Things are going to be
different this year, on multiple fronts, and some of these changes are already
in motion. For starters, I have dedicated this entire month of January '19 to
celebrating my birthday, as I'm about to turn half-a-freakin'-century old! Maybe
it's my age, or just who I am, but I need to reflect on things: putting things
into words helps me understand my world better, and be appreciative. And I want
to acknowledge these things at the start
of the year, not the end.
1) I'm
about to be kicked off of Disability. Some of you already know, I had hoped
my publishing dreams would allow me to work my way off of federal disability,
but it had been my intention to keep my Medicare as a safety net until my
career was solidly established. Well, the Social Security Administration had
other ideas. Though they declared it a "medical termination" they
didn't include a single reason (or doctor, or medical report) to support their
claim, and I'm highly suspicious that the SSA is just not on board with my
self-employed career as a professional novelist. I've been required to report
all of my income, work months, publishing contracts, etc. which has resulted in
a shit-ton of confusing paperwork, and I think the SSA has just had enough. But
you know what? The frustration is mutual.
I've been providing
documentation about every aspect of my life for years, and the entire social service system is set up to feel like
a punishment. My first reaction to the Cessation of Disability Notice was
horror—I got it just before Christmas, and had only days to file an appeal
(over Christmas) if I wanted to preserve my benefits. But after the shock wore
off and I got more information (like how much I'd pay for a Silver Plan through
my current healthcare provider), I started seeing the upside to being truly
independent.
I will no longer have to
report—multiple times a year—every aspect of my health & finances to an
agency that does not actually care about my quality of life. I will no longer
have to endure weeks/months of anxious waiting, fearful about my benefits being
cut off or screwed up by the documentation I regularly report. The more I
thought about it, the freer I felt! I started to wonder if my health might even
improve, once free of being forced to focus on my limitations (which is the
constant mandate while proving your worth to receive benefits).
Of course there is some
risk involved here, especially since I don't currently have a publisher for my
next novel. The re-application process for Disability could take years (there's
a mandatory 24 month waiting period for Medicare) if I really can't go it
alone. But there is hope, and I'm
working hard, and maybe the half-century mark is the time for a whole new level of independence?
2) I'm
not a debut novelist anymore. Though BABY TEETH has existed in the world
for only six months, I feel the imperative to take the things I've learned in
this whirlwind education of becoming a professional author and apply them
productively—starting now. In basic ways this means I want to be more involved
in my career—making active suggestions when I have projects going "on
sub," and consciously developing a relationship with an editor like the
one I developed with my agent (which I've yet to have the opportunity to do). In
the past year I have often felt like I didn't know what I was doing, or had little
control over what was going on: the writer is really not the key member of the team, as life-altering decisions can be
made without my input. It makes it even more important to focus on what I can do, actively, in addition to the
writing itself.
3) The
writer's "team" is other writers. As many authors before me have
experienced, it can be very isolating to write books for a living, and not just
because you work alone with only your imagination for companionship. Very late
in the process the contract for my second novel was withdrawn, and I reached a
whole new understanding of what it means—beyond the tax implication—to be self-employed. In a lightbulb
moment I understood that editors have other projects, and colleagues—and the
support of the company for which they work. And in the exact same way agents
have other clients, and colleagues—and the support of the agency for which they
work. Sure, we were all disappointed about
what happened with my book, but I was the only one who both didn't have another
revenue source, and took a direct financial hit.
We writers are encouraged
to be secretive about the "downs" of the business (though we're free
to trumpet about the "ups")—but what aspect of life doesn't have both
ups and downs? The secretiveness felt even more isolating… Until I finally
reached out to some writers in my social media circle—more experienced writers,
whom I really respect—and I gained a new understanding of
"normal." It was very therapeutic, and helped me better assess where
I stood—because even though some crappy things had happened, there were still a
lot of good things going on. So, the lesson here is that "ups and
downs" are inevitable, but sometimes an isolated writer can't sort it out
by herself. If such secrecy about the "downs" weren't the norm, I
might have been more "c'est la vie"
about the rollercoaster all along. Secrecy is not a solution that benefits the
writer (though yes, I'm all for diplomacy),
and this was another step in learning how to survive this business.
Balance, grasshopper.
Good and bad. Private and public. Highs and lows. Solitude and community.
Balance, balance, balance.
4)
I am 100% Jewish—and always have been. How is this new knowledge? And why is it relevant? Well,
because I had a revelation.
I have been torn about
certain aspects of my identity forever. Was I half Jewish, because of my mother's family? Was "being
Jewish" an acknowledgement of a religion, an ethnicity, a heritage…? I
felt a strong pull toward "Jewishness" even as a young child, though
I wouldn't have been able to explain what that meant, but I always felt like
something of an outsider in the Jewish community around me. There was never any
question that I was not Christian,
but did I know enough—about anything?—to be Jewish? I always felt that one side
of the family considered me too Jewish, and the other side not Jewish enough. And
then there was the confusion of my own beliefs, my disdain for organized
religion, and my fundamental need to be a questioning person.
So I have long felt a
lack of belonging anywhere, while wanting to know where I fit in.
Recently I started
reading Judaism for Dummies—and are
we surprised that a book gave me my answer? There it was, clear as could be: my
mother's ancestry gives me an irrevocable claim to my Jewishness (which I knew,
but didn't feel), but it was the section about "defining" G-d and
Jewish beliefs that made me feel welcome
in a way I never had. The Jewish idea of G-d is more expansive than I'd ever
understood. It's emphatically not "human," or gendered, and there is
no name or word to encompass it. There is room in the Jewish faith for the
possibility of G-d being a forest, or the universe, or everyone. There is room
for it to be one thing for you on one day, and something else on another. There
is room for you to change your mind, or have doubts. G-d is a journey, an endless
conversation—if that's what makes you comfortable.
The more important tenet
in Judaism is not the specificity of what you believe, but what do you do as a human on this earth? Orthodox Jews want to
fulfill the 613 mitzvot during the
course of their daily lives, but there are many ways to be a conscious person,
intent on "doing good" in the world.
I had not known before
that my wandering and uncertain beliefs—in combination with an ethical
imperative that I have always felt—made me Jewish even when I didn't have a
name for myself.
So here we go, 2019, I'm
a 50-year-old Jewish woman trying to make a stable career as a writer! Learning
stuff along the way… Always learning.
