Retrospect

In a Word with Jacey Verdicchio

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Hey there!

I recently shared some thoughts on perfectionism on Instagram. I’d had a rough week or so, in my own head. I hesitated to share about it, because it feels so navel-gazey and self indulgent to wax on about how I cannot cope in the midst of my very good and #blessed existence.

But this has been one of my most masochistic tendencies around perfectionism—to heap it onto the pile of things I berate myself for: why can’t you stop being so hard on yourself? Feeling bad for feeling bad has never made me feel better. And crippling anxiety and upheaval that starts in my own mind is still crippling.

So I shared that post when I genuinely thought I was coming out of it. But I kept feeling retroactive dread, which is how I define feeling regret, but combined with fear about what the regrettable thing means. (A thoughtless comment becomes a referendum on my character, a hyperbolized fear that no one will ever confide in me again.)

While this anxiety maelstrom was happening in my gut (and often spilling over to unsuspecting innocents in my life), I was trying to work on a project related to this newsletter. But you know what doesn’t pair well with creative work? An outsized fear of mistakes, and what those mistakes will mean.

Perhaps it will not surprise you that I wanted to crawl in bed every time I tried to work on it. And that the phrase, “I tender my resignation from the internet” crossed my mind every couple hours. It’s embarrassing to admit, but that’s how I felt.

I wasn’t going to release an issue today, because I’d spent all my writing time buried under myself. But then the word retrospect came to mind. It’s commonly accepted that “hindsight is 20/20,” but it’s not, not always. In the midst of a perfectionism flare up, hindsight lies to me. It paints the past in a self-focused light that paralyzes me from moving forward. I’m so grateful to be in the flow of creativity again, however flawed the product. Thanks for joining me in diving backwards this week.

PS. Listen to In A Word’s companion podcast here, or by using the play button or “listen in podcast app” link above.

In this issue, you’ll find a toast to the past, followed by a retrospective collection, and a closing benediction.

A Toast—

To all the plans that went awry, to all the roads not taken. To the romances that blew up, and the business ideas that didn’t.

To the false starts and failures that lit my cheeks on fire. To bright ideas that flickered out, to tear-stained rejection letters and unrequited crushes.⁣ ⁣

To the unfinished drafts and unkept promises. To unseen dangers bypassed, and treasures I only recognized as fool’s gold once they’d passed me by. To goals that turned my knuckles white before I knew to let them go.⁣⁣

Here’s to all I ever wanted, and didn’t get. I wouldn’t trade now for all the ever-afters I imagined, and so I toast them for leading me here.

Recursion probes the same themes as Stephen King’s 11/22/63 (about a man trying to retroactively prevent the assassination of JFK) but more compellingly and in half the pages.

The recently released 1619 Project is a somber, evocative reckoning with the impact of slavery in America over the 400 years since the first ship carrying enslaved Africans landed on our shores. I’ve been listening to the audio series. (Novelist Jesmyn Ward’s piece at the end of episode two is particularly stunning.)

Girl, Disrupted: Anna Weiner reflects on her four years working in the start-ups.

Hello Forgetfulness; Hello Mother: An aging writer reflects on her mother’s decline, and her own.

Some last links worth a click:

* In Retrospect, The Theme for Chad’s 4th Birthday Party Should Not Have Been “Stanford Prison Experiment”

* The 25 Most Important Characters of the Past 25 Years

May the past be our teacher, but never our master.

May we look back to see what’s keeping us from moving forward. If we find painful words reverberating off the cave walls of a dark memory, may we begin the work of letting them go. May we no longer be shrunk, defined, or imprisoned by someone else’s projected pain.

May we take heart while fumbling through foggy days, thirsting for clarity. When our eyes strain to see what’s ahead, our feet are learning to move through the vapor of uncertainty. Beyond our quest to be like gods—all knowing, all seeing—is the very hand of God, outstretched to meet ours.

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts on anything this issue calls to mind for you. Simply respond to this email to let me know.

Gratefully, Jacey

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