RaeAnna + A Nerdy Lifestyle
Alana Saab's debut novel, Please Stop Trying to Leave Me, explores a 27-year-old Norma's journey through her diagnosis of major depressive disorder, anxiety, and derealisation/depersonalization disorder along with navigating being a lesbian, being in love, being 27. Blending intense darkness with definitions, humor, a story within a story, academia, and astrology, Saab immerses the reader in a resonating narrative that is affecting and relatable in equal measure.
In honor of a week since Hurricane Beryl swept over Houston, Texas, I am sharing some musings I wrote while I was without A/C, power, and cell signal. I also took pretty pictures... At least, pretty to me.
Sometimes, I write things that I think come close to explaining how I feel without being too much or too little and hits the right balance of darkly realistic and funny. Sometimes, I write things that make me think, hmmm... maybe I'll be good at this one day. Anxiety says, "Simmer down, god complex."
Life has been a traumatic, but I've put a lot of work into healing so I can be good to myself so I can be a good human to everyone. Even in the worst times when I had no control over my life, I had control over my body... I'd been restricted before with everything from a torn ACL to sprained feet; as a dancer, injuries happened. This. A broken dominant hand as a writer is very different. I felt like I was slowly dying.
I have not so slowly or subtly been losing my Christmas spirit over the last few years. I've gone from Lady Buddy the Elf to the only reason I have a Christmas tree is because someone else made it happen.
"To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering." Friedrich Nietzsche