September

By Lena Fine

Photography by Eibhlin Lee

I started getting frustrated thinking about all the projects I started and never finished, all the things I told myself I’d write and never did. And then I got so sick of it all and so angry that I knew it was time to change.

In September I was so hungry. Hungry for a life and a career I don’t know if I’ll ever have. I also adopted this new mindset that makes me feel insane which is just betting on myself completely. I’ve stopped thinking of any backup plans in my life because I have to be so certain that things will work out the way I want them to. This will either prove to be epic and totally cool or the makings of some washed up thirty-seven year old who has to figure it all out again because she really thought she could be Something. It is so cruel that so many of the big things in life could be the best thing ever or the most depressing thing you’ve ever heard of. 

September brought me a lot of silence. I would just walk around for hours with nothing better to do than think. It sucked a lot of the time, but sometimes it was nice, and I’d forgotten what it was like to really be with myself. In September I started ripping open that seam in my chest that I’d sewn closed over the last few years. Afraid of love, afraid of feeling, afraid of opening up to just feel unwanted again…it all got a little old. To be honest, it got incredibly boring being so bitter all the time. Being cold-hearted is only fun for a few months, then you realize it’s a complete waste of time and there’s something to be said for tenderness. I think all the time I had alone with myself made me feel alright admitting that I wanted to feel tender so badly, actually. I’ve changed my way of thinking about it; it’s not like before when I was seventeen and told myself I wasn’t looking for love when really I was peeking through my hands. This time around it’s more about who I can be if I share a little bit of it with someone else. 

I spent so much of September feeling so anxious about the passing of time. Every moment felt so precious, its temporariness deafening. I found myself drowning in commitment paralysis, wanting to say yes to everything but not being able to see two days in front of me. And something about it all made me feel a little like a failure, like I didn’t want something enough to go after it or like I wasn’t making the most of things. And, of course, feeling rotten in one way often amplifies all the other ways. I started feeling dumb in my loneliness, coming up with reasons that weren’t real to validate it. I started getting frustrated thinking about all the projects I started and never finished, all the things I told myself I’d write and never did. And then I got so sick of it all and so angry that I knew it was time to change. I like when change comes like that, when it’s ugly. Sometimes it doesn’t come from waking up one morning and breathing in fresh air and doing something else romantic, sometimes it comes from being so bored of feeling sorry for yourself that for the sake of entertainment and sanity you realize you ought to do something about it. At the end of the day, what’s the point in feeling so lame? September planted seeds. October’s sure to have rain, but I think I’ll let enough sunshine in for things to actually grow.