Seven Difficult Years
In April of 2015 I was the Depressive, Anxiety-riddled son of a disabled father and absent mother who had endured so much hilarious trauma over the course of thirty-nine years on the planet that I was able to publish two separate memoirs about my intense lifelong struggle with mental illness with Scribner: 2009’s The Big Rewind and 2013’s You Don’t Know Me But You Don’t Like Me.
I had no idea just how easy I had it! I had a salaried job with a respected publication and insurance. A month later that was no longer true, as I had been let go just before my birthday. Two months later The Dissolve would no longer exist.
Almost immediately, I went from thinking that I would need to be a staff writer for someone for the rest of my career, because there was absolutely no way someone as neurotic and terrified of failure and rejection as myself could go full-time freelance to thinking that there’s no way I could ever possibly have a staff job anywhere because with my screwed-up brain, there’s no way someone like me could fit into any kind of corporate structure.
It was scary as shit. As stressful and anxiety-provoking as working for pop culture websites can be there’s at least a certain stability and security to it. You get a regular paycheck, you’re part of a team and if you get some manner of terrible sickness, you may actually be able to pay your medical bills. Maybe.
To make things a little easier for me and my family, we moved into my in-laws’ basement for a year and I sold my condo for what turned out to be a steep loss.
By that point my wife and I had our first child, Declan, who was born in 2014, or shortly before I was laid off from what will almost assuredly turn out to be my last full-time job.
Needless to say, that also made my life harder as well as fuller. There’s no desperation or dread quite like the desperation and dread of new parents. Then in 2016 something very terrible happened to my family, my country and the world: Donald Trump was elected president.
Public discourse sank to new lows. I discovered just how ugly, hateful and utterly deluded my fellow Americans could be Patriotism was coopted by the worst people in the world.
The Republican party angrily ripped off its mask of propriety and respectability to reveal a corrupt and deranged cult in utter thrall to a two bit charlatan and reality television grifter. Prince died unexpectedly. David Bowie died. Tom Petty died.
I lost faith in my country and my fellow Americans. My wife and I had a second child in 2018. Things just got uglier and uglier and uglier.
MeTOO was a seismic culture force that revealed just how many folks we looked up to and admired were, in fact, sexual harassers, sex criminals, rapists and monsters of various stripes. We also learned how much of the independent film world was controlled and corrupted by Harvey Weinstein’s deranged, insatiable hungers for decades. When I see a Miramax movie from that period and see his name in the credits I now think, “Oh, so THAT’s the film villain.”
It has been utterly disillusioning learning just how many of my former heroes are straight-up villains these days, or, at the very least, heroes to the wrong kinds of people.
Then came COVID! It seemed like things couldn’t get weirder or worse or harder or more surreal and then, with unnerving inevitably, things got WAY weirder, WAY harder and WAY more surreal.
Things once again went from bad to worse to “how are we ever going to survive this apocalypse?”
Then Roe vs. Wade got overturned. I never imagined that abortion would become illegal in the twenty-first century but then again, I also labored under the delusion that there was absolutely no way the American people would make someone like Donald Trump the most powerful person in the world, but particularly after he was caught bragging about grabbing women by their genitalia just before the election.
I was wrong on both counts. Horrible things have happened that I never imagined possible, like over a million Americans dying of a virus in no small part because the president didn’t wear a mask because he didn’t think it looked cool or manly.
It’s been an absolute shit show! I wouldn’t say that the last seven years have been the hardest in our nation’s history but it’s definitely been the hardest seven years since I’ve been alive.
Being a parent is inherently difficult. Being the parent of two neuro-divergent children makes it even harder, particularly if you suspect that you are neuro-divergent yourself.
And, of course, trying to make a living as a full time freelance pop culture writer is difficult to the point of impossible even if you’ve been doing it for a very long time, as I have, and have written a number of books.
When I look back at the last seven years of my life, and the last seven years for our country, I have a damn good explanation as to why I have struggled mightily for as long as I can remember.
It’s not, as I sometimes fear in my most apocalyptic and self-loathing moments, because I am lazy and sloppy and disorganized and do not deserve to succeed although it sure does feel that way sometimes.
It’s not an issue of morality, either. Despite what capitalism might make you think, being broke or living paycheck to paycheck or wondering if you’ll ever get ahead even a little bit does not make you a bad person. It doesn’t make you a weak person. It just means you’re a human being doing the best you can in an impossibly difficult situation.
When I look at all of the things that I have struggled with and that we have struggled with as a people I have more compassion and empathy for myself. I implore you to have compassion and empathy for yourself as well. These last seven years have been brutal. It’s enough to survive. It’s enough to still be in the arena fighting.
Surviving in this awful era is a goddamn achievement in itself and while I wish I was doing better and struggling less I am proud to still be here.
Love yourself. Forgive yourself. Be easy on yourself. Show yourself the kindness and understanding you want from a world that is agonizingly hard and doesn’t look like it’s going to be getting easier any time soon.
Buy The Weird A-Coloring to Al: Cynical Movie Cash-In Extended Edition at https://www.nathanrabin.com/shop, signed, for just 12 dollars, shipping and handling included OR twenty seven dollars for three signed copies AND a free pack of colored pencils, shipping and taxes included
The Joy of Trash, the Happy Place’s first non-"Weird Al” Yankovic-themed book is out! And it’s only 14.00 shipping, handling and taxes included, 25 bucks for two books, domestic only! https://www.nathanrabin.com/shop
Buy The Joy of Trash, The Weird Accordion to Al and the The Weird Accordion to Al in both paperback and hardcover and The Weird A-Coloring to Al and The Weird A-Coloring to Al: Colored-In Special Edition signed from me personally (recommended) over at https://www.nathanrabin.com/shop
Or you can buy The Joy of Trash here and The Weird A-Coloring to Al here and The Weird Accordion to Al here
Help ensure a future for the Happy Place during an uncertain era AND get sweet merch by pledging to the site’s Patreon account at https://www.patreon.com/nathanrabinshappyplace We just added a bunch of new tiers and merchandise AND a second daily blog just for patrons!
Alternately you can buy The Weird Accordion to Al, signed, for just 19.50, tax and shipping included, at the https://www.nathanrabin.com/shop or for more, unsigned, from Amazon here.
I make my living exclusively through book sales and Patreon so please support independent media and one man’s dream and kick in a shekel or two!