A few months ago my bra was more for formality than for form. See, my appetite hides when stress comes lumbering up on stage and I’d lost a couple pounds in the past year. So the Calvin Klein contraption just sorta takes claim of some space somewhere between my belly button and my neck. So, naturally, I spent a good amount of time at my desk clicking my favorite pen over and over, staring out the window and worrying the bra cups would cave in during a business meeting and I’d look literally deflated. Fear not, though, given the mildly intelligent person I am, I concocted two to three recovery plans to tackle this should the moment have arrived. They included, but weren’t not limited to, yelling “spider!” loudly and pointing toward the wall behind my startled audience while slyly popping the suckers back out with a quick flick my Bic pen. If they caught me I’d fake a mild seizure, which would possibly explain my outburst and I’d be home free.

Oh, the past several months. They were awkward, challenging months. Something like solving a jigsaw puzzle in the dark but, fortunate for me, with really great friends and family who stepped in and tried to coax me away from the pieces like tugging a child away from electrical outlets. Helpful folks to have around. They tried to distract me. Took me to dinner and to IKEA because they wanted to show me what hell really feels like. And I went because there are lingonberry juice boxes. They told me it all ends up working out. “You’ll solve the puzzle,” they’d say. ‘Just turn on the fucking lights,’ I felt them thinking. But I wasn’t not there yet. I was set in my misery reading Edgar Allen Poe and watching the Kardashians discuss laser hair removal. Educational, though. Trying to solve the puzzle piece by piece is damn hard, especially when I never wanted to do the puzzle in the first place. Especially when I absolutely hate puzzles (what’s the point? I’ll just buy the picture whole if I like it so much. And I don’t. Underwater dogs? Babies in flowerpots?).

I’ll admit there were times in the past year that I felt like the puzzle was more like pouring two buckets of manure into one bucket. Impossible and shitty. It didn’t feel possible to accomplish it—to survive the task. And, I really hadn’t been. Surviving, let alone living, that is. Mostly because of this: I sucked at being my own best friend.

I would never let a friend focus more on wardrobe malfunctions than nutrition. They could count on me to provide Red Vines, Snickers and beer. I would never let them wander the halls like a zombie fighting sleep until the idea to assemble an entire platform bed solo seemed like a brilliant midnight task. Especially when the boxes were four times larger than their own body. And trying to collapse them by jumping would turn into more of a trampoline routine for the neighbors to watch—one finger on 911 emergency button. (They. Would. Not. Squish. Those boxes.) And fitting them in the community trash receptacle would take a (genius) duct tape handle contraption to hoist it, a string of twelve whispered/not-so-whispered cuss words repeated over and over (yes, there can be twelve if you get creative), and six cardboard ‘paper cuts’.

No way! I’d tuck my fallen friend into bed early, give them a glass of wine with a straw (much better for drinking in bed, the dog and I’ve learned) and read them a story straight from US Weekly. I’d tell them to take a bath, to get outside for fresh air, to cry and then to think of something that fills them with gratitude, like the invention of pause button for pee-breaks. I’d sing them a song (so they’d instantly feel relief when I stopped). I’d put on Shakira and dance like a maniac because it always makes people smile when I drop it like it’s hot, but haven’t really figured out how to get it back up again. I’d drag them out to the store to buy a new bra. A cheap one with a lot of padding and no bow. Bows. I’ve never figured out how that got to be a thing. Yes—nice cleavage enhancement and material, says the bra engineer, but it needs something else! I know! A ridiculously tiny little bow between the breasts to really draw the eye to the middle because it just doesn’t get enough attention. Another chapter perhaps.

So. I have had work to do. Being my own best friend. I kind of like to kick the crap out of myself until I learn the lessons the hard way. Until a couple months ago. Once again, my cousin invited me to a meditation retreat, which I have turned down about twenty-seven times in the past because I am not into meditation or retreats because they are the epitome of what I avoid so that I can continue to solve puzzles in the dark and blame outside factors for my misery. But that evening I decided to go to because I was simply tired of, well, everything sucking and I took up the plan to always say yes to invitations for an entire month. And there it happened: I found out that I needed to freaking lighten up and smile with and for myself.

That evening, I stood on a very very high balcony in Venice Beach—the kind of heights that normally make my stomach jump into my throat and I’d suction cup myself to a distant wall like a window-Garfield decoration. The view looked over the California coastline all the way up to the Santa Monica pier. There’s a ferris wheel on the pier with neon stripes and colors that stand out against all the headlights and city flicker. It was a beautiful. Amongst the energy and spectacle of LA that ferris wheel is relatively insignificant, but it captured me. I could have looked at anything— the ocean, the fading sunset, the buildings, the people twelve stories below, the Bentley’s, the mountain silhouettes, but I zeroed in on the one thing that brought me peace. A candy-colored lit up circle that cycled round and round. And told myself, I would make an effort to have this moment at least once per day. That moment was wonder. Playfulness. And peace. And then nausea, due to the heights (because not all bothersome qualities go away forever Just Like That. And that’s okay, too).