January 1st, 2025 - FTNY, Year Seven in Review
Dear TNY,
Hold onto your butts for this insanity, because what’s about to unfold is…something.
It’s that time again. The year 2024, in review! The seventh full year of doing this. Jesus Christ. I can’t even draw the necessary candles on the cupcake anymore; had to go with the number.
When I started this project in 2018, my life had so much promise. I had a job. I was making a lot of money (which isn’t the end-all/be-all, I get it). I was bored out of my fucking mind at said job, though, but working on a house I owned in Seattle so that I could buy my freedom back with it (so, at least I had a plan). I had a really nice girlfriend and we laughed a lot together. She bought me gummy bears and beer and my kids liked her and she was the first person who really got me to understand what it means to a woman to feel safe. See, she asked me one night at my house when we were staying up late, a Friday if I remember right, we were listening to music and dancing in the living room and I was putting the next song on, because I don’t have playlists, each song is selected for that time and place, her hand on the wheel just as much as mine, just photons with resonating wavelengths moving together in that front room with the oak floors and the fireplace that had a shitty circulating fan that kept giving out, and as I’m putting the song on she comes up behind me and says, “May I get as drunk as I want tonight?” Of course I say yes. Why shouldn’t she if that’s what she wants? And then she says, “May I get as high as I want?” Again, I say yes. I think nothing of it. And she dances and sings and putters around the house getting as many beers or whathaveyous that she feels necessary to imbibe herself with. Because that’s my normal practice, the “as much as I want” practice, I see nothing abnormal. But that’s because I think in terms of physical safety. I’m always physically safe. She was the opposite (as she, like many, many, too fucking many women had/have encountered unsafety before). She could guarantee that she was emotionally safe because she knew herself well in that way. But physically was a different story. So there she goes, dark black hair, tall, may or may not have been missing a tooth (see: unsafety), twirling about the room, having the time of her life. And I played music. And she played music. And we had a blast. She went to bed for a little break, or so she said. But passed out. So I played a little more music, me, always the lone soldier in the trenches at night, giving the others brief respite from their long haul, I turned it down and grooved in my little spot in front of the computer, the screen being the only light in the room, washing me in its glow while I tried to feel comfortable in my own skin. Then, when I was ready, I went into the bedroom and found her passed out with her clothes on, where I knew she would be, beer can half empty and upright on the floor which I picked up and drank off so we wouldn’t spill it. I took all our snacks into the kitchen, turning the light on and putting them where they were all supposed to go, and then I went back to the room, the dim light of the kitchen filtering in, and I rubbed her thighs and her arms and asked her politely to wake up, to go pee, get ready for bed if she needed too. And she did, me helping her off the bed and holding her up as she stumbled, mostly asleep, into the bathroom and onto the toilet. She finished that job up and I undressed her and got her under the covers and into the bed. I used the facilities myself, washed up, and slid around the bedside and in next to her. As she was drifting off, she mumbled many things, most of which weren’t coherent. But she distinctly said, “I’m sorry I made this complicated by falling in love with you.” And then she was gone, passed out. I didn’t tell her about this as it was the first admission of love in the relationship. It seemed too personal, too vulnerable. Like I had seen God, but too early. And only now am I realizing that maybe she had intended to secure her physical safety, sure, but she got waylaid by her drunk-self and ended up showing how vulnerable her emotional safety really was and is. So yeah, she had no risk of shame if she puked and made a mess, or if she pissed the bed, or if she shit herself. She didn’t have to worry about rape or domestic violence. We didn’t even have sex, I just held her while she snored and it was beautiful. I was a physically safe place for her. But was I safe for her heart? We aren’t together and it’s very likely that will continue. And that was at my request. So maybe I wasn’t. Maybe I’m not now.
I was recently watching a show about a serial killer and a woman said: We pick the men that we feel will hurt us the least. And that makes me sick in the sense of violence, as the show was meaning to portray. But what does that mean for any of us when it comes to emotional safety? I dated a woman who, when fed up with her first long-term relationship partner, sent a picture of a huge erect cock that she had gotten from one of her friends to her then boyfriend because she had been asking him to sober up, be better, and he wouldn’t, so she sent him that as if to say, this is what I’m having for dinner. He did sober up. He did change his life. She broke it off anyway. Who was safe then? I’ve had more than my share of love in this life, women who plead with me that they love me, one in 2019 who was crying in the front seat of the van, telling me how amazing I was and how much she wanted to love and take care of me, and I dropped her off and went back to camp. Alone. How safe was I then? I have an unpublished story, not for lack of trying, that contains a piece of information that I witnessed from a former partner and she finds it despicable that I would include that and seek publication. For that matter, I don’t think I’ve dated anyone that was pumped to be in my work. How safe is anyone around me?
But then, I moved to San Diego and looked at a person and I knew, like deep down knew, like fucking knew, that I had all the skills to help this person grow and thrive in the civil, economical, physical, adventure-al, beautiful, sexual, and other worlds, and I burned the candle at both ends and the middle to show how much I cared about her and helping and because I was and am super excited to go on the forever adventure with this person, and that person just said, “No.” In fact, the conversation was had many times near the end, and the most concise version was me, sitting on a bed in a home I didn’t live in in Walla Walla, WA, looking at my beauty through a video call, and saying, “You’re enough; you’re enough to stop all this searching, to stop all this striving, to stop all of it; I’m home; you’re enough.” And she said, “You’re not.” So, my safety wasn’t looked after either. Maybe all of this life, for all of us, is much like that wonderful story of the man making up a time machine ad in the back of a magazine as space-filler, but that ad caught the curiosity of many, eventually becoming a movie, the title of which is Safety Not Guaranteed.
It’s never guaranteed.
And I don’t know what to do about that. I want to fix it, for everyone. So no one has to feel how I feel now. Or how badly they have felt. Ever again. I want to write an essay that’s so beautiful that we won’t need to write another. I want to make homes for people. Shelters. Stories. I want to make a beautiful life with someone. To cherish them. To love them as deeply as I love. But, I might be dying and I can’t figure out how to do any of this.
2024 was the hardest year of my life. I got divorced in 2013 but I didn’t kill myself that year. I thought about it. A few times. Wrote some notes. But I had hope, and I wasn’t suffering as much as I am now. Also, I have suffered greatly from the loss of time with my children and nearly died from that too, many fucking times. And I suffered at the hands of women that wouldn’t accept my kids and/or my life, being accused of narcissism when all I wanted was someone to give me the kind of time I gave them for shit that was important to me. But the world says no. Or I say no. Everything is no. Maybe this is all so hard because it’s the accumulation of nos. But I don’t think so. Because the children are nearly grownups and say yes (my oldest turned 18 this year; fucking astonishing). My ex and I are in a great place as coparents so that’s a yes. I need to end my six years of freedom that I bought, and that feels not great, but I’m proud of what I’ve done with my time. Proud of the time I used on other people, making their lives better. So that’s a yes. And there has been love; I only have gratitude for how big that yes is.
And a big yes this year was I really realized I’m the prize. I say that with full confidence as the data is there. I learned so many of the things I wanted to learn in this life, I know my father would be proud of me. I became a man. A safe man for so many. Loving. I have made many, many people’s lives better. I show up, I listen, I entertain, I hold, I bullshit, I’m fun, I’m the fucking adventure. I’ve raised two beautiful boys who are better than most adults you’ll ever meet. One graduates in the coming year and has already saved another’s life. And the other, I just got a Christmas card from his girlfriend’s mom saying how amazing he was, and respectful, and smart, and funny, and he’s made their lives better. I’ve had a million jobs and I blew away everyone at them all, especially in the corporate world where I was able to perform above expectations while simultaneously attempting to get everyone to be human, fuck the job, and try to be happier. I’ve written so many stories, of which 24 have been published, and people read them out in the world, some emailing me to let me know that I saved them or one of their relationships (point of note: I got one just last night from a woman who said I made her cry and she felt lucky to have been published alongside me this year). I’ve won awards, read to audiences and made them weep. Just this summer, I bought a beater and fixed it up with my sons and we drove it 800 miles home. I have exes whose kids still talk about me and wonder when I’m coming back. My nephew thinks I’m the strongest person on the planet. I’ve built so many things for so many people, coming into their lives and giving them my time and skills and love and attention and leaving something behind that changes their lives. Sometimes it’s a mug, like my man up on the peninsula, who has given me a lifetime pass for the use of his cabin and/or shop. Sometimes it’s The Wizard of Kindness, who goes to his library every day, his place of peace. Or my brother-from-another-mother and his wife, who use their coffee table every day, all their guests commenting on it. And his wife, I’m in the midst of building a jewelry box for her that my boatbuilding friend has witnessed and said, “You’re going to ruin her with this.” And ruin? I’ve spoiled nearly every lover I’ve ever had. I’ve been told I should write a book about how to have sex, but for men who actually want to do a spectacular job (spoiler alert: it’s not about you). And so many more beautiful things I’ve been told. That I’m an angel. I’m special. I’m impossibly nice. I’m agonizingly beautiful. So many things that I can’t even hold them, the embarrassment of the beauty too much to carry.
Yes. That’s all a yes. Forty-three years on this planet and I’m fucking beautifully a yes. Shiny and sparkling to beat the band.
So why isn’t anyone here? Why isn’t she here?
This is what I mean by the data, folks. I worked all this time to be my best, which I’m not and I know I can do better, and will continue to try to do so. But I know I’m the prize. But the data shows that’s not enough. I’m not enough. So I’m forced to see the negative space in the data. The data says I’ll never be enough.
Yesterday (spoiler alert: I wrote this early so as not to take time away from my kids, so this wasn’t actually yesterday, instead the kids are here in the living room of The Wizard of Kindness’ house playing phone games while I type this; I’ve been very mentally ill this trip and they have been understanding even though it’s been a boring one, and here I am taking up their time anyway, time they’ll never get back), I puked in the bushes outside the bar; not drunk, mind you. The anxiety is so bad now it’s taken my bowels. I had two beers and a bag of Fritos. I tried to hold it in. I puked and swallowed four times. Then I didn’t care anymore. I’m at the bar now, writing this fucking waste of time document, a letter from no one to no one. Fuck guys, Word crashed before this and I had to purchase it. AGAIN. I said this in text recently: The world has outpaced me or I have outpaced it, either way I don’t belong here anymore.
I want to tell you a story about the MFA program. My mentor for my last year was supposed to be a woman that had a very good reputation as a mentor. That’s why I picked her. And she read the first eleven or so of my stories and then she started sending these emails stating that I wasn’t displaying every single form of craft in my writing. And I, to coin a phrase I have grown to dislike because it’s oxymoronic, offered some gentle pushback, citing that there are many, many, many (if not all) notable authors that don’t use every single version of craft in their writing. Hell, The Greats. And she pushed and I tried very respectfully to make my arguments that the story may not want all the forms. The story may be asking for something different. And I would expound on writing and Art and theory and what I was trying to achieve and how I was learning to let some of that go and listen to the work itself. We did this for a few weeks. Back and forth. And finally, after she threatened to not let me graduate, I forwarded it all to the director. He read it and emailed back and said: Everything you said is exactly what we want to hear from a student at this level; your grasp on these concepts and what you are supposed to do here is dead on. So he took me from her care and I finished elsewhere.
What I mean to say is that after reading all the FNTY letters from this year (which was very, very hard to do and I felt ashamed and pathetic but have grown to realize how beautiful that vulnerability was), I realized I have a profound sense of love (also, so you don’t think I’m just boasting, this was confirmed by the therapist many times over, him stating that I’m on to something that’s deeper than most will ever know; more on that later). And the intricacies of love. And what makes it work, not just work for 6 months, but long-haul work. Like two stones skipping across water, side by side, finding each other in each lifetime, again and again, forever. And I know what takes away from that love.
So, talk about bad data. No wonder I’ve lost my mind. I wasn’t loved the way I love. I was, as always, a utility. Which is fine, I guess. That’s how it has worked since before the divorce. And that train will keep on rolling until I choose to stop it. But it’s heartbreaking to know that this is what happened. Maybe I deserve it. Maybe I don’t. If I learned anything from the absurd amount of therapy that I’ve had this year, this shit isn’t my fault. And this therapist has read my work, he’s talked to me extensively, and has assured me that I’m not the problem. The world is. That my understanding of the human condition is extremely high, I’m wildly intelligent, and my emotional intelligence is off the charts, that I am 100% NOT diagnosable as a narcissist, that I’ve processed horrible traumas exceedingly well, that I am, minus the irresponsible use of alcohol, fine. The only reason I’m depressed and suicidal is because most of the rest of the world isn’t here with me and I can’t understand why because it’s astonishingly beautiful. But that’s not my fault. Which, if you think about it in terms of crazy, if I’m sane and everyone else is crazy, who looks like the crazy one?
So behind all of this year’s sadness, which was greater than the loss of my brother and father and is right up there with divorce and family loss, there’s a human being that is fucking dying. Not a utility. Not a story. Not a woodworker or a Vanagon expert. Not a writer. Not an entertainer. Not your gigolo. Not your ex-husband or your ex-boyfriend. Not a father. Not a son. Not an artist. Not a lover. Not all the jobs I took on to make any of you happy so you could feel less alone (which I was very thankful to do, even though sometimes I was frustrated with you or the job). No, there is a human being. Just me, Nick. Fifth dimensionally, a small baby in the sink being washed, a little boy playing in the sand at the beach, that kid at prom whose mom made him a silver and blue tuxedo, that guy with a big beard spinning his two kids around in a blanket in the living room, that guy with his back turned to you as he packed up all his things while you said, “How do get past this?”
Honey, we just do. It’s just that simple. It’s a choice. I’m in. I choose you. Beyond that, everything else can be figured out.
Oh, and all those things I did for all of you, I want you to know this so you don’t think I hated it. I LOVE doing all those things for all of you. But sometimes it’s like when I stood there in that living room in San Diego and stated, as she was crying and saying, “I don’t want you to like me less than you liked me yesterday,” I said, “You are taking my happiness away by not showing me you care about any of these things; it makes me incredibly happy to do these things for you, but you don’t show me you care.” Yet the hand-carved scissor case wound up in a flower pot outside during a rainstorm and it warped and was never the same again. It was a million heartbreaks. Giles Corey weight, each one.
But I’d do it all again, all your things. For all of you. I’d just change the ending. See, I don’t want to die. I want to keep doing this forever and forever and ever, Amen. But my heart needs help or it’s going to fail.
Because, you guys, it’s the time that mattered. Time was and always will be the currency that matters. I can make more money. Carve more mugs. Build more decks with more hottubs. There’s more of everything. Always. Except time. Time is all we can give each other that will matter in the end. And with all of these things I did and do, I gave you all my time. And I made things with that time, to capture it. Like writing a story. Or taking a photo. I tried to capture our moments of time together. And that’s what I wanted back. I wanted someone to say, “I could be doing anything else on this planet, anywhere else, but I choose you.” And mean it. But, it takes a special person and a special set of circumstances to get to that place. I bought my life back. I really could do anything while I had the money. Stop my life in its tracks and go to San Diego or Hawai’i or Lincoln City or Port Townsend or Tacoma or Seattle or Luxembourg or Ireland or anywhere, really, because time was the currency. Not the money. And I’m overjoyed I got to share my time with all of you. I just wish some of you understood what was happening a little more and treated me better.
But I know I treated people poorly as well, a tide of anger, ebbing and flowing, taken out irrationally on others. Like you, I’m multifaceted. I hope to not be judged in one light, just like you’d wouldn’t want to be either.
Guys. I think this place isn’t for me. It’s for you guys. All I wanted was for my forever someone to cover me up, as Isbell says, to use me for good. And she said no. And that’s okay. We can’t control anyone. I don’t know how much control we really have over ourselves. But boy I wanted that. To float on the Stones like a piece of driftwood.
Oh, yeah. The magazine. This year sucked as far as your literature goes, TNY. I finished about 90%. Very few were notable. The best of the year, from what my records tell me, was “Hostel”. And why in Jebus’ name were there two fucking old lady stories by Segal?! Eat shit.
None of this matters. I don’t matter. But maybe that’s the lesson to learn here. To let go of the ego. To let go of that data that I’m the prize; that I should matter. Maybe Aesop means for me to unclinch. Give up. And forget what I need. Take care of others. Let the people around me treat me amazingly. Or abuse me. Because that’s not about me either. Someone hurt them a long time ago and they are taking it out on me just like everyone else does to everyone else. Maybe that’s this year’s goal. Stop believing. Give up. Let go.
We’ll see.
Or, maybe it’s like Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. Maybe there’s always something to love. Maybe that’s my job. Go big or go home on love. Love bigger and bolder. Fight with love. Maybe that’s what all this is for, this giant energy inside me, to love with abandon. To love beyond sanity. To break love and make a bigger version. I just want people to see what I see, to feel what I feel. It’s so unbelievable. I can’t even describe it. I spent a lot of nights recently watching astrophysicists and quantum physicists discuss micro and macro scale and how there’s a point at each one where it’s so small or big that things get fuzzy and we don’t know what’s behind all this. They use the best and the brightest to help understand, hoping to find just a little bit more. But it’s like…it’s here, man. In the love inside us. That’s what transcends time. Love. And gravity. I can write this letter or an essay and if I do a good enough job it will last. There’s an energy we are trying to capture here, likely the one that feels the most like where we came from before we got here and one we hope to find again. I just think we are all useless at finding it alone. We need each other. Our life buddies. And I lost mine. And I’m really fucking sad about it. And I don’t know how to get past it. Together we found God, The Flying Spaghetti Monster, Vishnu, Buddha, Cthulhu, Allah, the Higgs Bosun, light particles that are also waves, quantum entanglement, Schrödinger’s cat, we found human sacrifice and forest calls made by song and we found a million ladybugs all over us, like little friends, we found Moby Dick and we found stars you can walk on and we found rain and sun and water, flowing in and out, we found the pull of the moon’s gravity and we found each other’s hands in the night, even when we were fighting. We found a way to come back, every time, because we found it all. Until we couldn't find it anymore. Profound and complete sadness was left behind in its wake. Well, I can tell you that I bobbled what we found. Lost it a little bit. It fell down and slipped into the slit between the couch cushions. I apologize for that. I don’t know why that happened and I wish it didn’t. But I have it now. Brighter than before. And I won’t drop it again. I’d like to find the way back, please. Before we have to do it again in another life. This one is good. It has the things we need. And the weather is pretty good in some places. And above, below, inside, and outside all of this is the fabric that holds reality together. Which is love. It’s all we’ll ever need.
Well, here’s to another year of literature. I hope the data I have on that is also wrong and the writing is spectacular. I am a quasi-authority on this TNY data after having done this for seven years.
Good luck. Godspeed. And I hope that you all find comfort in each other, your people. I hope I am one of your people. I don’t know. I get told often I’m not. Maybe I am special. Or maybe I’m the kind of special that gets left behind. Whether I was outpaced or I outpaced, I hope I’ve not gone too far away. Left behind. Unsafety guaranteed.
On that note, Later.
Nick
P.S. To all the peeps who have taken me in this year and tried to help, I am eternally grateful. I wouldn’t be here without you.
P.P.S Seven years in and not one single response from TNY. Sterling record.
