Just F*cking Relax, Shani

For anyone trained to be afraid of ease.

Welcome to Cheaper Than Therapy, a healing newsletter for 80s babies by Shani Silver. This newsletter does not publish free content, but if you’d like to read it you can subscribe here. Thank you for enjoying the work of independent writers.

I call this piece: Beads In A Bush. New Orleans, you minx.

I was raised to feel bad when things feel good. There’s no other way to say it. In my subconscious, the place my inner child lives and thrives and lights bottle rockets, I understand ease, downtime, and fun as things that are bad, as though something’s coming to punish me for engaging in such useless activities. If enjoyable things are happening, that means I’m doing something wrong. My upbringing taught me that if I feel happy, I should immediately get up and do something else, something that makes other people’s lives easier or earns money—otherwise I should feel deeply ashamed for being so lazy. That’s the reason my unique brand of anxiety doesn’t occur when shit’s hitting the fan—it only boils over when I’m in my most chilled-out state. That, friends, is some bullshit.

There’s a reason why people raised like me can’t relax. There’s a reason why we resist things like meditation or working out without AirPods in our ears. There’s a reason we don’t particularly enjoy lounging around or vacations on beaches. To us, doing nothing isn’t doing enough. I am deeply tired of feeling this way, so I’d like to talk about a few ways I’ve tried to turn myself into a normal person, with your permission.