4 December 2023.
In August 2012, I entered the MFA program in creative writing at Hunter College, in Manhattan. The program lasted two years. By winter break of year one, I was googling “mfa creative writing drop out.”
I wasn’t struggling to get the work done. In fact, I was acing all my classes. I would end the year with a $500 medieval essay prize and straight A’s. Yet I didn’t want to continue. My heart had dropped—peaked?—out of the program in December or January. A few months later, I gave my body permission to follow.
Looking back, more than a decade later, I see clearly that I neither wanted nor needed a creative writing degree. Yet—till maybe April 2013—I agonized over my decision. Could I really depart after one year, award myself a Half-FA, and feel good about it? Wouldn’t I be missing out? (Why yes—I would. On gigs requiring MFAs. None of which I desired.)
Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer says there’s no such thing as a right decision, just the decision you make right. The decision you choose to commit to, even when your brain’s screaming that you must backtrack! Quit acting like an idiot! Fix this shit show NOW!
If you think of decisions this way, you can dispense with listing pros and cons, looking for signs, asking friends what you should do, seeking expert advice. Instead, you get to apply one simple filter—“What do I want?”—then make a choice, and welcome whatever comes next. With curiosity, if not delight.
Right now, I’m agonizing over whether to end my marriage. I’m not asking, “What do I want?” Rather, I’m torturing myself with false binaries: Persevering vs. giving up. Right vs. wrong. Failure vs. success. I’m also emphasizing what I could lose over what I stand to gain.
When I imagine leaving Geranium—and our beautiful home—I mostly focus on grief. I’m just beginning to acknowledge the gift of relief.
I adore relief. It’s one of my favorite feelings. In June 2022, when my laptop went missing, on a JFK security line, during a forty-five-minute wait for a pat-down, I freaked the fuck out—and then teared up with relief, when the one warm-blooded TSA agent I’d encountered retrieved it for me from the lost and found. Given a time machine, I’d go ahead and weather the naked scanner—and, in my memory, the relief of getting my laptop back nearly outweighs the frustration of being not so subtly pressured to comply.
If I left Geranium, I’d lose a lot that I love: Early-morning cuddling. Bursts of laughter. Watching his face brighten with mischief. But I’d also enjoy relief from a ton of shit I don’t love—most notably, pressure to share the bed with his snoring, procure dependents, invest in the stock market, have frequent and spontaneous sex.
Imagine what I could do, freed of that pressure. Who I might become, relieved of that weight.
After leaving Zendik, and getting the cult memo, I wished I’d gotten it earlier—wished I’d had the chance to do as I pleased, within the matrix, without fear of censure or exile. To live there with a light heart.
What if I’d laughed at Arol’s bullshit, instead of eating it? What if I’d treated her war like a game?
Most likely, she would have kicked me out sooner. I doubt I would have lasted more than a few days at the Farm, as a non-believer.
Still. I like asking these questions: What options open up when you release what you’ve held in a death grip? When you relinquish what you’ve clung to? I found Lyndon so magnetic in part because he dared to do shit that would have scared him if he’d cared to stay alive.
For years, I’ve held my marriage in a death grip. In early 2020, I took a “fertility” test I absolutely did not want to take out of fear that if I didn’t Geranium would leave me. I took the test to prevent divorce. Had I released that fear, I could have eschewed the test with ease.
Now? Let’s say I accept divorce as an option. I don’t fear it. Perhaps I even look forward to it, as a portal to the next stage of my wild and precious life.
What opens up?
First and foremost, the option of taking a deep breath and saying no. For example, to sharing a bed with Geranium’s snoring. And backing my choice not with appeals to fairness, or tales of past suffering, but with self-trust. Self-love. Answering his “Why?” with “Because I don’t want to.” That wild and precious clause.
“pressure to share the bed with his snoring, procure dependents, invest in the stock market, have frequent and spontaneous sex” is helpful framing. Seems possible to manage in collaboration, though nothing of the sort happening at all (notwithstanding a couple of hopeful sleeping sessions). Either way, a marriage with zero tolerance or creativity on all these points til kingdom come by one party and with the other party desiring at least nods and openness in those directions does seem fertile ground for ossification.