By David Himmel

It’s my birthday and I’m living alone again. Well, sometimes. My boys are with me fifty percent of the time, but I’m the only adult in the house. It’s not a sad thing. I love living alone. I also love sharing my home with loved ones—especially my boys. Because I’m an overly reflective person, I’m thinking back to the last birthday I had when I lived alone. It was twelve years ago, and unsurprisingly, a lot has changed. Met a girl. Fell in love with the girl. Fell in love with her dog. Moved in with the girl. Wrote some books. Published some short fiction. Started this Literate Ape thing with Don Hall. Held a few different jobs. Made some money. Married the girl. Lost the dog to cancer. Got some tattoos. Had kids. Got a new dog. Got a job I loved. Bought a house. Lost that job. Got divorced.

Change can be tough, but change is proof of life. For some of these changes, it felt that I was not at the wheel driving them, but locked in the trunk of my own car as it barreled down life’s highway. Still, change happened because life happened. And that’s good. Because despite flirtatious thoughts of what things would be like without my life in play, I don’t want to die. A big part of me wants to live long enough to watch all of you die, then, in a sail boat just off shore of a Caribbean island I’ll wait for the exploding sun to swallow this planet.

That said, happy birthday to me! Forty-five. Forty-five years of fucking it up, I joke. And since it’s my birthday, it’s time for that Literate Ape tradition of publishing the essay stating what I’ve learned in this forty-fifth year around that sun, which will one day swallow me and my boat whole long after your last birthday.

I just re-read last year’s birthday post, On Turning 44 | It’s Time to Grow Up. It was telling. Laced with obvious signs that things weren’t so great in my head and heart. To look at it now, it’s no surprise I’ve had the year I’ve had and learned what I’ve learned. Let’s dive in.

The misery is real
I’ve been unhappy for a long time. In my marriage. In my career. In my own head. I don’t yet know where this misery originated. Perhaps it was an attack from all borderlines. Perhaps the origin isn’t as important as getting out and away from it. Perhaps it is. Because marriage misery bled into career misery, which bled into my head’s misery. I found myself in a complete confidence deficit, which led me to wonder if there was some grand plot against me. I’ve been saying this a lot lately, “It’s an ouroboros of fuckery.” Just the non-stop snake eating its tail. More accurately, the non-stop David kicking himself down with every little jab and cut. No beginning, no end, just misery.

I’m real good at beating myself up with a mace of guilt. Guilt that is appropriately mine and guilt that I create to fill the silence. We’re all our own worst enemy, but I say this with true confidence: No one is better at self-loathing than I am. Even when I succeed and am proud of myself, I am quick to tell myself, “It could have been better.” Or, “Great, that’s over, don’t enjoy it too long, you’ll get lazy and rusty. Keep going. You’ll enjoy things when you’re old and spent.”

I thought I had cultivated a curmudgeon character, a malcontent by design for the sake of humor. But that line blurred completely out of existence this past year. The anger was just angry and the jokes just weren’t there. Locked in that aforementioned trunk, I was also curled up in a steamy pile of my own make. Marinating in the shit. Paralyzed by self-loathing. But this misery felt different than miseries of yore. This was heavier. Inescapable. Feeling paralyzed, I could do little more than wait it out with a gut full of panic. 

It’s going to be okay
Patience and persistence is key in all things. Waiting for the storm to pass is fine if you don’t wait too long. And while waiting, even when paralyzed, you have to keep an eye out for the opportunity to get back to good. Because it’s going to be okay. The universe insists. It demands balance. For every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction, as the saying goes. So, when things go south, we have to remember that things will eventually turn north. Balance.

At the beginning of the year, I was in a Creative Team meeting at work and my boss asked each of us to give one word that represents what we want from the year. I said, “balance.” Two others, my two closest friends on the team spoke up, “That was my word, too!” At the time, I’d had the divorce conversation and I was still, obviously, employed, so my desire for balance was to overcome the dull, chronic misery I was feeling. Seeking balance was my effort to break free of my paralysis. To be a better ex-husband than I was a husband, be a better creative, be calm and prepared for the bad and the good. Write more, even a little, because I hadn’t been doing that for far too long.

Now, the balance I seek is the same with one big adjustment, right the ship that is my life. It’s been capsized by much sharper misery—the tragedy. The culmination of all the bad coming to a head. Five days before my birthday, I got a new tattoo. It’s an idea I’ve had for a while and what led me to respond in that work meeting with, “balance.” It’s a scale with the comedy and tragedy masks held at equal weight. A reminder that in life, the good times will roll and the bad times will wreck things. But bad passes and we have to enjoy the good to the fullest extent of the law. Heh, sometimes a bit more than the extent of the law. 

I’ve been scared to write
Writing has always been therapy. A way to flesh out my thoughts, bring them to life or purge them from my head to make room for new ones. Shortly after the divorce conversation, I bought a college ruled spiral notebook. First one I’d bought in years. Because I was going to write like I used to. Diary style. And for a minute there, I was pouring out all the feelings onto those pages. But then I stopped. Just couldn’t do it. Didn’t enjoy it. It wasn’t therapeutic. It was horrific. I realized that I wasn’t writing because I was afraid of my feelings. I was afraid of the truths I’d have to face. I’ve felt that way a long time. I still feel that way. But I’m getting better.

Way back in my early twenties, I wrote a piece I called, Being Scared is the Dumbest Thing. And it was all about how fear is for the weak, that the brave succeed because they are just that, brave. Bravery fades with age. Or, rather, it can fade with increased responsibility. What’s there to be afraid of when you have nothing to lose? But with marriage and bills and children, what you gain to lose is everything. This was/is my problem. Instead of writing with responsible caution and calculated risk, I overcorrected and just sat in the fear. I’ve been weak. And that’s the wrong way to go about it. It’s antithetical to who I think I am. Certainly to who I want to be. I sold out to weakness, which was the open door misery was hoping for.

If I were to write a companion piece to Being Scared is the Dumbest Thing, I’d write, Forego Your Fear, Be Brave Old Man. Perhaps that’s what this is.

Friends and family will save you
Nothing new here. I’ve written about this before. But these last few months, it has been apparent more so than ever before in my life. And this is something that I have to bring up again because it’s also a reminder that no matter how little my ex may think of me or worse, how little I think of myself, there are plenty of people who disagree with that. I’m flawed as hell, but I’m not little to them. It says a lot about a person who has strong friendships that have been maintained for decades. So many of my friends have known me through all stages of my development, and I’ve known them. And since we haven’t bailed on each other, we must not be such awful humans. I am fortunate. I am lucky. Keeping this in mind will keep me brave.

I need to build up my will power
A few weeks ago, I was telling my friend Rory Zacher (good friends since 1992) how impressed I was by his will power. He isn’t perfect, but he is mostly a measured man living with appropriate balance. An avid weed smoker, he chose to kick it for a bit, and at the time of this writing, remains several months in to this commitment. Me? I’d like to cut back, but when it’s here and the day is winding down, I can’t help myself. Hit the bowl, suck the vape, gobble a gummy. Watch TV and fall asleep. What I’d rather be doing is tuck into bed and read a book or a magazine. Maybe watch some TV. But just fall asleep on a natural high rather than one that makes me want to eat a box of Frosted Flakes.

But that’s all behavior based on misery symptoms. More importantly, I need the will power to be brave. To seek balance. I am confident that with balance and a bit more joy in my everyday, I won’t feel the pull to drown out my thoughts and feelings with drugs or alcohol. I’ll use those tools for fun. Because what could be more fun than getting drunk and stoned with friends and discussing the cinematic genius of The Expendables franchise?

It’s time to lean back into my superstitions
My favorite and lucky number is thirteen. It’s been my favorite number for as long as I can remember. Maybe because the year I was thirteen was a great one. There’s an argument to be made that I blew all my cool in junior high, but I’m not ready to broach that just yet. Maybe in next year’s birthday post. Second favorite number is four. That’s because in junior high, I had this grand desire to be in a boy band with my four best friends, a la New Edition, Bell Biv DeVoe, and Boyz II Men (The East Coast Family). I named our never-was boy band 4 Boyz. So, four took second place on my numbers list. But now, I don’t think four is working out for me as a favorite or lucky number.

The day before I was let go from my job, my eyes popped open at 4:44 a.m. Wide awake. I thought, Oh, this is a good omen. I was wrong. After getting out of bed and working out, I ascended from the basement into the kitchen for some water and saw something that broke my heart and infuriated me a thousand times over. I won’t provide the details here. But I can tell you it was directly related to the wretched experience of still living with my ex while divorcing. It destroyed my day. It confirmed my suspicions on how little she thought of me. The next day, again, eyes wide open, body wide awake at exactly 4:44 a.m. This is interesting, I thought. Today has to be better than yesterday. It wasn’t. At 4 p.m. that afternoon, I was let go, thus becoming a divorcing, unemployed father of two young children. So, fuck four. Unlucky, unloyal sonofabitch. In hindsight, it’s probably a good thing 4 Boyz never happened.

The day that we had the divorce conversation started out great. Woke up, worked out, got some work done, then went for a run. I was feeling really good. Ran past a Wendy’s and decided that I’d get lunch from Wendy’s for me, my wife, and my son Harry who was off school. Damn, Wendy’s can be a good meal. It was a great day. That night, after putting the boys to bed, my wife and I decided to watch the movie Tetris. I sat down on the couch with the Frosty I’d saved from lunch ready to enjoy a movie together. She came to the couch and maybe ten minutes later, we were getting divorced. A shock, not a surprise. A sad necessity. And so my misery found its hyperdrive and I sunk deeper into the abyss. I was already a few hundred feet below the surface, this sent me down leagues into the darkest, most pressured reaches of Misery Ocean. And so, silly as it may seem, I’ve decided that I can’t eat Wendy’s anymore.

It’s easy to write superstitions off as silly. It’s also easy to lean into them as a small way of maintaining a little control when things start to spiral. Me thinks it’ll help with my balance.

When it pains, it roars
My favorite band is Jawbreaker. They have a t-shirt featuring the Morton Salt logo with the words, “When it rains, it pours” from the logo reworked to read, “When it pains, it roars.” And boy, ain’t that the truth. I’ve been in the roaring pain before. I was a changed man when I came out of that hellish rain. This is far worse. Different, for sure, but worse because the roaring pain I’ve been living with could impact more than just me. To my earlier point about fear and bravery, I have more to lose. Trouble gives us the capacity to handle it, so I’ll handle it. And when I come out of it, I will be a different man again. This time, though, I hope I’m a better man. Not calloused and fearful. Brave. Balanced. I owe that to everyone. I owe that to myself.

There is always one bright spot
My boys. It’s cliché, I know. But there’s truth to it. On my darkest days, in my darkest moments, my two kids were the light. Even when they wouldn’t go to fucking bed.

Hope isn’t always idiotic
I published a book this year. You know the one. You bought it, read it, loved it, wrote a review of it on Amazon. Five stars. Yeah, Hope Idiotic. That one. It’s a dark title for a book with dark themes. But there’s plenty of humor in those pages, too. While the characters within find hope to be idiotic, and the book’s epigraph is a Nietzsche quote: “Hope, in reality, is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man,” the sentiment is not a credo to etch in stone. Hope, like superstition, can push us to bravery. Can bring us to balance. You see the theme here.

I’m forty-five years old. I feel younger. People tell me I look younger. But I also feel older, and sometimes when I look in the mirror or at my hands, I wonder where all those lines came from. I am fortunate. I am lucky. The Universe is on my side. It saw my struggle and it pulled the trigger on resetting my life. Hard reboot. Factory settings. Clean slate. Ideal for staging a comeback with a brilliant balancing act.

 ✶

 Post Script

I wrote this essay slowly in the week leading up to my birthday. Two days before publishing this on May 26, I was out for a run and it struck me: I’ve been smiling a lot more. At little things. Clever quips in a podcast; daily annoyances I find less enraging and slightly funny; the right song at the right moment when I get in the car and turn on the radio; the morning breeze on a bright day.

Upon realizing this, I considered editing the essay to reflect that but then thought otherwise. I wanted the essay to stand true to what I felt while writing it. This new realization could have been its own section, except that it’s not something I learned this year—it’s something I realized after all my learnings. It’s proof positive that the right choices have been made. Life has its rhythms. Yep, it’s going to be okay. I’m not quite Gene Kelly in Singin’ In the Rain, but I’m feeling way less like the love child of Ben Sanderson and Eeyore. And that’s a great place for me to be right now.