myself to ever adhere to that and still don’t.

After moving to L.A., I tried to attend church, dabbling in a fancy Episcopal one in Beverly Hills, the most exciting part being recognizing one of the parishioners as a series regular from Beverly Hills 90210 (fitting). But I was always hungover, bored and unable to muster any sense of enthusiasm about faith or God. I was exposed to so many different types of people, cultures, and religions, moving to this massive city on the West Coast, it just didn’t seem possible that the Christianity I grew up with could be the only way. I started to doubt and question everything I’d ever learned. That led to getting very hung up on Revelation 3:15-16: “I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” I identified as incredibly lukewarm in my 20s, so it felt like I couldn’t honestly label myself a Christian.

By the time I decided to quit drinking in 2014, I was spiritually bankrupt, full of self-help books and hot yoga classes, but no real belief in anything. The community I joined to help me get sober inspired a newfound faith in something greater than me, a Higher Power of my own understanding. I’d never fully quit believing in God so the prospect of praying to something bigger than myself didn’t scare me. The group where I met to talk about sobriety was located in the chapter hall of an Episcopal church in Hollywood, a subtle turn back toward my roots.

Moving back to the South, church still felt very foreign, even though there’s a steeple on every corner. When it was time to get married, I really had to take a look at what I truly believed in again. We exchanged our vows in nature, where I feel most connected to God, but did have a Methodist pastor, a spiritual leader that John respected from the Army, officiate our ceremony. It felt like a nice compromise for the past and present versions of myself who felt the need for some type of Christian element to the wedding but not a full-on church parade.

John was spiritual when I met him but not a Christian. He was very disenchanted with church folks. Some Southern Baptists showed up at his house during Monday night football, after he’d filled out the visitors card at their church on Sunday. This really disturbed him, which is totally understandable—nobody likes a pop-in but most certainly not one of the most introverted souls on the planet during the Vikings game. That was just one of a few less than pleasant run-ins with Bible Belters for him.

He kept an open mind though, and when we moved to South Carolina, some men at his gym invited him to join their Bible study and he started attending out of sheer intellectual curiosity. I remained on the fence about going back to church but did experience a strong urge to have our daughter baptized as a baby because, it’s challenging as a parent to deny the impulse to replicate my own childhood by default. Thinking I’d have to convince John to go with me, he ended up being the one to cajole me into going, and was baptized the same day as her. Wild! The beauty of that experience opened my heart a little more.

That Episcopal church where they got baptized is where we still attend now, and it’s very welcoming to all walks of life, and actually doing things to improve the community and give back to those less fortunate—WWJD-type stuff.

Reconnecting with the God of my youth hasn’t been a linear journey but I am trying to truly understand what it actually means this time around. It’s a lot to process, and so much I still muddle my way through but the core tenets for me are believing in something bigger than myself and putting that faith, that I am a beloved child of God, above everything else; trusting in the concept of redemption exemplified by Jesus’ life and death; and loving other people. None of those beliefs are executed perfectly or without existential wondering, but I do my best.

Now, everything I read in the Bible I filter through the context of who the alleged author was, how many translations there have been, when it was written, and the cultural context of the time. I don’t allow the human instinct to question things, or to struggle to maintain blind faith in what I haven’t seen at all times, to blockade a connection with God.

I still bristle at being associated with some sects of Christianity, the ones that didn’t seem to receive Jesus’ memo. I try not to dwell on it—no group of humans is perfect, and I can only control my own actions and behavior.

Another gem from Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now: “True salvation is a state of freedom—from fear, from suffering, from a perceived state of lack and insufficiency and therefore from all wanting, needing, grasping, and clinging. It is freedom from compulsive thinking, from negativity, and above all from past and future as a psychological need.” Maybe that’s part of the salvation promised by Jesus? I hope so.

Mainly though, I go to church consistently now because, I don’t want my daughter to be a jerk.

Church and youth group attendance course-corrected my evil track so I want to set her up for a spiritual foundation too. What she decides to do with her religion after she leaves my home is her choice but if she’s anything like me (and so far she seems to be exactly like me, God bless my poor husband), she will need some sort of moral guide to temper that possible bully DNA.

At Christmastime, I wrote about my struggle to not buy her too much stuff and as the year marches forward and seasons come and go, the struggle remains. As I wade through options for inflatable pools for her to temporarily thrill in this summer before sauntering off to lick the fence or rip my tomato plant out of its pot, I am again reminded of the overwhelming amount of toy options for little kids. Talk about analysis paralysis! Bezos could dole out inflatable water contraptions of all shapes and sizes for days!

Also lurking in the back of my psyche is that same awareness I have for myself—no toy or purchase will ever be The Thing that endlessly entertains or satisfies her. I know no toy is ever going to be some magical elixir that keeps her occupied consistently, for long stretches of time, but I keep clicking away, like I am gonna land on it—the gadget that mesmerizes her day in and day out.

In the same way that shopping as an adult becomes an endless cycle of buying in order to fill some sort of void, the same goes for children’s toy-buying. Perhaps I’m projecting my own tendency to fall into the trap of if I just get this one thing, all my problems will be solved. Intellectually and spiritually, I know it’s false, yet I still subconsciously cling to this malady of the human condition. Maybe thanks to consumer culture and my own insatiable need for novelty, there will always be another possession to buy to make life more palatable, for me and for her.

Lately, she’s reveled in kinetic sand, mermaid figurines, and puzzles, but never for very long. They’re all put to use at various points during the week but nothing’s knocking out hours. Everything is definitely at its most exciting when it’s brand new, which is certainly a familiar sequence for me. Jewelry-making supplies gave me a lot of hope but after the initial rush of that purchase was over, she now tends to bail about five beads into the necklace. Her various costumes are holding on pretty strong but they’re not really an activity per se, unless you include five wardrobe changes a day as active. It does get exhausting (for me). That Sleeping Beauty dress makes her feel alive and regal, and I’ve definitely had outfits like that, but then every garment eventually starts to feel stale, like it somehow doesn’t fit anymore even though it technically does.

My version of this right now, my Thing, the items I’m lusting after to make all my dreams come true and satisfy me for hours on end, are new shoes. Ever since a nail technician took a couple of my toes in her hands and demonstrated that they return to a state of being curled under even after she unfurled them, I became obsessed with foot health. I already had a significantly-sized Taylor’s bunion (known as a “bunionette” in some circles but, despite the cute name, is just as heinous as its elder cousin, the classic bunion) on the outer edge of my left foot but then she had to point out the curled toes?! I’m glad she did it; that lovely woman in Daphne, Ala. changed the trajectory of my life. I became HYPER AWARE of my curled toes, which led to a very insightful rabbit hole of research. Now, I know the curled toes can eventually lead to a more severe condition called “hammer toes.” Google it. Wait, maybe don’t—I don’t want you to think mine are that bad yet.

I happened to mention this foot issue to John’s father’s wife, and she casually told me her mother had hammer toes, and one night she awoke to severe pain in her foot, and it was the result of one of her toes crossing completely over the one next to it. Can you imagine waking up to this gnarly scene?! This is apparently the ultimate demise for hammer toe victims. Her mom lives in a very specific type of sandal now and refuses to have the toes surgically uncrossed. While I admire her steadfastness and radical acceptance, that horror story was enough to frighten me from ever wearing a pair of heels again. Cheap heels are probably what got me into this busted foot mess in the first place.

Thanks to the inciting incident at the nail salon and John’s continued jokes that my bunionette is getting so big, it’s going to have to file taxes next year, I started learning more about what shoes to wear in order to not worsen these conditions. I became obsessed with finding barefoot shoes with wide toe boxes. I bought a pair of wide toe box sneakers and even though they do indeed look like the sneaker version of webbed duck feet or straight-up clown shoes, I really feel the difference. I’ve been wearing toe separators while I watch TV at night and tossing any shoes that pinch my feet. Gradually, I hope to replace all my old narrow shoes with wide ones but I obviously can’t afford to do it all at once. Boy, do I want to though. Finding wide toe box, barefoot shoes that are actually cute and stylish requires some dough. It’s hard to find any for less than one hundo a pair. John doesn’t understand this. He’ll say, “Ask AI to find the knock off version” but that version doesn’t really exist, and if it does, it’s ugly.

But even if I do eventually replace all my shoes, it will be onto the next thing. There will be something else I HAVE TO HAVE in order to comfortably exist, or so I think.

My daughter begged me to order a mailbox for her with the Disney princesses on it. Of course I found one on the Internet immediately because one can literally order anything with Disney princesses on it. Those bitches have made so much money. She was infatuated for about three days, wanting to write letters to all our extended family and every one of her stuffed animals. Now it’s collecting dust next to the humidifier in her room. It will be fun to put letters in it when we receive them but it’s certainly not a guaranteed party “for hours.” At least my new shoes are functional, until they become worn out and dirty beyond all recognition as all of my shoes ultimately do and no longer have that “fresh out the box” feeling.

No Thing is a permanent fix, whether it’s a barefoot sandal or a Paw Patrol coloring book. Looks like I’m going to have to teach my daughter to find true satisfaction within her soul and a Higher Power, but not before I warn her of the dangers of narrow-boxed shoes, and her genetic predisposition for hammer toes and bunions.

When we started doing the paperwork to make things legit, I had to choose between dropping the middle name, Patterson, or the last name, Broome. I ultimately decided to ditch my last name. Having the same last name as my husband makes life easier for boring reasons like taxes and every 800-page form I have to fill out in order for our child to exist in the world.

But while I willingly took my husband’s last name legally, I still clung to my maiden name in the working world. As far as my professional persona and social media handles go—and this Substack, obviously— it’s alive and well.

Maybe I’m delusional and self-important but I really sunk my claws into that maiden name because my whole career is quasi-public. Most of my published writing is online with my born name in the byline. While I never had a special or an album, there are footprints of my stand-up career online under my original name. There are tons of It’s a Southern Thing sketches on YouTube with writing and producer credits listing my OG name. It felt too daunting to start all over again with a new name at 38. However, almost four years into marriage, I sort of wish I’d just ripped the Band-Aid. By now, I’d be established and chugging along fully embedded as the new married me. My ego was probably a bit unhinged. Who did I think I was?!

At the time of this writing, I’m in the process of trying to sell myself. No, I’m not starting an OnlyFans account (I’d only do foot stuff and my feet are busted so that ship has sailed) but I am cleaning up my online presence (clearly not well since I just referenced why I can’t start an OnlyFans account), and polishing my website and resume, due to a change in employment status. “Change in employment status” is my cute way of saying, I don’t have a job anymore (except being a mom—shout out to all the moms in the ‘stack). I even got new headshots. You can take the girl out of L.A….

It’s a Southern Thing, the aforementioned brand I had worked for steadily for six years, did not renew my contract at the end of last year. Consequently, I am now in the vast emptiness of trying to find new income and professional purpose. There are no hard feelings; no one fired me in an angry rage—they were doing some restructuring and needed to allot their resources to someone who could be available in person (I’d been remote for a while), and the newsletter I’d helped execute was ending, but there is definitely grief. That job was really fun and the catalyst for so many other positive changes in my life, like returning to the Southeast. Although I still don’t feel like I fully fit in here, mainly because when people ask me how I am, I’m honest. “Not depressed but kind of bored. Thanks for asking. How are you?” Bless my heart.

So now I’m out in these streets again, trying to promote myself as someone people should pay to do stuff, but this job search feels a little weirder than previous ones because of the double life I’m leading with the names.

Personal branding stresses me out on a multitude of levels but since I still label myself a comedian and writer, it’s the devil I have to dance with. Most careers now involve some degree of self-promotion but somehow it’s always felt ickier in my line of work, because it’s hard to differentiate myself from my “services,” I guess?

I often envy people who chose professions that don’t require an active social media presence. Unless they’re jonesing to be Internet-famous, doctors don’t have to keep their Instagram reels popping off in order to practice medicine and engineers don’t need to stay on top of TikTok trends to bid on designing that new shopping center’s parking garage. Sure, they might have to advertise their services via social media but the experts themselves (the doctors and engineers in this hypothetical) can hire someone to do that, or they can work for a big company that handles it for them. They just have to show up and do the thing they (smartly) went to school for.

Part of my decision for walking away from pursuing stand-up professionally was a deep knowing that I was never going to be good at the social media game. When I started, it was just MySpace and you were considered elite then if you had a solid list of shows on your “Upcoming Gigs” calendar and maybe one good clip posted to your page. Some “Top Friends” with status didn’t hurt. Times have changed drastically since 2006. The follower count is often way more important than the actual craft.

Finding ways to engage on the socials without cringing has always been very challenging for me. It’s always sort of irked me with “comedy” content creators that it’s difficult to pinpoint and properly credit the originator of certain trends. Everyone is just constantly copying everyone else so it’s one big perpetual vortex of stolen material. It’s much harder in my mind to be original and unique in a live performance. Perhaps that’s just my elder millennial comedic snobbery coming out though.

Truthfully, it is much easier for me to post silly nonsense when I’m being paid to do it on a large brand’s account. I tend to post very little myself because I’m usually avoiding the apps to protect my sanity. So again, I wonder, does it really matter anymore what my name is on an account I barely post on?

It’s funny, I figured my attachment to my maiden name was rooted in the ego around my stand-up and writing history, and being just short of “middle-aged” when I got married, but I was chatting with a few friends one weekend, and a lot of them also had similar attachments to their maiden names and thought they were “better” somehow than their married ones—and they had gotten married a lot younger than I did. Maybe we’re all clinging to the name we were born with in some way. Names really do shape a person.

By the way, if any potential employers are reading this, my greatest strength is extreme people-pleasing and my greatest weakness is extreme people-pleasing. Codependents make the best employees!

The bed bug fiasco felt especially dramatic because I was already extremely depressed at the time. Earlier in the month, I’d disembarked from a four-week-long gig on a cruise ship, the Norwegian Getaway, a time I now affectionately refer to as, “the worst month of my life.”

The money they offered was big bucks for me during this period of my stand-up career so I was really excited to do the gig. I’d accrued a lot of paid work and festival appearances in 2013, but early 2014 wasn’t shaking out so well financially. The desperation was so deep, I took a job selling knives in Ralph’s grocery stores. No, not Cutco, but a Cutco knockoff called Jesco—even my knife gig was low-grade. I had to do a scripted sales pitch at a booth near the aisle end caps, cutting tomatoes, making fruits into star shapes…do I need to keep going or perhaps the humiliation level is clear? Oh wait, there’s more—I had to make an announcement on the store’s speaker about “giving away a free gift on Aisle 10” (it was a plastic citrus peeler) in order to entice people to the knife show, which I performed in a chef’s coat. Needless to say, a month cruising the Caribbean on loop four times out of Miami sounded like a dream.

During my time on the ship, the seas were calm but the shows were rough. I don’t care how funny someone is or how drunk the passengers are, 14 shows a week is excessive. Each Sunday, a new set of passengers arrived but throughout the course of the week, the same people would show up multiple times to the comedy club and many of them didn’t speak English as their first language. People brought their kids too, which is like the cardinal sin of comedy show attendance. It was “tough crowd” vibes show after show, night after night. Even worse, I was the opening act so I had to go out cold every time. A lot of comedians thrive on cruise ships but apparently, I am not one of them.

Performing in the confined space of a cruise ship is brutal because there is never truly an escape from the audience. I’d see them at the buffet the next day and have to decline an invitation to join them for breakfast, or run into them going up a gondola on one of the islands we visited. They’d clock me with that look of hungover recognition then utter things like, “I LOVED your show…my husband didn’t really like you but I thought you were funny.”

To be fair to that woman’s husband, I bombed a lot. It took me a long time to realize, I had to essentially do as much crowd work as possible before going into material each show to keep it fresh. I repeated some jokes in multiple shows because I didn’t really have enough material to do new sets that many times a week. Some nark from Norwegian complained about this to my agent, which was embarrassing and hard to hear.

If I’d been more clear-headed and driven at the time, I might have used the long days of nothing to do until the show as a time to write and hone my set, but instead, I smoked cigarettes, burned my skin with too much sun and slowly sunk into a sadness that no amount of bottomless frozen yogurt could shake. I saw a whale breaching one day from the treadmill in the ship’s gym. That was probably the highlight of my month.

Binge drinking quite frequently in those days but in the midst of multiple attempts to quit alcohol completely, I boarded the ship with a few weeks of white-knuckled sobriety under my belt. Then I was quite literally surrounded by alcohol and offered dirt-cheap crew pricing on booze so I started drowning the sorrows of not performing well with wine and whatever else I could get my little sea-clown hands on. Blacking out became a regular occurrence and I even briefly entertained dating a guy from the magic show (truly a personal bottom). One night, I was in the greenroom waiting to go on stage and the headliner sauntered in and started referencing things I said out on the deck the night before, but I had no memory of ever socializing on the deck the previous evening. This was disturbing to say the least.

I was miserable and bloated when I got off that boat, and trying to recover in L.A., recounting the horrors to my two friends who doubled as my therapists at the time, and then got the brief boost of the chance to do a TV taping. So I mustered the energy and had a sliver of hope.

I trekked north on the 5 freeway to Oakland to do the show with a really bad cold in tow. When I checked in and collapsed on the bed in my room, I had a message from someone on Twitter in response to a joke I’d tweeted about my impending stay at the Red Lion near the airport in Oakland. It was another comedian who did the road a lot, warning me that the hotel I’d mentioned had bed bugs. I texted another comic friend who was also scheduled to do the taping, asking her if she’d checked in yet. The Red Lion at the airport was where all of us were supposed to be staying. (I honestly can’t remember if the producers paid for the room but knowing the comedy business and how most of us would trade our left arm for stage time and exposure, they probably didn’t.) My friend responded that she’d secured another hotel because she found out that, you guessed it, the Red Lion I was currently basking in had bed bugs. At the time, I was a total bed bug amateur so I had no idea how seriously I should have heeded this double warning.

I went down to the front desk blowing my nose and sheepishly asked if they could confirm or deny this bed bug rumor. The hotel employee sort of blankly stared at me and insisted, if there had been any bug issues, they would have definitely fumigated. I was too tired and too sick to care so I decided to risk it.

Maya Angelou famously said, “If someone tells you who they are, believe them, the first time,” and the same goes for bed bugs. Never ignore even a shred of warning about these insects. If the only options for sleeping are a hotel you’ve heard might have bed bugs or a dumpster full of week-old garbage behind Taco Bell, choose the dumpster.

I stupidly slept at that Red Lion, did the taping the next day, stayed again another night, then hit the road back to Hollywood the following morning. Adrenalin fueled me through performing while sick, and I was feeling high on the rush of a TV taping and an incorrect cockiness that I’d skirted the bed bugs, certain all those warnings had been a load of malarkey. When I arrived back in Los Angeles, I ignorantly snoozed away in my own bed that evening, then woke up in the morning with red, itchy bites on my face and neck. I think I even slapped my neck and uttered aloud “BED BUGS!” in the Home Alone “KEVIN!” style (RIP the great Catherine O’Hara).

After padding down the stairs with a knotted stomach, I knocked on my landlord’s door in a panic. She slowly cracked it open and peeked out (neither of us had good boundaries, clearly) as I anxiously scratched my skin and told her what happened. Thus began a weeks-long process of doctor’s offices; confirming the extent of my BB issue; determining what could be salvaged and what needed to be discarded; learning how one effectively washes bedding for proper bed bug removal; and how to essentially tap into the secret underground world of bed bug survivors who are now afraid to publicly admit they had them because it’s disgusting and stigmatizing. I felt like a pariah. FYI, extreme heat treatments are the only methods that work but most slum lords won’t cover the cost unless it’s a major infestation with visible evidence beyond just welts on your skin. Also, one of the telltale signs of bed bugs is little brown blood stains on the sheets, because they bite the person, get that blood in their bod, then drag some of it across the linens as they retreat. Fun facts!

In the aftermath of the ship debacle, I tried to return to knife peddling but it turns out the only positive consequence of the bed bugs was it gave me an excuse to quit. I sent my manager a photo of my busted face full of bites, pleading to not do my shift, and he tried to brush it off and told me to come anyway. Sorry, tattooed Mike from Jesco, no one is buying a knife set from Bed Bug Face. That’s the only time I ever somewhat dramatically quit a job by just not showing up.

Bombing, bed bugs and knife shows. Not my finest moment(s).

Then on March 29th, 2014 at the end of a comedy festival in Atlanta and one of the worst hangovers of my life, I had my last alcoholic beverage. Clarity descended upon me. The sky was somehow brighter and bluer; the flowers seemed sharper. That May, I secured a staff writing job on a popular web series. I lost weight and got into really good shape. I booked more writing work. Life slowly but steadily improved.

Spring, especially March, is now a time of celebration for me. My daughter’s birthday is March 24th and my official sobriety date is March 30th, 2014. I was dabbling in not drinking back then but seem to be pretty committed now, 12 years later.

I reflect on that time and feel so much relief at how much more grounded and content I am today. So often back then, I’d be in a hungover haze, feeling like the walls were closing in on me. Now, I can breathe. I wake up each day with a clear head, remembering what I did the night before. Spring is a time of rebirth and I really feel that in my soul each year. I also have the sense to always take any bed bug warning seriously.

Life is, of course, still life. I am not some shining beacon of perfect mental health every single day, free from all problems just because I’m sober, but it’s definitely much more manageable than it was when I was bombing and blacking out on a cruise ship for a month straight then stripping my tiny studio apartment of unseen tiny predators that left bites all over my upper body for weeks.

For the curious-minded, my last drink was a Blue Moon at a sports bar in Atlanta—I wish I’d gone out on a more glamorous note but plenty of drama had preceded that beer so perhaps it’s for the best.

Thankfully, a dog was thrust upon me. One of the greatest gifts of getting married was inheriting a pit bull named Mace. I had no idea how much I missed having an animal in the house until I started living with one again.

My family had a stint with Cocker Spaniels growing up. All I remember was being told they were “crazy” but looking back, I wonder if we just didn’t know how to properly train them. Next we had a run with parakeets (boring) then two cats. The cats were vastly different. One was mean, and the other was so loving, if you left the wrong door open, you’d wake up to him curled around your head at night. They both brought us endless entertainment, which I’d definitely forgotten about until having a pet again later in life. I still like cats (even the assholes) but allergies and fear of being dubbed a sad cat lady always kept me away. My apartment in L.A. did not allow pets. This always felt like a valid excuse for not getting one. But secretly I just didn’t want to deal with the responsibility and cost of having an animal.

I didn’t really understand the obsession with dogs. Weren’t the majority of them dirty and smelly? There were a few times in L.A. when I saw older women with dogs sticking out of their purses at the grocery store. They would literally be sniffing the produce along with their owners and I’d cringe as I pushed my cart in the other direction. Now, I profusely apologize to Mace when he cannot accompany me everywhere I go. He paces nervously while I put on my “outside feet” and I reassure him, if I could shrink him and put him in my pocket, I would, but until they invent that technology, he’s not allowed at Publix.

Recently I was sitting at our kitchen table with stress-face, anxiously trying to compose a text, wearing my worry all over my face. I’d had a disagreement with John the night before and we still hadn’t done the fight post-mortem—obviously, a perfectly-worded message was going to completely fix everything. Mace just lingered beside me, softly whining. It’s like he takes on my anxiety sometimes, as if he can’t relax until I do. When I cry, he comforts me. When I’m happy and dancing, he’s happy and dancing (i.e. begging me to play tug with him). He’s just there for all of it, a constant companion, often evoking the feeling I have when I truly trust that God is real and with me. The fact that this dog exists and offers nothing but pure love, joy and breathing presence—not to mention service to others—is enough to make me believe in a loving creator. It’s like a living example in animal form of what Jesus was talking about. It’s what I suspect most spiritual principles boil down to—striving for a daily existence of love and being in the present moment. Mace’s innate demeanor makes me believe there is something greater than us.

I realize this isn’t a new concept, the correlation between dogs and God. When I tried researching the origins of the phrase “Dog is God spelled backward,” I came across the song “GoD And DoG” by Wendy J. Francisco, in which she writes about the loving, steady presence of both God and her dog. She sings, “I look up and I see God. I look down and see my dog.” It’s hard to pinpoint the origin of a concept that encapsulates a deep, unspoken connection between two living beings. Ancient Egyptians were probably cuddling their dogs thinking, this calming feeling is probably what God(s) wants for us. All I know is, I totally get it now. Maybe God created dogs to remind us of the peace that’s available to us at any moment.

If I am doing chores around the house, he often follows me to every room until I sit down. His vibe is definitely, Hey, hey, hello, I’m here…are you going to relax soon? Can we just sit and be still for a moment?

Mace’s “house” is in our bedroom. We used to send him into that crate every night and lock the door when we went to bed but when we had our daughter and she was still in the grueling, no-sleep newborn stage, we started leaving the crate door open at night. We needed an emotional support animal and just never went back. If you had told me earlier in my life, I’d be sleeping with a dog every night, I’d have said, “Ewww, gross.” He still sleeps in his own bed a lot, or just curls up at the end of ours like we’re in a cartoon about domestic life. Most often, he prefers to burrow under the covers and glue himself to one of our legs. Occasionally, he’ll go full-on human mode, with his head on the pillow and the rest of his body under the covers. It’s ridiculous but I’m obsessed with his delusion that he’s part of a throuple.

He’ll sometimes make prolonged eye contact with me that’s reminiscent of a person with deep emotions. I’ll wonder why he’s being so intense, and discover it’s usually because he just needs me to sit down and hold him. Then he purrs like a cat when he is pleased or happy. It always brings me back to the same thought—the fact that an animal can be this loving and affectionate, there has to be a greater intelligence at play. It’s also quite comical that this 60-pound mass of muscle thinks he’s a lap dog.

His fur is short but still finds its way all over our house. It shows up in my coffee cup or stuck to my daughter’s butt. I have a white sofa he jumps and rolls on, leaving a film of his fur and sometimes mud. The cushion covers have to get washed over and over. The shedding is endlessly annoying and makes cleaning our home seem impossible but honestly, the delight he brings makes it so, so worth the hassle.

Now I’m one of those people who gets excited about pretty much any dog* I see. I welcome their jumps and licks. There is a deep knowing I didn’t possess before that this animal likely brings its owner a level of happiness and companionship that’s hard to put into words. This is the unspoken reason why we celebrate just because it’s a dog.

*I’ve still never met a nice dachshund. I’m sure if you own one, yours is perfect. The ones I’ve encountered have all been jerks so I steer clear. Maybe one day I’ll meet one who will change my mind.

So then I sang, “I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-T / DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEAN, MAN?” right in his face.

I didn’t. Would have been awkward if he’d never heard the song. But I wanted to.

One of the benefits of being single for so long is, I don’t really have an issue being by myself, even with a small child in tow. Uber independent is sort of my default state. We’ve been married for almost four years but I lived alone for over 15 so, I am still adjusting to alerting someone of my whereabouts and checking in before I solidify plans. I also have a block around cleaning sinks and closing cabinets but that’s something I’ll unpack another time.

It’s true though, my previous life prepared me for my current one. My husband, John, is in the military. It requires a significant amount of time, travel and sacrifice. Oftentimes, I am alone with my daughter because he is physically not available due to Army commitments both in and out of town. In fact, as of this writing, I am on week three of an almost month-long solo parenting stint because of an out-of-state military obligation. People usually gasp when I tell them the lengths of his frequent trips but I assure them, I’m used to it by now, and it’s not nearly as hard as being on my own when our daughter was a baby—God makes babies cute so you will put up with all their high maintenance tomfoolery.

Other times, I’m alone with her because I know he needs his introvert time. I like to be out and about, constantly communing with friends. John is the exact opposite and doesn’t feel the same pressing urgency to interact with others. We’ve been good for each other in that regard—I make him get out there a little more and he reminds me, I don’t have to always be out there. But if there’s a random party we’ve been invited to and he’s been working a lot or had very little time to himself, I don’t feel resentful if he opts for his recliner and watching the Nerd Olympics (AKA “esports finals”).

And sometimes, I do stuff alone with my daughter because I just like to, okay, Daddy Detective at the water park?! I enjoy our mother/daughter time. We recently returned from her first trip to the West Coast, and I took her, as she would say, “all by myself.” We went to visit friends of mine who now live a couple hours east of Los Angeles (thank God, I wasn’t ready to solo-parent at LAX) and even though the flight out there was nothing short of Mom Hell (Dad would have made sure the bluetooth Moana headphones paired with the tablet BEFORE the flight took off, whoops), I wasn’t scared to do it alone. When I was regularly performing as a stand-up comic, I drove and flew to lots of random places alone. That (and the actual telling jokes to strangers) sort of cemented a fearlessness that I hope I’m instilling in my daughter.

I’m not saying parenting alone is easy. When he’s in another state for an extended period of time, there are days when I collapse into my own bed immediately after I put her down in hers. It can feel like a really long race where I’m crawling toward a finish line with cottonmouth and cramps. Like, for real, get this mom some Gatorade! And if I had more than one human to keep alive? I don’t know if I’d be writing this with such bravado. Full-time single parents (especially to multiple children) are warriors. My experience with Mom’ing alone is probably more tolerable because subconsciously I know it’s temporary, the end is always in sight—I will get a break, eventually.

I value both the experience of living alone and of having a family again. Out and about in the world, because of my years of perpetual singledom, I’m usually okay. However, at home, when he travels, I do miss John’s calming presence and the adult companionship. When I try to decompress after a long day, our dog is excellent at snuggling but gives zero feedback on whether my response to that mom at the library was awkward.

Here’s my tidy ending: I am fully capable of existing and parenting alone but in general, life is better when I don’t have to. Neither the dog nor my daughter praises my cooking, and I need that validation more than I need a water park co-captain.

“If I celebrate holidays and Christmas, your entire life /And you gotta go beg somebody for a job at 18, what did I do? / (You failed me financially).”

That parenthetical part is a response from a little girl acting as someone’s daughter.

John reminds me of this lyric all the time, but especially in December, when I’m feeling the compulsive urge to stun my daughter with an exploding chair of gifts on Christmas morning. John and I tend to differ on how much “stuff” we need to comfortably exist—and per the usual female stereotype that I believe is often referred to as “women be shoppin’,” I buy more.

Our child is almost three years old so she better understands the cultural traditions of Christmas but still doesn’t have any expectations for the amount of new stuff she’ll acquire the morning of December 25th. To her, it will just be another typical day of adorning herself with every piece of jewelry she owns and asking for an additional bag of Welch’s fruit snacks every 30 minutes.

John interprets the song lyric to mean, it’s harmful to spend tons of money to make birthdays and Christmases over-the-top with gifts but then when the child turns 18, he or she has no plan, direction, or capital to get started in life. He believes that rather than focusing on piles of gifts every year, the ideal situation is an ongoing conversation with a child to nurture their dreams and develop a plan to execute them once they become an adult. I can’t argue with this. It seems very sane, logical and wise.

Yet it’s still so tempting to give her a mountain of presents at Christmas.

I suppose there are parents who do both. Their kid receives a sofa full of treasures once a year (either because the parents have a ton of disposable income or make a intentional savings plan for Christmas) but also learns the value of savings, investments, planning for retirement, and choosing the right profession for their natural talents and lifestyle goals, blah, blah, blah, I guess, sure…

But to succumb to human nature and make this all about me, I’m trying to examine my underlying motives for getting her every toy she’s ever expressed interest in, which is a rotating list that ranges from a Minnie Mouse “fan” (huh?) to a Winnie the Pooh coloring book and the outfit Dora the Explorer is wearing in an illustration from the book, Dora Goes to School.

There are more tangible items she covets too. We go to Barnes & Noble often, for both the children’s book section and the toy section. There is this one stuffed animal she’s obsessed with—it’s a yellow lab-looking dog curled up like it’s sleeping with a little puppy attached to it. She squealed with delight the first time she saw it and now, visiting this puppy is part of the incentive for going.

Then there’s the Bluey backpack she always asks to wear when we’re there and a box of Frozen figurines she frequently tells me she wants. When I ask her what she plans to do with them, she says she’ll put them in her dollhouse but all I hear is, “Throw them in every corner of our home for you to continuously pick up and put away until the end of time.” I constantly remind myself of this when I am jonesing to buy her another toy at any point, not just Christmas.

Still, I had planned to scoop up the beloved stuffed animal, backpack and figurines (and maybe the Moana puzzle we saw that one time and some silly putty—that’s it, I swear) for Christmas, even though we already got her new pajamas, a “big girl bed,” a scooter with a helmet and some toddler-sized cleaning supplies (it’s about time that little b started mopping around here), alongside presents from her grandparents.

Then I caught myself.

I realized, I am doing this for me more than her. I want the temporary high of seeing her joy at these toys from our Barnes & Noble trips in our living room Christmas morning. She doesn’t need any of them. The Bluey backpack isn’t big enough for her school folder; she isn’t really old enough to play pretend with the Frozen figurines for any prolonged amount of time; and she’s already got about 20 stuffed animals. Why am I giving myself more work in the daily toy tidying?!

Surely part of this drive to shower her with gifts is an inclination to replicate my own experience growing up. I had a pretty idyllic childhood that did happen to include exploding chairs of presents on Christmas. My parents were fortunate enough to pay for our Christmas gifts without taking out a second mortgage but if I’m being honest, as I mull over Royce Da 5’9”’s thesis, they didn’t really teach me that much about money. (I can already hear my mother reading that line to my father as he takes off his glasses and gives an exasperated sigh—keep reading, there is accountability on my part and further explanation!)

They did encourage me to use my talents and provided any opportunity to do so. I also had jobs every summer starting at 15 and have been a good employee to whoever I work for, so they definitely taught me that hard work is important, but there wasn’t really any definitive guidance in terms of how to efficiently manage my earnings or set myself up to create the life they’d given me when I became an adult.

When I had the absolute gall to point this out to my father—I don’t really know why I did that because it’s like handing my parents a performance review, “here’s what you could have done a little better,” when they don’t exactly get a do-over with raising children—he responded, he made sure I had a great education so those institutions could teach me about money. Ummm, they don’t. Schools should teach students how to manage their money but they don’t, at least not the ones I attended, which were both private with very well-manicured landscaping—they didn’t offer Real Estate Investing 101 but I damn sure had some green grass to look at while strolling to class.

It’s really a shame Santa Claus doesn’t dole out financial literacy but even if he did, there are still no promises as to how children are going to move through the world once they’re out of the house. For example, my parents did not advise me to choose a career with no stability or financial guarantees, and live in one of the most expensive cities in the country after graduation. They wanted me to go to law school (whoops). Maybe that was their money advice, and I just couldn’t bring myself to take it. Even if they had taught me everything they knew about IRAs and 401(k)s by the time I was 10, I still might have taken a long time to figure out that I shouldn’t spend every single dollar I earn the minute it hits my bank account, especially on the temporary dopamine hits of material things like clothing and yet another contraption to make coffee.

I do plan to have more candid conversations with my daughter about how much money it takes to maintain a comfortable lifestyle. Perhaps it will be helpful for her to know, money basically controls every aspect of your life by the time you get to your 40s, from where you live to what grocery store you shop at and how well you sleep at night. But enjoy the loot from Santa in the meantime!

When I was lamenting my fears around buying too many Christmas gifts to a friend who has three children, I loved her reaction. “DO IT! Buy her those Frozen figurines! And it is for you! Who cares? Let her get some frivolous toys and see the joy on her face!” This felt like permission to splurge but I still had John’s oft-quoted rap lyric swirling through my brain and, you know, the visible consequence of a shared bank account.

The next time I went to the bookstore, both the figurines and the backpack were gone but the yellow lab stuffy was still there. Maybe this was God’s way of meeting me in the middle. She’ll get some but not all of her Barnes & Noble favorites, as well as <yawn>, continued conversations about executing her career plans. Has any parent ever considered placing price tags on everything they own so a child can see how much life really costs? Militant but perhaps effective, no?

This does mean we’ll have yet another stuffed animal whose diaper she’ll ask to legit “change” while I try to explain the ongoing cost of the baby wipes.

When I was a young adult, I maintained this vague, almost subconscious assumption I’d be a mother someday, but never really actively thought about what I’d want this hypothetical child’s life to look like. Part of why I had a child so late is because I didn’t prioritize having a family of my own or take the obvious actions necessary to create it when I was young. An example of an action might be, “date a man who has a job and wants a family.” In turn, I definitely didn’t consider the ideal setup for my potential child’s childhood.

There is something about starting a family that’s made me long for what’s familiar. In my hometown, I already know all the schooling options from preschool to high school, the traditions for every holiday, the lay of the land church-wise, the best summer camps, and where you don’t want your kid driving after dark (although they probably still will). On a deeper level, there are families who have known me my whole life, and known my parents even longer. I’d like to believe they’d have a special affinity for my daughter because of that history, and there is a sense of security in that feeling. When my daughter is doing something wild now, I worry what others might think. If we are around people I grew up with, I know they just think, awww, of course she’s an attention hound, her loud-ass mom was one too.

A therapist told me long ago, grown children with some geographical distance from their parents tend to have healthier relationships with the parents. That was just one woman’s opinion but it stuck with me. I’ve always been very tight with my parents but maybe I’ve appreciated our time together more because of the distance. Then I had a child and the moment my parents started gathering their things to travel back home after making the 7-hour trek for her birth, I felt rushing pangs of fear about her not knowing them like I knew my grandparents. Of course, when I was born, my grandparents were a lot younger than my parents were when I had my daughter. One of the downsides of having a baby later in life is grandparents who aren’t physically able to help as much. Sure, my daughter would see her grandparents a lot more often if we lived down the block instead of up the interstate(s) but they wouldn’t be doubling as a daycare or doing overnights like I did with mine.

I also struggle with not being as involved with the daily lives of my niece and nephew, who tragically lost their father. We soak up as much time with them as possible on the visits home but it’s not the same as living there.

Being closer for my parents as they age is another factor. I always swear to my sister I’ll be there the minute there is any sudden, urgent need that she can’t handle alone but my absence for little things they’d probably love help with, I kind of have to exist with that subtle sense of guilt.

Other than a couple summers during college, I haven’t really lived at home since high school. The decision to stay away has been nuanced. I always had a desire to go to college out of state then live in a big city, and just a general affliction of wanderlust and insatiable curiosity about life in other places. But looking back now I think, why? Why was I so convicted to leave home, to not stay or return after college to the place where I had an idyllic childhood and endless connections? It also happens to be a beautiful area with lots of historical charm (okay, some of the history is not “charming” but no one’s past is perfect), decent climate and close proximity to some of the prettiest beaches in the country.

My psychoanalytical conclusion is that it stems from an inability to be present. It’s this gnawing sense that my circumstances are always “wrong” somehow and that somewhere else, somewhere I just have to think hard enough to conjure, will be the solution, the right place, the answer to all my discomfort. This tendency haunted me throughout college and my time in L.A too. Any time I experience emotional pain especially, I fight the urge to go back into my past and identify something I could have done differently in order to not feel what I’m feeling, and sometimes that thing is an entirely different life path. The awareness around this habit has helped tremendously, as has getting sober and literally never getting to “check out” of my uncomfortable feelings with a mind-altering substance. Speaking of, my city of origin loves alcohol and I don’t drink it anymore so that’s another reason I tend to rule out going back. That might sound ridiculous but staying sober in the birthplace of America’s Mardi Gras is not a hill I want to climb every year of my life.

People could argue now that most American cities have become pretty interchangeable. The weather and topography may vary and some downtowns are more developed than others but day-to-day, we’re all just existing in a circle of strip malls anchored around Target or TJ Maxx. There are pockets of character and unique history everywhere but how much does their existence really impact daily life? Some places get a little more culture than others in terms of live entertainment and sports teams, and some are obviously more expensive to live in, but at a certain age, you recognize that the restaurants, parks, and schools will be acceptable to my daughter because that’s all she’ll know. And for me, the phrase “Wherever you go, there you are” really resonates.

When I decided to pursue a career in the entertainment business after college graduation, I basically had to choose between New York and Los Angeles. Chicago had the improv scene but I never really vibed with the idea of continuous frostbite six months out of the year. I ended up choosing L.A. because I wanted to experience the West Coast and it just seemed like there was a larger quantity of jobs in comedy there. This was before social media granted anyone permission to be an “entertainer” if they had symmetrical features and a smart phone.

The whole time I was living in L.A., I always maintained I was only there for the industry and if I ever decided to do something else, I’d leave. When I turned 35 and my life felt completely stagnant both professionally and personally, I knew I had to let the dream go and try life somewhere more “normal.” I started searching for writing work and was open to whatever the Universe/God/Divine Spirit/A Shape in the Clouds brought my way. That’s when I landed back in Alabama (with a comedy writing job somehow) but in a different city than my hometown. Then at 37 I met my husband and his job with the Army brought us to where we live now in Greenville, South Carolina. He committed to a three-year contract then after that, it was sort of up to us—keep doing full-time Army but definitely have to move, find a job around here, or go back to what we were both doing before in central Alabama. I’ve been working remotely the whole time we’ve been here so it was really hinging on his career and what’s best for our daughter.

I actually really fell in love with our current city. It’s three hours from the coast and right at the foothills of the mountains, and has tons of stuff to do with kids, not to mention a Hallmark movie-worthy downtown. We’ve also put in the work to build community and own a house here. These factors helped us settle on trying to stay and my husband thankfully found a job.

Yet…

There are times when I still feel a sense of what are we doing here? Neither of our extended family are here, we have no ties and aren’t necessarily beholden to Greenville with our professions. If not my hometown, is there somewhere else that’s “better” somehow?

Ultimately, there is something empowering about committing to the decision to forge our own path somewhere new, that’s truly more than “good enough,” and offers everything we need to raise a child and be content. The latter is something I have to remember every time I start to question things. How much is really required to choose contentment?

I’ve now moved cities twice in the past six years and doing it as an middle-aged adult is tough. Finding all new doctors, choosing a neighborhood to live in, securing childcare and locating all the possible hot yoga studios to leech free newcomer passes off before shelling over some dough—some days when I really get caught in the spiral of overthinking this topic, I remember that starting over again is exhausting and there will be trade-offs no matter where I live.

It’s also fun to just set certain places aside for my next life, if that ends up being a thing. For example, I’ve already decided, in my next life, I’m going to live in the Pacific Northwest, maybe Bend, Oregon? I spent a summer outside Denver, Colorado once and dream about that as a future life option too. Obviously, another path in this hypothetical, completely existential scenario is Broadway B*tch NYC well into my eighties.

The ability to even have this analysis paralysis is a result of modern life and financial privilege. If I was alive in another time, picking my city like an ice cream flavor wouldn’t even be an option. In some ways that sounds freeing; I’d have no choice and would have to just accept my fate. But who knows what kind of dude I’d be forced to pretend to like and cook for with no route out of the homestead other than a covered wagon.

The T.J. Maxx where I live is poppin’ but the HomeGoods, not so much. Nowhere is perfect I guess.

We’ve been “potty training” my two-year-old for about three months. She’s got an 85% success rate (a statistic I just made up) with getting urine into the toilet bowl and not her underwear but she’s still struggling to do the deed with poop on the potty.

(If you don’t have children and find this mind numbingly boring, I totally get it, feel free to stop reading. Namaste, and permission to go watch reels evaluating the merits of weighted vests now.)

We’ve tried bribing her with candy and clothes, and constantly reminding her that “big girls poo poo in the potty.” (Her dad and I use “poo poo” instead of “poop” because it’s way more fun to say but I sense the collective cringe when I refer to it as “poo poo” around other adults. I get it, the sound of Ms. Rachel’s voice makes me cringe so I do not engage with her—we all have our things.)

I even made up a jingle with all her favorite Disney characters—

“Moana poo poos on the potty! Elsa poo poos on the potty! Mirabel poo poos on the potty!”

I repeat this ad nauseam, listing everyone while playfully clapping her hands together. She finds it really entertaining but it doesn’t dissuade her from shedding endless tears when we gently suggest she aims for the potty instead of her panties when the urge to purge hits.

We don’t have a lot of storage in our house and the rooms aren’t that big either. Our downstairs bathroom is already crowded with a bin for potty training books and wipes; steps attached to a little pink bear potty training seat cushion to put on the toilet; a stool to reach the sink for washing lil’ toddler hands; and an adapter that fits snugly on the toilet seat so she doesn’t just collapse into the bowl (we bought two of those initially but it felt like she might break her neck climbing onto the commode so then came the pink bear with steps). One can barely walk into the powder room thanks to this explosion of toddler toilet “necessities.” And that’s just the downstairs bathroom!

I really, really don’t want to get yet another toilet-centric item. But now, in the face of her still refusing to unleash the beast in porcelain, I’m fielding suggestions to buy a potty seat that just rests directly on the floor. Perhaps it’s the sensation of the poop dropping into the bowl that frightens her? Perhaps that will give her a bigger sense of control if it’s on the ground? And because she’s even more resistant to having to go on the go, a few folks have also recommended I buy a portable toilet for when we’re on the road. Just line it with plastic liners then dispose of them after she does her business in the back of the car—simple as that! It’s great for those times she might be terrified of a Porta Potty or a jump-scare automatic flush! While I agree, those things might be daunting for a toddler, I still don’t want to fork over my money for yet another item from Bezos’ magical warehouse of endless plastic. How many potty training novelty items does one child actually require in order to stop dookying in their drawers?!

I really resist ordering from Amazon, not because of some moral high ground about the company destroying small businesses, but because it just always ends up seeming wasteful. I try to wait until I have a least three items I need, and can really only find at the best price on Amazon, and always tell the robots running the website to please just send it all on the same day, in the same package. I don’t understand the urgency that Amazon Prime created. Most people can live two more extra days without a banana holder stand. Nothing makes me feel grosser than opening, then having to dispose of, a giant box that contains approximately one Cocomelon coloring book. Oh wait, I just remembered what makes me feel grosser—hosing down three pounds of you-know-what from a pair of Minnie Mouse undergarments before I put them in the washing machine.

When I lived in Seville, Spain for a semester in college, my host family resided in a neighborhood called Triana. There were two main drags lined with specific stores for everything from toasters to gloves. The closest thing to a big box was a department store called El Corte Inglés, on the other side of the city, where we could find American specialties like peanut butter and Red Dye 40. In Triana, every evening, Spanish citizens would stroll the sidewalks with their small carts, shopping very intentionally, really only buying what they needed. The stores themselves were so small in size, I didn’t immediately imagine the landfill these wares would all end up in some day. Now, I walk into a store like HomeGoods or Dollar General and think where is all this stuff going to go eventually? I also have lots of other existential thoughts like, everyone in here will die some day… and …is that woman working the register happy with her life choices? My brain is a wild ride sometimes!

So is this about potty training or consumerism? Maybe both? There was a time when children just learned to poop in a hole in the ground like their parents did, and they didn’t need eight Elmo books to coach them. I am lucky to have so many resources to help her in this stage of life, including many friends who have already been through this phase and are on the other side—another perk to getting married and having a child later in life is the hookup with lots and lots of more seasoned moms.

But rather than purchasing anything else, I really just want to ride it out and trust she won’t be soiling her Frozen undies on repeat well into adulthood, except on rare occasions—we all have our moments.

On the Twitter of yesteryear and the X of today, posts could always address or mention celebrities with their official handles but the mega celebs usually have so many people doing that, it’s rare they actually ever see it or respond. And comedians then (and now) were often making fun of them for the amusement of others. In fact, a lot of comedians base their entire act around impersonating or making fun of celebrities. I was not one of them, and this particular experience really solidified why.

On this fateful day in April, Oprah was trying to promote a show on her new-at-the-time network, OWN, and tweeted:

“Is everyone watching ‘Season 25: Oprah Behind the Scenes?’ Starts in five minutes!”

And I responded, thinking I was so clever:

“@Oprah Yes, people are watching. How much longer must we validate you?”

‘Cause I was a comedian! I made jokes! But I wasn’t even remotely recognizable to her legion of fans so, instead of seeming like a witty comic with a sharp retort to the Queen of Media, I just came across like some random bitch on the Internet. I never thought in a million years she would see it. Not only did she see it, but she responded almost immediately:

“@MaryPattersonB not looking for validation, Mary, just viewers. Thanks.”

Of course Oprah didn’t get the “joke”—she didn’t know I was a comedian either! I went into a white-hot panic.

My career is over! Oprah hates me on the Internet! What if it’s on CNN?!

I started to get mentioned in all these anti-@MaryPattersonB, pro-@Oprah tweets from her followers. The only one I distinctly remember word for word was:

“Don’t listen to haters like @MaryPattersonB, @Oprah. Be proud of your network!”

Looking back, it was probably an assistant writing that tweet for her but at the time, it didn’t even occur to me that it could be anyone other than Oprah herself, curled up on a giant, plush, ivory-colored sectional sofa at her Montecito estate (or maybe at the Maui compound…could have been the Chicago penthouse), getting ready to watch a TV show about her long-running TV show, and now I was no doubt on her sh*t list, forever.

Relaying the story to anyone who would listen, I had comedian friends jokingly say they were going to have to disassociate from me. Who wants to risk being on Oprah’s bad side? When they stopped laughing and saw the genuine fear in my eyes, they tried to reassure me it would all blow over and the FBI wasn’t going to raid my apartment looking for evidence of my plot to take down America’s most beloved talk show host turned cultural icon.

In college, I took a class with Dr. Maya Angelou, who happened to be the Poet Laureate at Wake Forest and a very close friend to Oprah. Dr. Angelou invited us to her house for a home-cooked meal and to rehearse our lines for the class recital on the full-sized basketball court in her backyard. That evening, when given the opportunity to ask her anything we wanted, so many students asked about Oprah. I was embarrassed for them because it seemed insulting to Dr. Angelou, one of the greatest poets of our time, to inquire about her arguably more famous talk show host friend. But I’d probably never get to tell Oprah that story, now that she’d admonished me on Twitter. The Maya connection wouldn’t be enough to heal us.

My ridiculous level of sensitivity around the Oprah interaction proved that trying to poke fun at celebs was apparently not going to be my “thing” as a comic. I did continue to do a bit about how songwriters had a much harder job maintaining the fantasy of a song because we know too much about famous singers’ personal lives now. Despite what she alleges in a very popular song, there is no way Carrie Underwood ever blacked out then slept with a guy in Vegas without knowing his last name. Not believable, Care Bear, not even for a second.

My inability to take hits like Oprah’s clap back is a funny story but also indicative of why my skin wasn’t always thick enough for life as a stand-up comedian. When the negative feedback lived online, rather than just in the temporary silence of an audience who didn’t find me funny, it was even harder to withstand. Bombing was temporary; the Internet is forever.

I never had a ton of controversial jokes but I toed the line with some. For example, I used to joke: “I can’t really date Black guys. I’m from Alabama, my parents aren’t going to pay for that wedding.” It always did really well, and most people recognized that it was a completely exaggerated jab at the classic stereotype about white Southern fathers. When I performed at an event called NACA (National Association for Campus Activities), where all sorts of performers basically audition to get work entertaining at colleges, the crowd of college students was completely on my side until I delivered that line. I literally got a “boo” in the midst of the hissing silence. When I was at a bar in Portland drinking alone after my set (because of course I was at a bar drinking alone after my set), I checked my Twitter mentions and a kid from the audience called me racist. I’d been doing that joke for years with no backlash but I don’t think I ever did it again. I couldn’t bear the thought of even one person not getting that it was a totally fabricated line. Besides, clearly my dad was the racist one (still joking)!

Another time, I did a college and the school’s newspaper published an article a few weeks later panning my act, including the headline “Comedian fails to deliver” and mentioning a hack joke I had that referenced British people’s bad teeth. (I agree with them now, that joke was really hacky.) This article became the first result when someone Googled my name. I mean, LOL, indeed, amiright….

It haunted me for over a year.

My college agent was initially very sympathetic but eventually got sick of my whining and told me to get over it—every comedian gets bad reviews, especially at colleges. I emailed someone at the school to see if I could get it taken down, and miraculously that worked. Either that, or the Google algorithm gods finally responded to my sacrificial offerings and buried it.

My desire to be liked has always been stronger than my desire to be famous, and I don’t know if the two can coexist. Yes, the burning need to be loved and admired is why some people seek fame but it seems like the only way to truly reach the top is to have just as many haters as fans, with notable exceptions such as Betty White or Bluey. Knowing this about myself is part of why I quit pursuing stand-up professionally. Vacillating between wanting to be seen and validated (there’s that word again, hey, Oprah, we’re kindred spirits!) for the performances but not wanting to ever experience any negative response is sort of impossible.

This issue, the inability to take negative feedback, can tie into my marriage sometimes. When my husband expresses disappointment in something I have or haven’t said or done, sometimes getting defensive is warranted but not always. Learning to digest feedback I don’t love hearing and trusting that it doesn’t make me wrong or unlovable has actually been a really excellent perk of matrimony. Give it up for spiritual growth, everybody! I’ll be here all night.

Writing is a little easier to hide behind but I accept there is a certain amount of vulnerability required to create anything then share it for public consumption. I still try to keep some semblance of discretion, especially now that I’ve got a husband and a daughter—I don’t want to bring them down with me in a mediocre one-liner-celebrity-jab blaze of (not) glory.

The group is comprised of women from, I am not exaggerating, at least seven different countries, all now living in little ol’ Greenville, South Carolina. And to think, I sometimes feel like a foreigner here being from Alabama. Of course, I had to tell all of them I lived in California for 14 years because y’all know I like my West Coast street cred. In fact, I’d done another type of women’s circle in L.A. It involved a talking stick, floor pillows and burning sage—basically the same sort of concept, where everything that’s shared is sacred and confidential but, unlike the one I’m in now, most of the members of the Cali group were trying to manifest a successful acting career.

My current circle gets together the last Friday of every month. It’s mostly just socializing but there’s always a guiding topic related to being a woman at work and/or home. Our most recent meeting was about the idea of “sharing the load,” and it essentially turned into a long discussion about how men and women perceive and approach household and childrearing obligations differently. In the back of my mind, I was thinking how recently I myself had been trying to pack too much into my days, making the load sort of unmanageable, but in general I don’t often feel a sense of I am doing too much around the house and John needs to do more. Then four days later, we had a fight about this very topic! Was it just a coincidence, or did the Lean In Circle subconsciously plant the issue in my brain?

Okay, it wasn’t really a fight so much as a disagreement—I think about the difference between the two quite a bit. For me, a disagreement is a tense, uncomfortable conversation where I really bask in the cold reality of just how much communication is required to raise a child with someone. A fight is when emotions get so heightened I need to separate myself from the situation for a period, have a good cry and contemplate life as a single parent (that’s a joke, mostly).

“Sharing the load” really is a classic parenting conundrum though. Ooo la la, I am now living the cliché I always dreamed about when I was alone in my Hollywood studio apartment! I work part-time as a writer but taking care of our daughter is unofficially my full-time “job” so sometimes I struggle with how much to expect out of him, the person whose primary “job” is our leading source of income. He primarily carries the burden of making sure we pay our mortgage so shouldn’t I, by default, primarily carry the burden of making sure our child isn’t spraying Windex in her face?

Something else that impacts why I feel the childcare load defaults to me, the “work” I do to earn money is writing silly content for the Internet, which isn’t as intense as the “work” my husband does for the Army. Just as an example, John spent three years helping facilitate training exercises to prepare for how we’d respond with emergency services if a nuclear attack were to happen on US soil, and last month I wrote a 5-minute sketch we’re planning to title, “If Opossums Had a Sitcom.”

Our disagreement arose because John usually bathes and puts our daughter to bed every night. It’s their thing; it’s cute; I’m responsible for her all day, most days, and with this ritual, Dad gets his quality time in the evenings. She seems to behave better for him too (another tale as old as time). They listen to music while she gently splashes and counts her fingers. When I bathe her, the tub becomes her own personal waterpark. We aren’t robots, and still rotate our obligations and switch things up—sometimes John is really tired or I am having a mental breakdown because she tried to run into traffic while I was checking out at Target, but this particular evening when John said he was tired and asked if I would do bath and bedtime, I bristled.

On paper, his day hadn’t seemed that bad to me, and I was staring at the finish line of a marathon I’d been running since 6:30am—I didn’t want to tack on another mile. It was a day when she hadn’t gone to preschool so we did activities all morning, and I can’t remember exactly what I did during her afternoon nap but it wasn’t staring at the wall. (I’m not saying I never stare at the wall when she’s asleep or at school but it’s rare.) When I reacted to his request with annoyance and “sometimes we have to do things we don’t feel like doing when we’re parents,” he busted out the ol’ “sometimes I don’t want to come home and work more after working all day.” I reminded him that I do a lot with her, so I’ve been “working” all day too, and he inferred that maybe that’s why she has a hard time with independent play, because I do too many outings with her, and maybe I could get more done around the house when she’s awake and at home if she could play by herself more often.

And that’s when I threw a brick at him.

I didn’t throw anything but Fantasy Mary Patterson sure did. Instead, we paused the conversation before things did escalate into a fight. I put my imaginary brick down and went for a walk with our children (dog and daughter).

There have been times in our relationship when my inability to tolerate the discomfort (my favorite phrase) of a disagreement has actually led to a fight. I’ll need him to insist he isn’t “mad at me,” and try to rush us both to a state of everything-is-A-okay again, which just frustrates him more. Everyone is allowed a reasonable amount of time to process a conflict. Who knew?!

For a while, there was this delusional part of me that thought we’d sail off into the sunset without ever pissing each other off. Now I try to remember if he is annoyed or in a bad mood, it’s not always about me and even if it is about me, he’s allowed to be a human with a range of emotions, and I am too. Sometimes I’m still afraid to let myself be openly irritated with him. For instance, when he sets an alarm for 4:30am then proceeds to hit snooze every 3 minutes so that I can’t fall back asleep until my own alarm goes off, that’s irritating. He even told me I had the right to get mad when I was trying to tiptoe around it with something along the lines of, “Um, sorry, not trying to be rude, I love you, but do you think possibly, maybe, you’re going to stop hitting snooze at some point soon and just get up, or go back to sleep…pretty please?” I’m terrified to be a bitch (even though I probably read and nodded along to that book Real Men Love Bitches at some point in my single life).

Sometimes, resuming the uncomfortable conversation is necessary but this particular night, I let it go and just did the bedtime routine. I realized, the negotiation around “sharing the load” will be an ongoing, and sometimes tense, discussion forever, or at least until she’s peeling out of the driveway in her self-driving car. It didn’t seem worth picking up the rope again that night. He’ll just have to stay on his toes until my next Lean In Circle.

Not unlike an awkward, shy dude at a bar, I worked up the nerve to ask for her phone number. I’d met a friend through my husband’s coworker and ran into an old sorority sister who graciously invited me to join her book club (okay, I kind of begged to join) but otherwise I really hadn’t made many new friends yet. Working from home in a new city then being consumed with pregnancy and a newborn, I often felt very isolated and really needed social connection. I successfully scored those digits and wondered when we could take things to the next level, Facebook and Instagram. I always tread lightly on the social media add—don’t want to seem too clingy.

The following Monday I got an audio text from my potential new friend. I thought, how sweet, she wants to connect in an authentic way. Some might find that invasive so soon after the initial meeting but I’m always down to go deep as soon as possible. Fake Southern small talk is excruciating. Happily, I clicked play on the audio message. She started with what felt like standard new mom fare, but I found it kind of odd since we’d already discussed a lot of it at the party:

“I wanted to reach out and just see how are you doing with postpartum…I know that’s not really talked about openly with a bunch of moms…it’s definitely a real thing…”

It’s funny when anyone opens with “not a lot of people talk about this” because, thanks to social media, it seems like everyone is literally talking about EVERYTHING all the time—every imaginable human condition under the sun is fair game for Internet confessions in our world. After I had my daughter, it felt like I couldn’t walk five steps without being handed a depression survey. People warned me about the emotional roller coaster before and after the birth, and both moms and medical professionals were constantly checking on my postpartum mental status.

After she recapped the postpartum anxiety conversation we’d already had, she got down to business (which I’ve shortened and condensed for clarity):

“I was just gonna share something that really helped me in the thick season…I used this USDA organic CBD oil, it’s from a beautiful USDA organic hemp farm in Wilmington, North Carolina. We vetted this company like crazy…we wanted to go a more natural route…I didn’t want to go on medication…I just found so much joy in this product because it was working…I knew it was safe, I knew it was actually clean…I wanted to share that with you…if you’re open to hearing more…feel free to let me know…it’s a really cool thing, and it’s really working.”

Whoa, whoa, whoa, “clean,” “USDA organic,” “if you’re open to hearing more?!” Multi-level marketing alert! I almost threw my phone in a bush then I laughed out loud.

Most women (perhaps men too) alive right now, have probably received a Facebook message from a long lost acquaintance, subtly or not so subtly trying to get them to join their multi-level marketing universe. MLMs remind me of a rite of passage for new stand-up comics called bringer shows. The comic only gets stage time if he or she can guarantee to “bring” a certain amount of audience members, who usually have to pay a cover, a two-drink minimum, and some sort of parking fee—it’s an expensive night for their friends. The concept is so enticing as a newbie. Perform at The Comedy Store and then be able to say you performed at The Comedy Store?! That’s how Arbonne or CBD oil from a “super clean” hemp farm in Wilmington feel to me—you go to the party (and I’ve been to one) and the host makes it seem thrilling. Be your own boss, work so hard you get rewarded with a luxury car, all while only consuming/wearing/slathering this “clean” product that penetrates your dark soul and makes you pure and immortal? Then the reality of begging your friends for money sinks in and you’re like…wait, what?

Making friends as an adult is challenging. There are so many obligations that end up taking priority over socializing, and it takes so much longer to establish the comfortability of truly being yourself, mainly because you can’t bank as much endless time together as you could in college or even your 20s. I’ve moved twice in adulthood and while I found it exciting to be in new places after feeling stagnant for so long in Los Angeles, I didn’t realize the extent of how big my community had been there, or how nice it would have been to land somewhere that already had the built-in, easy relationships of my friends from college or high school, until I was bravely trying to make myself vulnerable in the fresh friend landscapes, dodging attempts to sell me hemp cream along the way.

Cultivating friendships as a married couple is a hurdle too. We met at 37, didn’t attend high school or college together, and didn’t meet at a job, so we don’t have a long roster of mutual friends. We also don’t drink so the only asset we have to ease the initial awkwardness that alcohol usually solves is a small child. When we leave a gathering of families or couples, it really does remind me of that feeling after a date—was there chemistry? Does this connection have potential for a long-term thing?

Thankfully, my (and our) community here has slowly but steadily grown and it’s just been one of those “time takes time” situations. I couldn’t force or rush true connection. The first time I asked some pals here to celebrate a birthday dinner with me and they agreed, it felt like the equivalent of a new boyfriend willingly meeting my family for the first time—they are in it for the long haul.

Later on in the week after the audio text, my pool party connection did find me on the socials, and posts about the CBD company’s product and how much it had changed her life slowly filled my feed. Alas, our rom-com meet-cute didn’t lead to a first friend date but instead a follow-up text asking if I’d had a chance to listen to the information in her audio message. Then a few months later, there was an invitation to a “Christmas shopping event,” for a jewelry line this time, at her house. I did not attend, somehow resisting the offer to be my own boss, work from home, and beg the friends I do have to peddle earrings in their living room.

We started trying for a second baby in December of 2023 when our daughter, Laney, was around nine months old. I was shocked at how quickly and easily I got pregnant with her, so I just assumed, despite being 40 by the time I started trying again, it would happen immediately the second time too. Over a year and a half later, we still haven’t been successful. It’s been really surreal to experience both instant fertility (that’s what I’m calling it—cute, right?) and infertility. Often it feels impossible I was ever actually pregnant, then my strawberry blonde copy and paste spins into the room singing “Let It Go” and I’m like, oh yeah, it definitely happened.

We decided after having our daughter so easily there was no way we’d ever do the process of IVF. Beyond just the (perhaps arrogant) sense of certainty we would never have to resort to IVF, it just seemed too intense and too expensive. We even decided to quit paying for the storage of the seven eggs I froze when I was 35, and donated them to research. To some that might sound like an insane waste of money but to us, continuing to pay to store them when we were one hundred percent sure we weren’t going to use them felt like a waste of money too. Truthfully, I have some regret around the decision now, only because it would probably be comforting to know it was still an option. My husband remains firm he still wouldn’t want to do IVF, even if we had them. In general, he tends to be very confident in his decisions. Meanwhile, I have a full scale debate tournament in my head over what color Stanley cup I want to buy next.

We’ve been dabbling in some other fertility assistance though—supplements, ultrasounds, blood work, and an IUI (that’s when they just turkey baste sperm into your uterus and everyone crosses their fingers). The initial ultrasound revealed a fibroid or potential polyp in my cervix—they actually couldn’t confirm exactly what it was and my doctor just kept referring to it as a “thing” that might or might not be affecting my fertility but that she deemed medically necessary to remove regardless. She suggested trying an IUI first, because of the urgency of my aging womb, then surgically removing the “thing” if the IUI fails to yield a baby.

While I propped my legs up to get IUI’d by my Duke-educated fertility specialist, after she all but told me it probably wasn’t going to work and that she would recommend IVF next, I reminded her that we came into this process not wanting to do IVF. She and the nurse nodded sympathetically then told me to lie back and make a wish upon a star.

This week, I had the surgery to remove the “thing.”

The acceptance I’m trying to practice around likely being a one-child family is, I didn’t connect with my true love until later in life. I was supposed to have a child with him, I am certain of that, but I can’t control that we met at the very tail end of my fertile window. I occasionally go down the rabbit hole of wishing I hadn’t spent my 20s and early 30s in relationships I knew were wrong for me and telling jokes to strangers in bars, but I know it’s futile—the timing of my marriage was God’s will. Also, I told jokes in a lot of upscale establishments too. I bombed HARD at the Calabasas Country Club.

It might also be God’s will that I haven’t gotten pregnant again because maybe one child is enough for me? I am tired. All the time. While I’ve never had the experience of having a baby at 29, I can only assume it’s a very different than having one at 39. There are definitely gifts with having a child as an older adult but boundless energy isn’t one of them. Some weeks I am so tired from balancing childcare with work and household obligations, I randomly cry from exhaustion, usually when I’m attempting a strength training workout alone at 5:30am in our garage or in the bathroom when I’ve begged my daughter to play alone in her playroom for just a few minutes so “mom can do some chores.” (Crying is a valid chore for someone who’s resisted feeling their feelings most of their life.) These are the times when the thought of having to go through pregnancy, labor and the newborn stage again seem unfathomable. In these moments, I trust God only gives me what I can handle, and maybe that’s just one pregnancy and just one child. At my age, I was extremely lucky to have a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby, who’s now got a sassy 2-year-old attitude but we aren’t here to discuss her scolding me at least once a day for moving her purse.

To be fully transparent, I have a hard time deciphering if I’ve been trying to have a second child because I want to, or because it’s what I am “supposed” to want, it’s what my husband wants, it’s what Laney will want some day, etc. It’s possible society has programmed me to believe my daughter will suffer without a sibling. Is some other mom some day going to judge her on the playground for having a bratty moment and assume it’s her “only” status that caused the bad behavior? I myself have had those thoughts when seeing an only child misbehave, but now I have compassion for the child and their parents. Maybe they tried to give that kid a brother or sister and weren’t able to, or maybe the kid was just having a bad day.

Perhaps if I still lived in L.A., one child wouldn’t seem so monumental. I have a few friends in Los Angeles with just one and they don’t seem to have any qualms about it. In the Southeast, it can regularly feel as if a full-on brood is the goal for every couple. So many of my “new mom” friends and acquaintances are pregnant with or have already had their second child already. Most of them are also a lot younger than me. Whenever I feel weird about it, like the elderly mother among them, I try to remember that’s their path and this is mine. There is no “right way” to do it. I could argue I might have a few more years of single adventures to tell my daughter about, but the young moms could then remind me, I’m probably going to be telling her these stories from the assisted living she might have to put me in when she’s only 30. Touché, hypothetical young moms.

Sleuthing through Reddit threads (one of my favorite pastimes) on the topic of only children, a lot of the “One and Done” people point out that just having one allows for more quality time with the child and with their spouse. This gives me comfort. Less financial stress also provides a sense of relief. Maybe only having one mouth to feed, clothe, entertain and educate isn’t such a bad idea. It’s also one less human who’s going to have to work really hard to find purpose when robots have taken over all the jobs.

The other side of Reddit implores the only child supporters to think about their child’s future, dealing with their old-ass parents without the help of a brother or sister. All I can say to this is, I hope Laney gets hitched younger than I did and has a partner of some sort to help her navigate our aging. If not, if she’s like me, she’ll be independent enough to figure it out, but I’ll probably still profusely apologize for not spawning a sibling (that there is no guarantee she’d get along with anyway).

My current goal is maintaining peace with either outcome. If I do end up pregnant again, I trust the extra stress, costs and sacrifices will all be worth it…right?

Sometimes we have obligations at night but often, watching a show or movie together during the week is some of the only quality time we get in a day—but this isn’t about whether simultaneously consuming entertainment in your living room counts as “quality time.” That is a good question for some other writer to analyze though.

This is about how we have complete and total, polar opposite taste in movies and TV. It’s laughable how much I hate even the thought of watching things he just subtly pauses on when we’re combing through yet another streaming service app trying to find something to watch. Aliens in the year 3015 decide to invent an army of human-like robots to invade another planet but the robots invent a spy network among them to assassinate the head alien leader? Sign John up! (Wait…did I just pitch an amazing idea for a new sci-fi thriller?)

I like a good dramedy or any kind of entertainment industry satire with lots of pop culture references. I’ll do pretty much anything available on HBO/HBO Max/Max/HBO Max again. He wants to watch the latest Star Wars spinoff series that’s coming out on Disney+.

I like to find weird, obscure indie movies about love and relationships, or go through the list of Oscar-nominated films, when it’s that time of year, to find something to put on. He believes another Marvel round of nothing but CGI and a theme of good versus evil is premium content. I’ll admit, I did agree to watch a bunch of the Marvel movies with him and some of them were really good (almost said “gripping” but that would definitely be an exaggeration) but they all start to run together. I can only pretend to understand what Dr. Strange’s superpower actually is for so long before I start to nod off. And we get it, Robert Downey Jr. is the talent of a generation.

While this is a quality problem to have in a relationship, it really is a source of conflict when it’s basically an almost-nightly decision the team has to make. And shout out to all the Amish unicorns out there who don’t watch TV at night when they’re off work—I’ll learn to knit like you one day I guess.

When we first started dating, he straight-up lied to me by indulging in every movie or show I mentioned. I made that man watch Labyrinth and The Sword in the Stone with me, and he did it willingly. But I also agreed to watch The Lord of the Rings trilogy and, as previously mentioned, every damn Marvel movie in existence.

Now he’s at the opposite end of the spectrum from indulging my every whim with streaming. Instead, he taunts me with accusations of always picking duds. Recently I reminded him he really enjoyed watching Barry, which was my recommendation. And he had the audacity to tell me in hindsight “it sort of sucked.” I damn near threw the phone across the room when I read that text.

Keep in mind, I’m not asking him to watch a show from one of The Real Housewives franchises or every true crime documentary that comes on Netflix. I watch the unscripted tell-alls about sex cults on my own time. But behaving as if it was a chore to watch The Studio?! According to him, “The first episode was good…the rest were meh.” Oh, come on! It just broke records with Emmy nominations so I feel vindicated.

It’s honestly worried me at times. How can we go on like this? Isn’t this what married couples spend the majority of their time doing when they’re not swapping shifts at the daycare they agreed to open together? (I once heard someone say having kids is like running a daycare with someone you used to date. I don’t feel that way yet but I really resonate with the sentiment, and maybe talk to me again if we have more than one.)

Sometimes I miss the days where watching TV didn’t involve the analysis paralysis of making a choice of what mind-numbing content to consume. If this was 30 years ago, he’d be forced to watch Beverly Hills 90210 with me on Wednesdays, and I’d have to suck it up and do The X-Files with him on Fridays. Now, we could potentially go to separate televisions in our home and never watch the same thing again for the rest of our lives.

At least we’ll have football to watch together soon—that’s definitely a sentence I didn’t think would ever come out of my keyboard. Somehow he got me on board for a sport I claimed to hate my entire life but suggesting I view The Mandalorian or Andor makes me want to run into traffic.

On a positive note, we also both liked the TV shows The Last of Us and Silo—apparently I won’t do space but I will do apocalypse. There have also been a few movies that have kept our marriage together. Reminding him he liked the indie flick The Peanut Butter Falcon is something I plan to do until he’s on his death bed, and by some act of God, I enjoyed the movie Dungeons and Dragons and also appreciated him showing me The Martian.

I’m going to rewatch, and make him watch for the first time, Homeland next. If he doesn’t like Claire Danes as CIA case officer Carrie Mathison, I’m going to be really perturbed—we might have to start knitting together at night.

Both dogs were very friendly but Chief was definitely the elder statesman. He slept in a bed on the floor in John’s room and would gently nudge his hand with his snout every morning when he needed to go out. After John installed a dog door, Chief would see himself out with an old man gait that seemed to say, “You kids keep sleeping in, I’m just going to get the newspaper.” His overall energy did not match Mace’s but he still got abnormally excited over the prospect of a walk or a ride in the truck, and never turned down a belly scratch. When I met him, he was mostly spending his days lounging on the sofas, expelling gas that smelled so foul it could detonate a small country.

Both Chief and Mace had been John’s dogs with his ex-wife but they stayed with him after the divorce. John would occasionally ask her to keep them when he traveled but otherwise she had not wanted any sort of shared custody. I fell in love with the dogs (which was really shocking since I was adamantly not a dog person my entire life) so I had a really difficult time understanding how she could let them go but I tried not to judge. I am sure she had her reasons. I remember a vulnerable moment when John told me he’d started referring to me as the dogs’ “mom” when I wasn’t around—that’s a pretty big deal when dating a dog dad. I really hoped my newly discovered passion for canines wasn’t a fluke, or me just bending my personality to suit my partner’s preferences—where my fellow codependents at?!

A few weeks before we got married, I was leaving the gym one morning and John texted me saying Chief was running into walls, walking in circles and falling down the steps when he tried to go outside. At 14, he had been showing signs of deterioration but went downhill really quickly over the course of the previous weekend. John thought he was the past the point of warranting any sort of official diagnosis, or likely very expensive attempt at treatment, and knew in his gut it was time to let him go. I asked him to please not take him for that final vet visit without me getting to say goodbye. I had to finish the work day then drive an hour to John’s house. When I got there, Chief was on the couch barely able to lift his head. It was the same spot on the grey leather La-Z-Boy he had sat so many times, but his aura was different—bone-tired and sickly.

As I gently stroked Chief’s belly, John told me he’d informed his ex-wife that he had decided to put Chief down and she wanted to be there. So I offered to go but stay in the waiting room out of respect for her. John and I drove Chief around Anniston, Alabama to some of his favorite spots. We went to a lake where he first went off leash, and he was again walking in circles, not really able to hold his head up, but still seemed happy. We got him a cheeseburger to eat for his last meal. That detail really creeps some people out but an appetite did not cure what was clearly malfunctioning in his brain and depth perception. And he obviously didn’t know it was his final meal so he was able to really enjoy it. If you asked me what I wanted for my last meal, I’d tell you to beat it—I’m too terrified about my impending death to have an appetite.

When we got to the vet’s office, we sat in the car with Chief and took a few pictures. The weather was balmy and the building was right on one of the main streets that goes through downtown Anniston. I remember thinking how the off-beat charm of this small town’s “downtown” ever so slightly alleviated the heaviness of what we were pulling into the parking lot to do. But maybe I was just desperately clinging to anything uplifting to distract from the stomach-churning nerves around meeting the ex and, you know, watching a benevolent, beautiful animal take his last breath.

Then John’s ex-wife arrived. He wanted to give her time alone with Chief so I went inside and he greeted her, then stood outside the doors of the vet until she was ready.

A lot of veterinarian’s offices can seem sterile and cold but this lobby was warm and inviting. There were plants scattered everywhere, framed by sunset-hued artwork and decor. The staff was welcoming and friendly. I greeted them and told them I was here with Chief but then awkwardly over-explained I was just the fiancé, not the OG dog mom, who would actually be in the room with him when he died. I found a seat expecting it to be the seat I’d stay in until he passed.

John and his ex-wife gently steered Chief into the lobby. I’d seen pictures of her but not many and obviously nothing recent. Seeing her for the first time in person, I felt a weird insecurity because she was thin and pretty. John is an attractive guy. What did I expect his ex-wife to look like, an Alabama bridge troll? (An Alabama bridge troll is just your standard bridge troll plus a Roll Tide tattoo and some feathered bangs). And why did I care? He was now with me. This sweet dog is dying and I’m playing a pointless game of Compare and Despair in my head.

After they told the staff they were ready, his ex-wife turned to me and said, “You can come in, too. I know you’ve grown close to him.” John wasn’t really in the business of chatting with her about me so I can only glean that she’d possibly creeped on my Instagram account where I’d gushed over the dogs. Again, zero judgement—if I’d been married to someone and found out he’d gotten serious with another woman, I’d one thousand percent be looking up her socials.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, come on.” It was more of a command than a permission, and it was the last time she looked at or spoke to me.

We went into a small exam room and sat on the floor with Chief between us, me and John on one side, and Ex on the other. Chief was acting nervous and pacing but still had that dog pant that can be mistaken for a smile. A tech entered to give him the first of two shots, the sort of calming agent one. Of course he looked up at her with a dog grin and she questioned aloud if we were in the right place. “Is something wrong with him?” John calmly explained why we were there. This vet tech really knew how to pile an extra layer of cringe onto an already palpably uncomfortable atmosphere. Had I done stand-up with her?

After he received that first shot and settled down, John and his former wife began to make the sort of banal, pleasant small talk that’s expected between two people who used to know each other intimately and are now civil but no longer active in each other’s lives. There was asking about extended family members followed by petting and comforting the dog. I didn’t say a word but I remember this completely irrational paranoia that I had to keep my ring out of her view. What if it was bigger and better than the one she’d gotten from him because he bought it as a 38-year old instead of as a 23-year old? Yet another weird, unnecessary insecurity projected by the Egos Gone Wild narrative running my brain that day. The minutes truly seemed endless, between the anxiety of waiting for Chief to die and the uncertainty about what my role was in this moment. But after the veterinarian came in to administer the second shot, the devastation of witnessing Chief’s passing in real time fully eclipsed the discomfort of being two feet from John’s former spouse, and whatever thoughts I projected her to be having about me (and my ring).

After Chief was gone, she quickly left the room. I heard her burst into tears outside the door right before John and I burst into tears clutching each other. Part of me thought, do I even deserve to feel the same level of sadness as she does? She’d known the dog much longer than I had. It also felt like I was witnessing the final nail in the coffin of their relationship. Yes, they were already legally divorced but this animal’s death felt like another symbolic signpost of the end…

Or maybe I’m just an existential thinker whose favorite pastime is overanalyzing, and this was just one of the saddest things human beings can experience, new wifey present or not.

Chief’s ashes live on our mantel now. He didn’t make it to South Carolina with us but I will forever be grateful for him. He helped me realize I am indeed a dog person. I love Mace so much, I kiss his face multiple times a day telling him how he’s the best thing that ever happened to me, usually right in front of my human daughter.

I still won’t really f*ck with Dachshunds though. In my experience, they’re usually assholes.

It was only the second board I’d ever made. I created the first one in 2007 after my comedian friend had a viewing party to watch a documentary based on The Secret, a book about the law of attraction. The core message is what you focus on, you create more of, which I do agree with, even more so now, but back then, even as a young and eager aspiring artist, I rolled my eyes pretty sharply at the suggestion that I spend an hour a day visualizing checks in the mail to make money. But I also had a therapist at the time who recommended making one so I cobbled it together. It had Beyoncé on it, which looking back is weird because I didn’t want to be a singer or dancer but I guess I wanted her energy and confidence? Destiny’s Child was a pillar of my formative years. Clearly, I wasn’t ashamed back then because I had the board out on display for anyone who came over to see.

I’d restarted my life as an adult in Alabama and had a lot of perspective on the intentions behind an art project a 5th grader could do so the second vision board that Carl the maintenance man, and potentially now my husband, had seen didn’t seem delusional, more just fun and a small part of my lifelong pursuit of self-improvement. I wasn’t going to die on the hill of making it to the hill of that Italian landscape on the board but what’s the harm in smiling at it when I open my eyes after meditating?

Something I loved about living in Los Angeles was, no one really questions anyone else’s self-help routines (unless it involves an introductory session to Scientology). People talk openly about trying to manifest their dreams, discovering a life-changing yoga class, attending various types of recovery meetings, or finding a great breathwork teacher. Moving back to the South, I felt like I had to tamper down that side of myself. The spiritually-seeking, self-help enthusiasts exist down here but I gotta comb through a lot of Gulf of America hats and White Claw cans to find them.

I’ve got a cork board full of sticky notes propped against the wall behind my laptop screen. They’re all positive affirmations, some that I created myself and some that I lifted from elsewhere. On the shelf attached to my desk, the first three books are The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, Living Untethered (the follow-up to The Untethered Soul) and Good Morning, I Love You. That’s just a small sampling of literature from my self-help collection. My morning routine usually involves daily readings, sometimes journaling, meditation, a gratitude list, a list of intentions for the day, and occasionally even a workout before 6:15am, all just to keep me at a baseline of sane. I rarely just roll out of bed and launch headfirst into Life.

As someone very prone to depressive and anxious thinking, the affirmations, which are basically just prayers spoken in the present tense as if the mindset or behavior is already a reality, help retrain my brain. My inner demon voice needs regular taming. In fact, she recently told me to stop being jealous of a successful writer I follow on Instagram, get off my lazy ass and go work on my own writing. (Okay, honestly, she was harsh but sort of right in that instance.)

A lot of the tools of my daily mental health regimen are concepts I learned in sobriety. But even before I decided maybe having to ask the Super Shuttle driver to pull over so I could vomit because I lost count of how many IPAs I had in Venice Beach the night before my 4am airport pickup might signify I had a problem, I always felt this pressing need to “work on myself.” With age I’ve realized, no one ever arrives at this perfect point of self-actualization. There has to be a balance between striving for the ideal me and practicing self-acceptance. So one would think with that knowledge, I’d be tired of riding the self-improvement train by now—nope, still going strong, baby! Although I think I’ve finally, FINALLY (hopefully) accepted that happiness isn’t 10 to 20 pounds of weight loss away. Despite my numerous efforts, I cannot and will not probably ever completely quit sugar…or dairy…or white bread…or nightshades, or whatever entire food group I used to repeatedly swear off forever like it was going to change my life.

There are probably a lot of people who would think it’s weird or hokey that I have The Power of Now on my bedside table or the phrase “My creative purpose is constantly revealing itself” tacked above my laptop but thankfully, my husband isn’t one of them. When John and I made our spare bedroom into an office for both of us to share, I didn’t feel the least bit embarrassed propping up my cork board of aspirational beliefs. In this case, he definitely practices the subtle art of not giving a f*ck and let me tell ya, it is so refreshing.

The first New Year’s Day we spent together, I told him I needed to lie in the grass in this park we were walking in, in order to “get rooted with the Earth for the new year.” He calmly waited with the dogs while I splayed out onto the ground and prayed for God to cleanse all my chakras and help me align with my purpose—I like to do a melding of old school and really old school spiritual techniques. It might or might not have been a result of that dirt roll but it was a good year, y’all!

John might have second guessed his decision to wed me if he later discovered I was full-on, hard-core into astrology though—he’s got his limits.

I’ve still got the ol’ vision board tucked away in my closet and John still hasn’t really gotten a good long look at it. I don’t even really look at it anymore but I also can’t bring myself to throw it away. Some of the pictures have come to fruition, and some haven’t yet. Maybe I should put it next to my affirmation cork board behind my computer. Why not?

Our rapid timeline inspired the idea for this Substack (which I had long before I actually had the nerve to launch it—shout out, fear and having a baby!) so I’ve thought about this concept, of whether there is some ideal set of months or years between the various milestones in a romantic relationship, quite a bit. When I came of age and started to imagine my life as an adult, I assumed I would fall into all the conventional timelines set before me. My parents met when they were in college so obviously that would happen for me too, right? Then I got to the end of college and was like, WELP…guess he wasn’t here.

It also seems like there are unspoken rules about how long a couple should date before getting engaged or living together, and then how long the engagement should be. Our engagement was two months and some change, which in the grand scheme for two people in their late 30s who both want a child, and aren’t getting any younger, sort of makes sense, but I think I would have enjoyed basking in the excitement of getting married a little bit longer. I thought people cared about some cool milestones I had in stand-up comedy but that was nothing compared to the attention from a ring on my finger. A weekend opening for Arsenio Hall then headlining the San Jose Improv the final night? Cool, girl. He proposed? OMG, TAKE ALL OF OUR MONEY AND TIME!

When we got engaged, we had only been dating seven months. My pragmatic, logical side had a little twinge of fear that we hadn’t been together long enough. Was I insane to marry somebody I hadn’t even known a year? Was he insane for asking me? I checked in with my gut and a few close friends and in my heart, I knew it was right. We were in love, and he was kind, smart, and committed, and made me feel safe and seen. The risk of losing him was so much scarier than the risk of perhaps realizing down the line there was some deal breaker that hadn’t revealed itself in the first year.

Committing quickly as a more seasoned (older) person somehow feels a little less ridiculous than doing it at 22. I’d had enough dating experience to identify major red flags. Also, it forces digging the heels in—like when I realized John’s significant dedication to watching esports, I couldn’t immediately bail. Too much paperwork involved.

Sometimes I envy my pals who met their partners when they were really young because they have years of experience with each other, lots of shared memories, and more familiarity with all their respective families and friends. Getting married older and relatively quickly after meeting, there is a lot to catch up on. John still doesn’t have a ton of context for some of my previous lives. I did recently show him a picture of me in a tight shirt from 2009 and apologize he didn’t get that version of my boobs.

Getting married older does have a lot of advantages though. During that whole life I had before meeting him, I was learning about myself and creating a strong sense of emotional wellbeing. I read about healthy relationships, and had a lot of time to think about what I did and did not want in a partner. I witnessed in others the ups and downs of both really short and really long timelines from first date to vows. And as I know I’ve said before, I realized the importance of not expecting one person to be my everything.

I can admit, I didn’t really know how to deal with conflict very well because I’d never lived with a guy much less raised a child with one. In fact, just this week we had an argument about whether I am strict enough with our daughter. We are working through it but I don’t think any amount of time together before getting married and procreating would have magically fixed the hurdles that come with a defiant 2-year-old. (She’s got a real flair for the dramatics, which she obviously gets from her dad).

My ultimate conclusion is, no one knows what they’re doing all the time in a relationship. There is always an element of figuring it out as you go. The people who get married young still might not learn how to work through disagreements (annoying but bearable) and fights (often the source of major breakthroughs but rarely fun) until they’re 40.

And the amount of years of dating doesn’t change the fact that there are no guarantees when someone enters into marriage. John could start microdosing mushrooms, or I could get a pixie cut—there is always the possibility the other person will change. Yes, hair will grow back but the decision of someone with my stature and face shape to cut their hair that short signifies a fundamental loss of good judgment.

The only legitimate concern I had before getting married was that John might decide to start drinking again because he had less sober time than me when we met, but he could honestly warrant having the same fear with me. Luckily, the thought of having to take my daughter to The Little Gym with the type of hangovers I used to get is enough to keep me on a strict diet of kombucha and coffee only.

Happy three years to us!

I recently asked my aforementioned friend who was on the show if she remembered Robin’s presence, and she said of course, then one-upped me saying he had told her about a specific joke of hers that he liked. She joked that she’d been a little worried after his compliment since there were always rumors of Robin stealing material. Clearly they never eclipsed his immense talent or forever tarnish his career—nobody in the 1970s had an iPhone at The Comedy Store to create comparison videos. Also, honestly, if one of the greatest comics and actors of all time is stealing your bits, good on you. We both laughed and soaked in the nostalgia of that night, then went back to our current lives as private chefs for the small beings we spawned.

That memory of Robin Williams at my show in 2009 is coming up a lot lately because my 2-year-old daughter wants to listen to the 1992 Aladdin soundtrack constantly. As her on-demand deejay, I hear Robin as Genie singing “Prince Ali” and “Friend Like Me” multiple times a day.

IMPORTANT DIGRESSION: While it’s painfully redundant sometimes, it does feel like an upgrade. Her initial introduction to Aladdin was the live action version so there was a brief stage where she wanted to hear Will Smith’s version of “Prince Ali” all the time. Thankfully, that phase ended—when it comes to playing Genie, Will is no Robin. Every time I listened I thought, is this “Prince Ali” or “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It?” I’m so confused.

In some moments, hearing Robin sing then thinking about that night in San Francisco remind me that I followed my dreams and had so many adventures as a result. Other times, it sends me down a path of grief and “what ifs.” While I actively work on trying to be present in my life, I am prone to rumination when I experience the inevitable boredom of coloring with dot dot markers with my toddler while jamming to her favorite Disney tunes for the 87th time that day.

The fact that songs from Disney movies even get my introspective wheels turning is weird since I wasn’t exactly pursuing a career in animation when I was in Hollywood. The songs from the Frozen soundtrack are, objectively speaking, serious bops but when the Anna character is singing I’m honestly thinking more about Kristen Bell’s career trajectory. I knew the Frozen cast stats just by listening and recognizing their work but I also IMDB-stalk a lot of actors in my daughter’s current rotation of Disney movies. Did you know Shiny the crab from Moana is a guy from New Zealand, Jemaine Clement, with an unbelievably impressive voiceover resume? And that fantastic opening number from Encanto is sung by Stephanie Beatriz who was a series regular on Brooklyn Nine-Nine? These are all immensely talented people who deserve the gigs—good for them! My admiration of professionally trained actors is warranted but the twinge of envy is a little unhinged. I haven’t done a musical since high school and in Los Angeles, I was primarily a writer and stand-up comic who didn’t even like acting classes—but was for sure guilty of the fantasy of someone whisking me off stage to be in a sitcom. (To be fair to me, most comics in L.A. have that fantasy.)

If you’re wondering why I don’t just sing along with the songs in order to get out of my head, whenever I attempt to sing my daughter yells, “Mama, no singing!” As you can imagine, this is brutal for a repressed performer like myself.

It makes a little more sense that watching TV sometimes makes me think about my stand-up days because there are so many instances where I see a writer’s name in the credits, or an actor on screen that I, at some point, did shows with. My reaction is either “good for them” or a petty eye roll at the recollection of them bombing on a night I did well. Truthfully, when you live in L.A. long enough, you collect a lot of random stories about people on TV that either you or one of your friends experienced. Have I ever told y’all about the night I gave Pete Davidson a ride home from a show we both did? Another time.

Maybe the Disney hits harder because it taps into the core performer in me who just wanted to be on stage from a very early age and misses that excitement. I get choked up watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade—I can’t believe I just admitted that in a public forum but for those in my family reading this, keep an eye on ya girl next turkey day.

I am really lucky to still have my job with It’s a Southern Thing, which is a great creative, comedic outlet but not quite the same as getting on stage. Of course, no one is stopping me from performing—there is stand-up comedy where I currently live. It’s just admittedly more difficult in this season of my life to work on the craft and get out of my house late at night. And the truth is if you really want something badly enough, you figure out a way to do it. Just ask my daughter about persistence when she’s jonesing to watch Bluey or eat microwave mac and cheese—she will find a way to get it done. While I might miss the actual performance aspect of comedy, I don’t miss the life of a stand-up comic, which can involve a lot of lonely hotel rooms and lying to people about how “insane” the lineup is going to be at your dive bar show outside San Diego.

Robin Williams’ death, in particular his death by suicide, still really shocks me. He battled his demons but how could someone so massively beloved and successful decide to end their life? His wife later explained that his decision was likely caused by the mental impairment of Lewy body dementia, which wasn’t diagnosed until his autopsy, but can cause severe mood changes and symptoms similar to Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s.

It’s still pretty amazing that entertainers can continue to spread joy after their death like with his brilliance in Aladdin, and so many other movies and shows. His singing might remind me of my past but his untimely death remind me to be present. No matter the amount of external praise or accolades we achieve in our chosen fields, we all end up in the grave or urn. Just please don’t scatter my ashes by the Hollywood sign. My friend who worked for 50 Cent told me he said there are “ho’ bones” underneath it. See, we all got good stories!

All we have is the present moment and the present moment, even if it’s reading Pete the Cat while listening to “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King” (that song still hits and thankfully just reminds me of my happy childhood) on loop for an hour, is usually exactly what’s supposed to be happening.

For his gift, he asked me to play the video game Borderlands 2 with him, and not just for a night or two but all the way through to completion, no matter how long it took. After reminding him that any time we’ve tried to play any type of “gun game” together, my player just stands in a corner spinning around and randomly shooting at stuff, he still insisted he wanted to try. I willingly agreed but would much rather have shopped for a belt or some socks.

Truthfully, I used to think I could never tolerate being with a guy who plays video games. But apparently there is a difference between liking games and not having a job. I also wrongfully assumed any man who played video games was addicted to gaming but John really does play in moderation. Sometimes he goes for weeks without playing anything and when he does get into a game, it’s usually something he’ll play for an hour or two at night, maybe a little longer on the weekend.

When we first started living together and he’d play, I think I would get frustrated because I didn’t have an equivalent activity to engage in at night. Weren’t newlyweds supposed to spend every evening gazing into each other’s eyes on the couch, cuddling up to watch Netflix? I learned to use his game nights to watch all the TV shows he doesn’t want to watch with me, and turns out there are many. (That’s a whole other essay.) I can’t really judge him for checking out with a game—I don’t want to be judged for checking out with weird documentaries about botched adoptions. (Side note: have y’all seen The Curious Case of Natalia Grace?! Wild!) It’s just a hobby that clearly lots of other people have considering how successful the gaming industry is. And again, I don’t want to be judged for my hobbies, especially since they include reading self-help books and making my own almond milk.

Playing certain video games definitely doesn’t feel like “checking out” to me though. It’s stressful! Every time we play, by the end I feel exhausted with tensed-up shoulders, begging for it to be a good saving point so I can go to bed. I don’t really like aggressive games with realistic-looking guns you use to kill realistic-looking people along with the parades of robots, zombies or giant spiders. If I have to play a game, I’d much rather a whimsical setting with sweet animals and ocean waves but I’ve asked John several times and unfortunately there isn’t a version of Echo the Dolphin for Xbox. (That joke will only make sense to those who played games on a Sega Genesis in the 90s, y’all.)

In Borderlands, by the time I clock the “enemies” (there are always random enemies, you can never just prance around the wasteland checking out the scenery), they’re already gunning me down. But when you die in these elaborate, plot-driven games, you can pretty much just keep coming back to life not far from the point where you perished, whether it was by gun, molten lava, accidentally jumping off a bridge, etc. Either that or the person you’re playing with can “revive you” while your screen goes grey. Guess who was reviving who the most during this game? It’s not like the days of old school Mario where you were allotted a certain number of lives and if you lost all of them, you literally had to start from the beginning with the whole game. And that’s what’s wrong with today’s generation—JK, LOL, I desperately want to fit in with Gen Z—you play your games with as many endless chances as you want, youngins!

It took me several sessions of playing to get accustomed to the Xbox “sticks”—that’s the Red Hot Nerd Alert term for the controllers, short for “joy sticks.” There are way more buttons than the Nintendo controllers of my youth. When I played games as a child, my fingers became pretty intuitive on the controllers but with these I could never seem to remember whether a certain button threw a grenade or took me to the main menu. I also had to learn to run, shuffle, and aim a gun with the two raised-up thumb toggle things. This became slightly easier but my character got stuck in quite a few narrow passageways and, as previously mentioned, I plummeted to my death by falling off many a tall structure.

From my peripheral observation watching John play, all the violent gun games start to blend together even though it seems like the creators staffed huge writers’ rooms just like a TV show. It’s usually running (always running, NEVER frolicking) through empty streets, completing missions to collect random stuff, and gnarly-looking characters selling you weird potions or, you guessed it, more guns. Oh, and there is always a scene starring a sassy bartender with prominent cleavage and a gravely voice, wiping down the bar or slinging a beer to a monster while telling the main character/player “there’s a guy in the basement looking for you, his name’s Twisted Rick.” Somehow John is not sick of my impression of this token character…yet.

What’s comforting about being married to a gamer, and a gamer who’s so nerdy, he watches professional gamers playing games (it’s called Esports for all you non-gaming plebs), is that I don’t really worry about being cheated on. If someone is deeply committed to an Esports team, they’re no doubt committed to their wife. In fact, I think the closest he’ll ever come to infidelity is while playing a game. There are some disturbingly realistic simulated car sex scenes in Cyberpunk 2077 (and I haven’t let him forget it).

We started playing Borderlands 2 in December and just beat the game now, in late April. Whoops. I needed a few choice breaks. Did I end up enjoying the process of playing? Not really. But I have a tiny bit more appreciation for the artistry. And I liked that it made John happy for us to play together. I’m not opposed to trying another game with him but there will need to be less murder and ammunition involved, and hopefully some dolphins.