'I had the time of my life fighting dragons with you.'
Reflections on launching book #2. Warning: it's a big one.
Last Monday night, on the eve of the release of Push Off from Here, I kept thinking about 2013. Something about hitting the tenth anniversary of that year has had my psyche serving up reminders for the past couple of months, like some internal timer that went off when we rounded the corner into 2023, pressing me to look into the Wayback machine.
It makes sense. Ten years is a clean, solid chunk of time. A decade. An era! And 2013 wasn’t just any old year; it was the year I went screaming into at one thousand miles per hour, hit the ice, started spinning, and didn’t stop. It was my friend dying from an overdose in March and the Boston Marathon bombing in April and a DUI in May and leaving Alma in a hotel room overnight in July and flying to London and New York City and Las Vegas and San Francisco for work while gritting my teeth and trying to not to drink; it was totaling my car one night in December and going to the hospital and then going to chop down a Christmas Tree with my ex-husband and Alma the next morning because that’s what I had to do to keep going: I had to keep going.
It was also the year I walked into my first recovery meeting, the year I started writing, and the year I began to glimpse what life might be like on the other side of drinking. I didn’t want that life yet, though, and this made me feel like a failure and also fucking crazy because I knew I would lose everything if I didn’t figure out how to want it, but I just didn’t—I couldn’t—until I did. This is addiction.
So, I know what happened in 2013, but as I said, I’ve been pulled back there these past couple of months, and last Monday, on the eve of my book launch, I went digging around in my old Instagram. l was curious if I’d maybe posted something in March of 2013. I wasn’t a big poster back then, so the only thing I’d shared that month was a big blizzard and a couple of shots of Alma and my dog, but as I scrolled a little further, I found this, posted on May 22, 2013:
I wonder what would happen with all the space I fill with empty things if I didn’t fill it with empty things. —10:44 pm on May 22, 2013
Guess what? Three nights later, on Saturday, May 25, 2013, I got a DUI trying to drive home from a friend’s house and spent the night in jail. I was about to start learning the answer to my question. I didn’t yet have the courage to name the “empty things” for what it was: a singular thing, the thing I had with drinking, but I knew. We know.
Tuesday morning, pub day, I woke up early and felt off. Like a depression, but shakier. I had the (ill-advised) idea to go digging through my old emails from 2013. I scanned clipped, awkward emails between my ex-husband and me, exchanges with a few of the men I was seeing, interspersed with follow-ups from interviews I had at the company where I would start working later that spring, and invites for weddings and other parties I would attend later that year. I could practically see my words vibrating with anxiety. After fifteen minutes, I felt nauseous and closed my laptop. That’s enough of that. What was I DOING?
It was nearing 8 o’clock am, and I was about to host my weekly sobriety support meeting for The Luckiest Club, so I got up, brushed my teeth, made another cup of coffee, and fired up Zoom. I knew being with my people and leading a meeting would ground because it always does, but I didn’t expect the tidal wave of love and support that came at me from the 440 (!) people that logged on (the typical meeting size for this meeting is around 300) because it was publication day. It was hard to take in because my heart was still somewhere in 2013. I beat myself up for that and for all the other feelings I was having—the wrong feelings!—on what should be such a bright, beautiful, celebratory day, right?
Sometime around 11 am, I stopped fighting with myself and took a nap. I woke up to a call from T and told him how I was feeling (he was traveling all week). It helped to hear his voice and for him to remind me that big feelings were to be expected today and to just focus on the next thing in front of me: making the next phone call, sending the next email, getting ready for my book event that night, driving to pick up Alma from school, watching her soccer game, finding a parking spot in the city, eating a meal with her before the event. In other words, he reminded me to turn my attention outwards instead of getting all locked up inside my head, as I do. He reminded me that this is a thing I get to do and that I deserve to be proud of it and be there for it.
While I waiting in the car line to pick up Alma from school, I got a text from someone on my team with this photo:
I thought, Oh, fuck! I’m missing some kind of book club or something! but then realized they were just sitting in our monthly all-hands meeting and being goofballs, holding my book up to show me some love.
I dialed in, Alexander asked me how I was doing, and I immediately started crying. “It’s just a lot,” is what I said.
I started to come into my body after that. Alma and I drove into Cambridge belting out the 10-minute version of “All Too Well” and I got to show her Harvard Square for the first time—this place I walked through every day after work for years and years in my twenties—and see her take it in. We parked and met long-time bestie Kate at Tatte, the best cafe, and as we were leaving, I ran into Christie Tate, the author who I was doing the event with. She asked me how the day had been, and I said, "CHRISTIE, SO WEIRD," and she just nodded and said, "Right?" and I felt instantly better, again.
The event was…wonderful. Truly, truly great. Alma was there, which was the best. Several of my long-time Boston friends showed up for me. Christie was the best co-pilot: hilarious, smart, warm. A bunch of TLC noodles were there, too! I was really able to take it in, which felt like a miracle considering how I woke up that morning.
Throughout last week and over the weekend, I thought a lot about what I wanted to say to you about the launch of this book—about the maelstrom of feelings I went through that day—and there’s so much, more than I’ll capture today. But the first thing I wanted to share is this:
I’ve had the time of my life fighting dragons with you.
It’s a line from the Taylor Swift song “Long Live” (I told you, we’re doing this), and she said it’s the first love letter she wrote to her fans.
I don’t consider myself to have fans, but something closer to a community. Many of you reading this are new to me, but a lot of you have been with me: reading my words, listening to my podcasts, or sharing space with me in meetings or retreats for a long time; as early as 2014. Because what happened in 2013 is I did start to fight back. I started to fight those dragons with you and I started to win.
On Sunday, when I realized these were the lyrics I wanted to use for this newsletter, I first thought of the me from 2013 and all the versions of me that came before, and how I am so fucking proud of her. How I’ve truly had the time of my life walking beside her, especially these past ten years. I’ve had the time of my life fighting dragons with you.
But also, the more I thought about Tuesday and what actually pulled me up like I’ve been pulled up countless other times, and when I think about Push Off from Here and all the stories in it, and I think about how today—today!—is the three year anniversary of the first non-official sobriety support meeting I hosted online, which set in motion what would eventually become The Luckiest Club, the “you” is not only me, it’s us.
I genuinely hate when authors post about their books and say, “Look what we did!!!!” because no. I mean, I get it, but no, not unless “we” are getting paid for the book too. So that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about what the book means, and what it means is that we can make it through addiction, or whatever your impossible thing is, and we do. We can fight these dragons together, and we can win. We are doing it every day and sometimes it’s important to look up and say, “Can you fucking believe this is happening?!” because it is unbelievable. But it’s also true.1
This is what happens with all the empty space we fill with empty things if we stop filling it with empty things: the dragons appear, but we have the strength to fight back.
Phew, okay. That was a lot! More coming soon, too, as there’s a lot to share and a lot coming up. I’d love to hear from you so comment below. And thank you, thank you, thank you. I’ve had the time of my life fighting dragons with you.
Love,
L
Here’s the song:
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