I've Always Lacked Patience

I’m waiting for my book to sell and have a million drafts that I won’t publish. I apply for jobs I don’t want, I pitch essays I don’t want to write, I spend time with people I’m not sure if I tolerate or I’m just bored need some company in a new state. I don’t feel like I can focus in the summer, anyway.

My old friend said he’d mail me the adderall I bought from him but he never gave it to me, but I didn’t want him to ship it. He is living in hotels now, but he used to have over a million in cash in his safe. He had a day car and a night car. He used to dress like a typical punk, but then he started dressing Western because it was trendy. He wore a lot of rings and snakeskin cowboy boots. Now he goes to parties in trailer parks and is trying to get back his daughter who has the same name as my daughter. He mows my friend’s grass for money and she doesn’t give it to him because he owes me money.

I’m waiting for my book to sell and I revisit “Summertime Sadness” by Lana. It’s not that I didn’t understand “Summertime Sadness” until now, I always have. Even in the summers during undergrad, I felt lost. I pride myself in not needing a schedule. My now husband bought me a butterfly necklace with the words “free spirit” a few months after we met. Being in my early 30’s, although not old, makes me feel almost irresponsible for pursuing high-risk / high-reward dreams and careers. I value time over money, but in the summer I have to remind myself of my values.

Again, The Official Nancy Drew Newsletter has paused paid subscriptions at this time, as so much of what we read is behind a paywall and the written word is getting harder and harder to find. If you enjoy my writing and content on Substack or Tiktok, please consider making a one-time donation via Venmo (@hioklindsey). If you want to support me in payment of a gift card or other form, please send me an email. I freelance while also being the primary care-giver of my toddler. All income goes toward living everyday life. Also! I’m writing a book! Stay tuned.

In my 20’s the DIY music scene was a large part of my life. I went to multiple shows a week for years and years, up until COVID first hit. I lived in my first punk house when I was 19 with 12 other people. I went to a house show this weekend, a place I’ve been a few times before, but never stayed later because I had my daughter with me. All I felt was white men commanding space and yelling over each other about records and magic tricks and I wondered if this was also a lot of my 20’s. No my space was much more diverse, I try to tell myself on the walk home. I felt weird about it for a while, but the next day the U.S bombed Iran and I forgot about it.

I’m waiting for my book to sell and I find myself becoming bored. I don’t get bored though, I’m Lindsey Louise. I have hobbies, I have friends, I even have friends in the new state I moved to less than a year ago. My family left my house today and I have 5+ unlisted to voice texts from friends across the country. I invite people over to my house to sit in my blow-up Walmart pool and listen to whatever places from my liked songs on Spotify. I got a little burnt, I had a few Coors and a ginger malt beverage a new friend of mine left at my house. I find myself missing my friends in different parts of the country. My friends who would talk about their work drama at Costco without any explanation or preface, get confused when dinner reservations were made instead of grilling in someone’s backyard, and understand the importance of the balance of good music and Will Smith playing on the water-resistant speaker that will probably die too early in the night.

I moved to a city that has a lot of wealth. I find myself noticing the people trying to climb the social status ladder. I find them distancing themselves from me because I do not subscribe to the same ladder climbing and my entire identity isn’t what gear I should buy to go on xyz outdoor activity (I camp a lot, it’s very cheap, you don’t need expensive items lol). Unless of course they are online, or in an arts scene of any kind, then I hold some kind of social value. I find myself pissing off girlfriends and wives, and somehow I’ve befriended more men that I’d like to. I keep asking where are the fellow white trash moms, and they don’t live here because they can’t afford it. I can’t afford it either. I’ve made friends with two moms and one reads my Substack. I appreciate them, and I wonder if I seek community in ways that take years to form because I am restless.

I recently had a bbq at an almost million dollar house, something I had never done before. I felt nothing, I think they felt cultured by me, or at least entertained. The house was in a very nice neighborhood. I felt proud for a second, in some way, that I had no desire to live there.

My dad makes stained glass. He made pride flag hearts and bought me one. I grew up in a very conservative suburb, my friends in elementary school had cut-outs of Bush in their basements and their parents told stories of “horrors” (absurd lies) that Al Gore did to his family. There are QAnon flags on my parent’s street. When I see a pride flag here, I feel nothing, it feels capitalist almost. When I will see the pride flag stained glass hanging from my parent’s window, I will feel pride in them (lol but really, yes). Performance doesn’t happen in a red state, in a conservative town, it happens where pride is capitalized from.

I’m waiting for my book to sell and I feel restless. I should book a trip. I posted my Venmo on my Instagram story for all the boys from the DIY days that still follow me to pay me somewhere between $10-$50. One did. This was just a few hours ago, so I am expecting more. But I’m also not expecting. I think I’ll go to Florida and go the beach. I’ll go out with my cousins to clubs in downtown Orlando and then say “I’m not doing that again” while one of them vomits out of a car window. I’ll spend the rest of the trip going to bakeries, Epcot maybe, and an apartment pool. I’ll check my email many times a day to see what updates my agent has. I will stress out on the plane ride home. I’ll come home and my daughter will have missed me and my husband will have cleaned the house—he will also have missed me, but he will be happy I got to go somewhere for a while by myself.

It’s a heat wave and I like it. I miss wearing sports bras as outfits in Texas and going on my walk before 11am because otherwise my newborn daughter couldn’t go out in the heat. I never thought I’d say that. My aunt once asked me how it is to live in a blue state, in a blue BLUE bubble, and I said I liked it… but if I felt like elaborating I’d say it feels about the same as living in the most conservative college town in the country. It’s performance, just one is blue and one is red. Community is rare to an outsider. One place you must belong to the church and attend the football games, and in the other you must show you class signifiers and correct someone who says “homeless” to say “unhoused” while they get a low ABV beer from their Yeti cooler. Both go to bed at the end of the day thinking they did something great.

I’m waiting on my book to sell and I wonder if I should have been a dentist. If I should have dropped out of my undergrad and became a dental hygienist or a vet tech, like everyone thinks when they get exhausted from college. I wonder if I should have went to grad school and how many other things I could do with the 60k I’m in debt for. I wonder if I should have ever quit my fashion blog in the 2010’s, if I should have tried harder to find an agent with my screen play or with my young adult novel back in 2016. I wonder if pausing everything since February to write my proposal, write my sample chapters, conduct my research, find an agent, and put every bean into one bag was worth it. I debated how I will look back at this post in the future for a few minutes until I decided to hit send.

I think I’ll buy the plane ticket now.