The Wrong Way to Save Your Life: Essays

by Megan Stielstra

But here’s the thing: There’s never a right time to have a dog. To have a child if you so choose. To fall in love or write a book or perform a poem or put your heart on the goddamn table. I’ll go to the next open mic, we say. And: Next month I’ll sign up for a class. And: I’ll quit my job later. Doesn’t matter that I’m miserable, I have to wait for the lateral move or the substantive raise or the fully funded position and hey, how’s that going for you? You wake up one day and there it is. You say yes or you say no.

It’s got me thinking: Wouldn’t it be great if it could go like that with people? You get to a certain distance and call out: “It’s okay! I’m friendly!” or “Steer clear, I’m an asshole!” or “no motherfucker i did not hurt myself on my fall from heaven.”

Recently I asked a friend, a woman very involved with her church, why it meant so much to her. She talked about the importance of community, of service, of giving back to this wild, beautiful world. I identified fiercely: what she found in church was what I’d found in art. “But that isn’t God,” I said. “That’s people.” And she said, “Same thing.”

“I want to say ‘Hey, Mama! You looked like a badass bitch taking on those wolves!’ and ‘Aren’t those wolves crazy?!’ and ‘Tell me how you’re surviving these wolf attacks.’” That’s the kind of mother I’d like to be: generous, empathetic, open to the new.

I hope you have a person like that in your life. One who reminds you to choose joy.

“You’re totally normal,” the receptionist said. “You’re all totally normal.” I still carry those words. A life raft. A lighthouse. The last canteen in a dying desert.

I wanted to give Sophia a unicorn. I wanted to hug Sarah but the table was at a weird angle. I wanted a better angle. I wanted a better world.

Look: they’re both happy now. But it’s nice to see that they were happy then.

You can’t fix it if you can’t see it.

The question isn’t: what would you grab in a fire? It’s: what has meaning in our lives?

The mind’s got nothing on the gut.

This was one of a thousand nights that could’ve gone one way, but it went another.