I knew everything when I was young...

I'll admit it, yes, the Taylor Swift song "Cardigan," did serve as the musical backdrop for this brief essay on self-accountability...

I was excited about this Substack. I spent the summer conceptualizing how it would look, what the tone and subject matter might be, how other writers were creating graphics, or building an audience. I wrote meandering drafts, spent hours on the research, and talked Grant’s ear off about my ideas for weeks. Showing up for yourself, even in the smallest of ways, is such a boon to the ego, to a healthy self-esteem, to a sense of motion in one’s own life. 

And then life did what it does. I started not one, but two new jobs. My husband worked three weeks straight and all the housework fell to me. The kitten ate a bag of treats–plastic and all–and had to go to the emergency vet. I found myself mired in family drama I didn’t ask to be included in, and then had to fight to extricate myself from, emotionally exhausted and hellbent on establishing better boundaries.

It is very tempting to feel bad about myself, especially when the expectations I have for my own capability don’t match the reality of how many hours exist in a day, how much mental energy a person should have, or when it’s okay to give up and smoke weed on the couch in an Internet K-hole.

I do think there’s something to it, this feeling that the moment you finally push through fear or imposter syndrome to the other side of an experience or goal you’d like to pursue, something, inevitably, comes up. 

I promised you something to read every two weeks. I bet most of you haven’t noticed it’s been over a month. And you don’t care. Why should you? It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve told myself that. This pressure to get it done is coming only from you. You make the rules and the rules you’re making are hard to follow.

But when do we know that we are burning the candle at both ends and when do we know that our tiny, internal voice of derision has our best interest at heart? That the secret to feeling better is to sit the fuck down and do the one thing that you said you’d do by now.

I struggle with this constantly. There’s the Protestant work ethic, there’s late-stage capitalism, there’s patriarchy, there’s the family system I grew up in, or my own relentless drive to be worthy of my life through productivity. 

But there’s also the very real need to hold oneself accountable. Part of why I turned to Substack was the built-in pressure of outside expectations and deadlines, even if they are arbitrarily set by me. 

There’s a lot to be said for strong-arming your way through the bullshit, but when it comes to the things I want, I think the less of a chore they can feel like, the better off I’ll be. It’s not realistic that every walk with my dog will be memorable or special. Today for example, I got bit by a small, brown spider and considered the possibility of pepper spraying a stray dog that approached us, briefly, growling. But once untangled from a thick, phantom thread of cobweb that wrapped itself around the leash, Billie’s snout, and my boot, I felt relief and a tinge of rugged self-pride. I don’t have to be out here in the bushes getting bitten by spiders, but I want to be, and I like what that says about me and what I can endure for a good walk in the woods.

Part of the beauty to be discovered in walking the dog is in finding the rhythm of joy in the routine. I find these types of duties particularly interesting. Like Substack, my choice to adopt a needy, high-energy Lab mix in May was my own. I did it because I thought it might be good for me, and I liked the idea of being outside every day, in all weather, discomfort be damned. I did it because I wanted to be helpful to another being in need. I did it because I wanted to. 

Now when I walk the dog, I think, Damn it, girl. You asked for this. 

I suppose the question is about the convergence of duty and delight. I suppose the question is how to contend with the reality that the romanticization of my future self is rarely the self that I will meet. I suppose the question is about how to find joy and ease within obligation, how to conceptualize the ways that I complicate my own life, and how to treat my personal goals with as much dedication as I do making the bed each morning, or walking the dog diligently through the woods, because I know its good for her, and I know its good for me. 

I can’t sit around and wait for inspiration to strike. I certainly can’t seem to tell myself I’ll get to writing, or to yoga, or to giving myself an afternoon off to wander through the thrift store alone when I feel like it. Honestly, when I sat down to start writing this essay, I wondered if I could argue it that way. It’s supposed to be fun. Take the pressure off yourself and just wait till you actually want to do it! 

I wish I could make that approach work.

Rather, it seems the joy is to be found in the steady effort, in the ebb and flow, in the failing and starting over and the failing and starting over again. But what I can’t do is continually put my dreams last and expect that if I fill the day with endless tasks and errands, obligations and distractions, by the time I’ve barreled my way through my to-do list, there will be time or energy left for my writing, for starting a small business with my best friend, for volunteering at the animal shelter, for finishing that freelance project, for yoga teacher training, for me. 

If I were to gather stones and one large rock from the river bank that runs through the woods, and arrange them inside a large Mason jar, how would I ensure that each one fit? If I start with the pebbles, layering them up, smooth and brown and speckled, I’ll discover that there isn’t room for my rock. It will sit awkwardly on the top of the stones, a jagged edge jammed against the thick rim of the glass. But if I put the rock at the base of the jar, and then pile the smaller stones on top, they’ll sift and fall into the spaces around it, naturally accommodating its presence. 

This is a concept popularized by Stephen Covey, the author of First Things First.  The premise is so simple: start with the big rocks. What do I want to have created by this time next year? What do I want to have experienced? And will it matter if I keep my bathtub clean if I did it at the expense of my life?

I guess what I’m saying is straight from Jenny Holzer: “The mundane is to be cherished.” I guess what I’m saying is it doesn’t have to be perfect to be exactly right. I guess what I’m saying is that balance, for me, no longer denotes an even scale. 

I know that if I sit and write, I’ll feel better about myself and the day ahead, especially if I do it first, with a warm cup of too-sweet coffee and the the kitten asleep in my lap. I know too that the big rocks seem really heavy sometimes. That filling the jar of each day with tiny pebble after pebble can be tempting. Don’t all these pebbles add up to something substantial? Why don’t I feel as good after I’ve gone to the grocery store, swept the porch steps, and spent an hour folding laundry? Wasn’t that more productive? How can I both want to write and also want to avoid it at all costs? 

Victoria Crayhon!

What might it feel like to start treating my goals and dreams as if they are obligations from a past self, extended to me in the present, for my edification, and for my future success? Forgive me for the woo-woo, but what if my younger self knew that walking a dog every day would be really good for me, and set about setting it up? What if past Mallory is guiding my present steps? What if she knew, instinctively, that creating a Substack and launching it well before she felt ready would compel me to write more consistently, to grapple more deeply with my own life? What if I could trust in the wisdom of myself at 15, or 19, or 22? What if I could even trust in the wisdom of my future self? But let’s not get started on retrocausality… 

In the gray morning light of the kitchen table, I sit down with myself. Sometimes stoned, sometimes sober, sometimes soaked in sunshine, sex, or sadnesss. And whatever version of myself that greets me is the version I’ll greet back, whoever she was or will be, and we begin the task that lies ahead.