A few months ago, I poured my heart into an essay and submitted to The New York Times’ Modern Love column. It was my first time writing a personal essay in many years. The joy I found in working on a short piece is part of the reason I decided to start Substacking (is this a thing people say?) Whether or not that essay has a life beyond the Modern Love editorial team’s inbox remains to be seen, but it’s been sent to various executives and producers as a writing sample.
Soon after submitting the essay, I went to Los Angeles to perform my solo show Almost Hot. I hadn’t been back to LA in a couple of years — while my relationship with the city is complicated and strained, it’s the closest place to a “hometown” that I have. LA is the longest I’ve lived anywhere. I had the most formative moments of my life there. I also had the darkest depressions of my life in Los Angeles and have only a few meaningful relationships left in the city. I was nervous about returning, especially to perform considering I’d never been on stage in LA. The trip also happened to be a week before my birthday and the existential dread I had around turning 33 was unparalleled in my aging process thus far.
As soon as I landed in Burbank*, I felt a release and knew the trip would be a good one. I had a sense of returning home.
I had a handful of in-person meetings which was a nice change of pace from staring at a Zoom window.
One of my meetings was at a beloved production company. We sat at a conference table, surrounded by framed posters of their iconic movies. The executives told me how much they loved my “short story.” I’ve never written a short story and wondered if I was being confused with someone else. One of the executives looked me in the eye, “I felt so sorry for the main character. She just couldn’t figure it out.”
It dawned on me that they were talking about my essay, a work of non-fiction, about me and my life. Well observed of them, honestly — most of the time, I can’t figure “it” out, whatever “it” is at any given time. I did not have the heart to tell them that I was, in fact, the person they felt sorry for. I nodded and said, “Oh yeah, she really went through it.” I almost added that I used to feel sorry for her too.
That night, one of the executives came to see Almost Hot. The theater was small enough that I could see his face. I watched him realize - in real time - that I was the main character of my short story. I wonder if seeing my show made him feel more or less sorry for me. I’ll never know. It was nice to be the main character for a moment.
Without revealing that my essay was non-fiction, I wasn’t able to encourage the executives not to feel sorry for her/me — the catharsis of writing my essay had released most of the pain of the experiences I highlighted. Maybe that’s the point of narrativizing real life experiences: in some way, creating a story out of personal truth allows it to transform into fiction. Does that mean my personal essay was a short story all along?
*Flying in and out of the Burbank Airport makes traveling to LA at least 50% more pleasant.