Hum. All day I’ve been dragging ass, fighting to keep my eyes open, and now that it’s midnight-thirty I’m wide awake. Surely it doesn’t have anything to do with all the coffee I drank this afternoon and evening. Who knows? Life is a mystery.

Speaking of mysteries, let’s talk about hair loss. (Why, Marcus?) Because this afternoon I fished a huge glob of hair (about the size of a baby raccoon) out of my shower drain. And whereas there was once a time–back when I had short hair–that I NEVER had to do this, now I have to do this on a regular basis. Shower drain hair extraction. Indeed, now that my hair is shoulder length I pull hair clumps out of my drain, hair brush, hair dryer brush, and carpet constantly. Ugh. Our bodies are so strange.

They shed, they molt, they fall apart.

For some reason I can’t get the image of that hair clump out of my head. (The inside of my head, I mean, since I obviously already got the hair clump out of the outside of my head.) I think because the actual clump so clearly demonstrated the idea of buildup. Like, for days and weeks I was losing hair in the shower, and it was slowly but surely collecting in the drain. And whereas it was keeping the water from draining optimally, I didn’t notice until today. Until everything got to be “too much.” Alas, isn’t this usually the case? We gain five pounds a year and think it’s not a big deal. Two decades later we wake up wondering what the hell happened. Likewise, we ignore our traumas and dramas, insisting we’re over them. Then “all of a sudden” we find ourselves constantly anxious, stricken by panic attacks, addicted.

Or worse.

I don’t know, we live in a Bandaid society, an “it’s fine, I’m fine” society. Like, the worst happens, and we’re so focused on “getting back out there” as soon as possible, keeping a stiff upper lip. For the last six years I’ve been focused on healing through therapy. For the last three years I’ve been focused on healing through this blog. And whereas I’ve spent the majority of this time wishing I were on the other side of this work (so that I could be OUT THERE doing something else like making money or being noticed), lately I’ve been really appreciating the opportunities I’ve been given to slow the fuck down and pull the hairballs out of my mental, emotional, physical, familial, relational, and spiritual drains. To be IN HERE. So that the rest of my life can run more smoothly.

So that things can get better instead of keep getting worse.

Looking back, I can see that my body’s been asking me to pump the brakes and clean things up for a while now. Like, decades. Alas, I was more inclined to push, push, push past the internal and external pain. To use a Bandaid, a pill, a cigarette. You know, we think that if we tell ourselves something isn’t a big deal long enough, it won’t be. And yet it always is. A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet, and a big deal is a big deal even if you call it a little deal. Sooner or later we all face the music. Sooner or later we all sit down to a banquet of consequences (Robert Louis Stevenson). Sooner or later we all sit down to our lives.

One thing I know about cleaning out your shower drain is that even if it’s gross (and it is), it’s worth it. Recently I tried a new therapy thing and ended up crying, weeping, and wailing about things that happened twenty-five, thirty-five years ago. (My dad’s arrest, our house fire.) Not because I never mentally accepted that these things happened, but because–apparently–I never emotionally accepted that they did. What I mean is that MY BODY internalized my reaction to these events rather than externalized it. (And never forgot it, either.) Thankfully, now this reaction has been expressed. Sure, it was gross, but it was also cathartic and–what’s more–freeing.

Now it’s done. Really over.

There’s an idea in self-help that we’re all doing the best we can with what we’ve got. To me this means that although NOW I can look at my younger self and see that the push, push, pushing, the pills (by the way, I’m talking about Tylenol, not Oxy), and the cigarettes weren’t THE ANSWER, they were all I had at the time. Back then I didn’t have therapy or this blog or any of the other wonderful things I’ve discovered, well, in my thirties. This is the way of it. We learn as we go. All this to say that, please, don’t give yourself shit for not cleaning out your drain sooner. For one thing, hairballs are gross. Nobody WANTS to deal with them. For another, if you’d known WHAT to do, you would have. So keep pressing forward. Keep learning and keep healing. And remember–

We shed, we molt, we fall apart. We begin again.