Spirals of intimacy

who has access to which parts of you, and when, and why?

Wild Letters is a newsletter about self-exploration and building a right-fit life.

Thank you for being here with me!

print by Abacus Corvus Artwork

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My dear reader.

On July 6, five years to the day since we first met on the Pacific Crest Trail, Gent and I got married.

We made the decision back in January, and after years of being unsure of whether or not marriage was the right-fit path for us I was surprised at just how peaceful and fulfilled I felt when it finally came time to exchange our vows.

The ceremony was small and quiet, just the two of us at our local town hall. We wore clothes we already owned. I held a little handmade bouquet. We both cried.

Getting married during the depths of my depression felt like the most beautiful both/and I have ever experienced. Life can be so hard and so wondrous, often at the exact same time.

Back home after the ceremony we shared the news with our parents and a handful of friends. Excitement and celebration poured in. And through it all there was absolutely no part of me that wanted to post even a single photo of our wedding on Instagram.

One of the most impactful changes I made over the past few months was to stop sharing pictures of my life on the internet.

This was not a carefully pre-planned decision; it was a quick and intuitive choice I made in response to how deeply exhausted I felt from so many years of being so accessible to so many people in so many ways on so many platforms. I had no idea what it would take to recover from that kind of emotional/relational/space-holding burnout, but something inside of me knew right away that no longer using images of my life as “content” could only help.

So I stopped using social media, and I switched to pairing my essays here on Wild Letters with prints I love, from Abacus Corvus Artwork, instead of adding a personal photo to each piece like I used to think I “should” be doing.

This might seem like a small change, relying on words and art instead of photos, but I cannot overstate how profoundly effective it has been to not share images of my life with strangers on the internet. The immense freedom of no longer looking at any aspect of my daily existence (my morning walk, my dog, my backyard, my partnership, my hobbies, my literal face and body) as fodder to be captured and then consumed by others is something I did not realize I so desperately needed.

What is mine, and what is for sharing? If something is being shared, why? And where? And with who?

These are questions I have gotten even more curious about over the past few months, and in my curiosity I have allowed myself to question everything. My public book list, for example. I stopped updating it at the end of June, interested to see if what I chose to read (or how much I read) would change as a result. Why do I keep a public book list, anyway? I already share a curated selection of links in each month’s What’s Working column, which often includes book recommendations, so why do I think I need to give people even more than that? Why do I often feel like what I do is not enough unless I give everything?

Part of it, I think, is rooted in the value I place on being helpful. If there is something I could share that might be useful to someone else, my first impulse is always to do it. Give give give, share share share. What do I gain when I do this? A small sense of purpose, the delight of being liked and appreciated, a chance to connect with others who resonate with what I share — all wonderful benefits.

But. What do I lose when I am constantly opening myself up and giving it all away? That is what I am currently exploring, the right-fit balance of honesty and privacy, the ever-evolving boundaries around how much of my life I want to include in my work at any given time.

As the summer begins to wind down I am struck by the feeling that I have nothing to show for it. No big accomplishments, no completed projects, no backpacking trips, no travel, no new friends, no wildly fun memories, no in-progress goals, nothing tangible that I can point to and say: Look! This is what I did in the summer of 2023.

What’s most fascinating to me about this isn’t the feeling of having nothing to show for the past few months, it’s the phrasing. Nothing to “show” for it. Who is expecting a show-and-tell from me? Why do I think I need to be able to show anyone anything?

Right now I am so grateful to no longer be experiencing a mental health crisis. My antidepressants are working. The changes I’ve made to support my own well-being are doing exactly what I hoped they would.

As a result, almost everything that happened for me this summer happened internally. I have never been less productive in my entire adult life than I was this summer, but just because a time period was unproductive doesn't mean it wasn't deeply meaningful, and valuable too. So I have nothing to “show” for it, so what? I do not want that to be the yardstick I use to measure my life.

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More soon—

Nic