BJ’s This or That | Writing Goals | Challenge
Plan Your Funeral Party Theme for Writers: “That Bitch was Sick”
Tombstone desires from a wordy 30-something
I said I’d do this challenge, but shit was getting bleak so I thought I’d raise this roof a little and talk about my death instead.
What? Is there a problem? Blame the host of this party. Better yet, don’t blame her. Join this 30-day reality bath (and writer’s challenge). This water is REAL, right Keeley, et al?
I’m putting my own positive spin on some of these questions because my days can’t be spent deep-diving the crevices of my mental ocean floor.
Today I’m writing about sickness and tomorrow is my first childhood memory…Do you know how much therapy I’ve had to peel back the layers of my upbringing only to find my first memory is…tomorrow.
You know what’s less dark than my first childhood memory? Death. My death. It’s going to be epic.
Of course, people will cry and miss me, but I won’t be anxious anymore. I’ll have written tons of fabulous words lifting up every human ever by then. I’ll leave a full life too soon, but my words will outlive me and I hope that at the end of it all, all people will say about me is:
“That bitch? She was sick.”
I’m not talking head sick or drug sick or sick sick, like so sick. The urban dictionary kind of sick. The type of sick that’s far superior to any of the other sicks.
Sick: (adjective)
“…exceptionally cool.”
— From urbandictionary.com
I have been sick sick before. I was sick when I was 3 or 4 and spent days in the hospital for something I don’t think the doctors ever diagnosed.
I was anorexic and almost died from exhaustion at 14 — a combination of body sick and head sick.
I’ve been a danger to myself a couple of times, once at the end of college (circa 2008) and the other a few months back, in September 2022. That is, a suicide risk because I’m mincing words and hate mincing words. My mental health has posed the biggest threat to me in my life.
But I don’t want to talk about that. I had therapy earlier this week, so I’ve hashed enough of that rubbish. Besides, I have to write about my earliest childhood memory tomorrow so we’re going to keep it light and airy.
Okay, okay. Death isn’t light and airy. But imagining the way the world will go on when all that is left of me is my words feels oddly inspiring right now.
What is the sickest you’ve ever been?
I am the sickest I’ve ever been. My words are flowing and they are so, so sick. I hope that makes me the sick bitch I’ve always dreamed of being.
When my words flow, I feel alive. I feel connected and powerful. I’m living this truth right now and it scares me because I really don’t want to live any other way, but in true “anxious enthusiast” fashion,
I want more.
I want more than this. I want more for my life. I want more words and more time writing the words that fuel the flames of my passionate days.
I want to love more and travel and have and taste and touch and see. I want to leave my mark, one word at a time. I’m realizing that there will never be enough time for the words I want to write so I better keep on keeping on and do my best to get as many of them down as I can.
Even on the days it feels like a slog and no one is listening, writers gotta write.
Every day is not a gorgeous stroll through Central Park in my neck of the woods, but that’s because living my life as me may never be easy. I’m learning that in therapy.
I thought therapy would make my life easier, but it turns out, it’s helping me see how hard it is. The hope is that as I see my truth, I will learn to have compassion for myself and others who struggle like I do with the basics.
As I learn to live with my brokenness, I am realizing how much control I don’t have over my days. In spite of this, I carry on.
I practice facing my days with as much bravery as I can muster. I sit typing words to fill this page as my smooth, small, rhythmic voice reads aloud every word that falls into place.
I’ve always dreamed of being bold and expressive. I wanted to be brave, powerful, and untouchable above all things.
I no longer want to be untouchable. I want to be touched. I want my tombstone to be touched, perhaps for luck (after I die). But if it’s not and my words live in books instead of town squares, I want my tombstone to have four words on it, repeated in every language ever known:
“This bitch was sick.”
I’m Brett Jenae Tomlin, The Anxious Enthusiast.
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Keeley Schroder’s January Writer’s Challenge:
