All The Fucking Shoes
On therapy breakthroughs, skunks, and not being able to publish the shit that matters most.
My therapist says one of my greatest fears
is when the other shoe is going to drop.
Because it always does.
Usually right after our appointments.
I wish I was exaggerating, but it’s almost on cue. As soon as I have some semblance of a breakthrough—a moment of clarity, a sense of stability within myself—the universe comes in with a heavy-handed metaphor that unravels me. It doesn’t undo the work I’ve done (or am doing) on myself—if anything, it makes me more resolved in my efforts at personal growth—but it definitely fucks with me. It shakes me out of positive headspaces, cracks whatever creative path I was on in half; it rattles me deeply, because it’s usually so fucking ridiculous I don’t even know how it’s real.
Again, I wish I was exaggerating.
And more so, I wish I could write about it.
Well, I do write about it. But I can’t publish it, which is painstaking for someone who spent twenty years working through their life on the internet. Not that I recommend that. Especially not in the godforsaken year of 2025. But it’s a matter of habit. Of process. Of a deranged need to document. One that I’ve had to learn to repress.
I used to write like I had nothing to lose.
Because I didn’t.
I was young and broke and on my own in Los Angeles, working three dead-end jobs, seven days a week, just to afford living with a drug dealer and a heroin addict who was a hoarder by day, sex worker by night (not that there’s anything wrong with sex work, but there is a lot wrong when all of my dishes are in someone’s bedroom under mountains of McDonald’s bags and cat shit). I did not know this when I moved in with them. I just thought we all liked the same music.
Sort of like why I moved to Echo Park—for the music—but failed to realize I lived across from a gang house until I experienced strays through my windows from multiple drive-by shootings.
I’d already ostracized myself from most of my family. Not that I cared, because I’d felt ostracized by them my whole life. Admittedly, I probably didn’t need to write MySpace blogs about (fictionally) stealing cleaning products from each of their houses to make meth. But to my defense, a cashier at Albertsons I went to high school with told me one of my aunts said I was a meth-head. Which pissed me off, because I hadn’t even smoked a cigarette [lights another cigarette].
My parents were in and out of rehab. I lied about going to college, despite never sending out a single application. And I got my degree from my Santa Monica acting school revoked after writing yet another public, satirical, overtly vitriolic blog post—this time about finding their Craigslist ad, giving away free tickets to our graduation to see our speaker, David Mamet… while charging students and their families $50.
I had a boyfriend, but we were in our early twenties. It wasn’t like he was my long-term partner (ha, twelve years), and I didn’t feel the need to protect him at the expense of my comedy (aside from his identity, which publicly became “Dudefriend”). My only priority was my life-long dream to write and perform.
So yeah, I wrote like I had nothing to lose.
Which only got me as far as realizing
I had everything to lose—
and I’d already lost it.
Because I couldn’t see it once I had it.
I couldn’t see how hard I’d worked.
Couldn’t see what I’d achieved.
Couldn’t see that
I even deserved something to lose.
The shoes all dropped:
money, relationships, sanity.
And I was the one that dropped them.
So here I am, at 5:22AM
(typical, but again—not recommended)
wishing I could just publish
whatever I wanted,
like I have nothing to lose.
I was in a great mood, after a great therapy session. I was about to write about the first dinner party I’ve hosted since I’ve been divorced and go to bed at a reasonable hour.
And then the other shoe dropped.
Once again my reality was distorted, my creative flow not just disturbed but entirely dissipated. And then, I thought my dog got sprayed by a skunk, so I went full deskunk mode, only to later realize he wasn’t skunked at all: a skunk had sprayed under my sunroom and skunked up half my house because it was built in the 1910s and there’s nothing under the floorboards except a creature I am now engaged in (their) chemical warfare with.
And I just want to
write about the fucking shoes.
All the fucking shoes.
But I can’t.
I can’t afford to drop all my shoes again.
Not when the universe
is already doing it for me.
This isn’t because I’m living in fear.
It’s because I’ve grown to live in place & time, in cost-risk assessment, in strategy.
Because I am living in reality—
knowing there is more to lose
than whatever the fuck I didn’t move
out of the goddamn, skunked-up sunroom.
And because I have
been writing about the shoes.
I just have to wait for the place & time,
when the cost outweighs the risk,
and strategy has become success—
to publish it all.
If you enjoyed this post but aren’t ready to commit to a paid subscription, consider buying me a sparkling water. 💦
All collages © Marissa A. Ross. Do not reproduce without permission.