April 10, 2025 • Brooke Siem
Letter from a past life: What I found after scrubbing the screws on my toilet.
For months, I’ve felt like I just got on one of those carnival rides where you sit down, strap in, and let a rusty elevator take you to the top of a tower. Even though the elevator is gently taking you away from familiar ground, you know that at some point, the elevator will stop, open its doors, and give you a view of the world you’re about to drop into. And then, just as you relax into the view, the floor will fall away and gravity will take over, leaving you with no option other than to feel the rush.
I keep waiting for the elevator doors to open and show me a new world. It is coming. I can feel it and I’ve been feeling it for months. In October, I lost my main client and most of my work evaporated overnight. I challenged myself to simply wait, as itchy as it was because I could feel this something coming. I could feel myself standing in line, putting on a seatbelt, and waiting to move.
Every few years I seem to come back here, to a place of uncomfortably long stagnancy with no clear direction. The last time this happened was in August 2017. I was at the tail end of both a year of international travel and a year and some months of antidepressant withdrawal. I didn’t have a job or an address, but I had signed a flimsy book deal for a book called LADYBALLS. Though I still love the title, that book never came to be, but its existence contained the zygote of what would eventually become MAY CAUSE SIDE EFFECTS.
On a rooftop in Buenos Aires, I wrote myself a letter and dated it January 1, 2018. Why I thought six months was an appropriate open date, I don’t remember. But I do remember that when the new year rolled around, I looked at the unopened letter and knew it wasn’t time to read it. Days before, the book deal for LADYBALLS fell apart. I fired my agent and my publisher in a blind move that turned out to be the best career decision I’ve ever made. I couldn’t remember the specifics of the letter, but I knew if I opened it, I would only feel frustration and shame. So I stuffed it in a folder and forgot about it.
Until yesterday.
My strategy for dealing with general overwhelm is to spontaneously deep clean my home. Typically, a stressor appears—good, bad, doesn’t matter—and within a day, I decide my house is unacceptable. I am already known to vacuum in the middle of a dinner party, but this takes it to another level. In the words of Monica Gellar, the compulsive chef on Friends: “Not just health department clean. Monica clean.”
Yesterday, I signed a contract with a new client, thereby imbuing me with all sorts of problems to solve. After attempting—and failing—to solve all those problems in one morning, I came home and began scrubbing the screws on my toilet. Which led to re-lining drawers. And going through my closet. And cleaning out my desk, where I found a brittle, unopened yellow envelope dated January 1, 2018.
I smiled, sure that inside the letter was something about a $50,000 book deal that never materialized. Enough time had passed and I figured I could handle whatever was in there, even if what was in there was nothing but disappointment.
The back side:
I chuckled at the line, “By the time you read this, you’ll know where you’re going to live.” That is the only bit in there that isn’t quite settled. Something on the carnival ride feels like I’m not staying put much longer.
Everything else, though, has manifested. I wrote the book. And it’s good. And I finished on time, and I am happy with the words I wrote and the things I believe. The money came, too. And that independence. Real independence, because that year and these years gave me the gift of confidence and a voice—a true voice.
By the time I opened this, I had an address to come home to. And I can pay for it. And I am surrounded by people who love me. The negativity that followed me is a distant memory. I am me. And I am paid to be me. I am content, happy, full, and free.
I can’t remember if, when I wrote the letter, I really believed any of it would come true. I knew I wanted to believe, and that I’d seen glimpses of light during antidepressant withdrawal that at least taught me I was capable of experiencing a life I never imagined.
I share this with you because I can feel that I’m reaching the top of the elevator and that when it opens up and the ride truly begins, I know my story is going to reach even more people. So far, I’ve been able to keep up with the amount of correspondence I receive from people suffering from antidepressant withdrawal. Sometimes it takes a while, but I get there. I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be able to respond to everyone.
So, for everyone who is suffering, let this letter serve as an example of possibility. This can be your future if you keep the course and keep doing the work. Most times, the hard way is actually the easy way. Let it be hard. Feel it. Process it. Because at the other end is light.
Light
Light
Light
Light
Light
Light
Light
Joy
Love
Acceptance.
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