THE Pen.
a utensil of creative immortality that shall never run out.
I had one pen that I wrote everything with throughout my teenage years.
Not assignments or homework (though I’m sure there was some specific utensil I preferred at the time for those menial tasks), I’m referring to creative pursuits…
…poetry, short stories, word art inspired by my favorite emo songs…
at that time, I definitely didn’t see it as ‘actual art’ nor did I consider myself a poet, a writer (something I still struggle with to this day, but look - I’m writing!!), or even a “creative person”. I only saw what I made as a shitty attempt at giving myself therapy, and nothing more.
…this pen I’m talking about, still has ink to this day. Which was surprising to me when I found it again after the big move to my now home. Sitting on our new sleeper porch, taking off the mis-matched cap (yeah, I lost the actual cap. At the time, I had grasped the first pen within reach, a blue ball point, and took that blue cap to place on THE black ball point pen. The dichotomy today would never fly, and I don't know how I was chill with it back then. ((that’s probably something else I should unpack at a later date))). Scribbling on the back of my hand to find ink still flowed onto my skin just didn’t make sense.
It has been over 15 years since I started using it - transferring it to different apartments, houses, drawers, and zipper pouches throughout that time. If it were my belongings we were moving in the cozy switch game Unpacking, that pen would make it to every new home and somehow, still have more to offer The Page.
…needless to say, I’m convinced it’s magic.
I had planned to insert a real photo of The Pen here…however, after I found it on our sleeper, I put it in a Very Special Spot That I Will Always Remember…and I don't know where that was to Syd 3 years ago.
Trust me, it is haunting me literally even in my dreams that I can’t find it. At this point I have torn apart my house looking for it, and I must give up the hunt for my own sanity (for now). I’m hoping that by not looking for it, I will stumble upon it the next time I need it.
…but I assure you, it’s an ugly pen. Completely unassuming. One that you can get in a pack of 20 for less than $5 probably (even in this economy).
Isn’t that how it usually goes?
The chalice of immortality is never the shiny polished cup. It is often the dingy haggard unassuming one that you gloss over at first, and even the second glance.
Why did small me create such an attachment to this pen? That fucking beats me, but I think about that silly pen every day.
I think about how foundational it was in my journey as a young, emotional person just trying to figure shit out and survive another day in my own head…
…and here i am now, 29 and Still Figuring It Out - but, with much better coping mechanisms and a genuine love for life that I never would have imagined to be my own.
I was an intensely depressed teenager, and many days I didn’t want to wake up when I went to sleep. When asked what I wanted to Be, I genuinely didn’t know because I didn’t always think I’d make it there. I had forgotten that little Syd had notebooks of story ideas piled up in her closet, and that she had Big Dreams for us one day. You forget these things, these intense wild and whimsical dreams that you once had for yourself before you got older.
I left those whimsical dreams when life got too hard, and ultimately, I ended up studying nursing. Not because I felt called to it, but mostly, honestly, because I liked the weekly schedule of a hospital nurse. I liked the idea that everyday was different, and I’ve always known that I didn’t want to live to work, I wanted to work to live.
You see, the prospect of working three 12 hour shifts and then having the rest of the week (four whole days!) to pursue my hobbies and passion projects was what I wanted. My mind needs the assurance of a biweekly paycheck, but my soul needs more. Nursing is a stable, under-paid and often horribly frustrating job due to the state of the world and for-profit bullshit (that’s for another time). However, 2026 marks 7 years working as a Neuro Trauma ICU Nurse (wow, where does the time go) and I have predominately worked on my one home unit. During the height of Covid, I did leave to do local travel nurse contracts because the money was too good (and the only reason we were able to get our current house). But after I got tired of being floated all over hospitals that I didn’t feel at home in, I ended up going back to The Unit Where it All Started. Funny enough, most of us on staff have left and come crawling back. We darkly joke that it’s like a bad relationship, but we all know it’s because even on our worst days at work, we all have each others back, and we’ll get through it together.
The Neuro ICU is a very difficult unit. Many people either scrunch their face in distain or push their bottom lip out in sad understanding when I say I work there; though I suppose occasionally I do receive raised eyebrows in surprise or intrigue (these are the people who want the grisly, bloody stories, to which I have many, but they’re often too tragic to tell in the lighthearted dramatic tone they want).
I really do value what I have been able to do for others over the course of my career, and selfishly, I appreciate what the job has done for me. Yes, it has taught me time management and how to multi-task under insane pressure. It has taught me how to work collaboratively to literally save lives, and do all of that with an understanding and patient disposition, because it has also taught me precisely how fragile life really is. I’ve experienced and had to work through so many people’s darkest days. Trying to keep their loved one alive; even if it was only long enough for their kids or parents to get to the hospital in time in hopes of saying goodbye.
The job has also given me an unhealthy dose of paranoia, and I’ve most definitely created habits that border on ocd, both in regards to my own and my family’s safety. But, it has also given me a perspective that is truly invaluable.
As I grow older, this perspective is exactly what has brought me back to little Syd, and everything she dreamt up for us.
Back then, it didn’t matter what store we were in, be it a Dollar General, a Target, or a grocery store, I would always find the stationary section, and would beg whoever I was with to please please please get me this new notebook or yellow legal pad because “it would be perfect for what I want to write”.
And this, my friends, is the energy i’m trying to bring into my Substack, my WIPs. This blank document, this sticky note, this journal insert, this iphone note, this life, would be perfect for what I want to write.
That shitty old Papermate pen got me through some of my darkest times, and it continues to do so, even from whatever deep recess it is currently residing in. Because even though I’m not writing with it now, I think that the energy is present. And yeah, this is about to be very woo-woo, but maybe that Very Special Spot That I Will Always Remember is already coursing through my veins as I get the courage to finally press POST on this essay, or type THE END on my first draft (hopefully this year!). Because it’s not even that I want to owe it to little Syd, it’s just that I want to make her proud… that everything she went through was fucking worth it. We’re here, making art, despite despite despite.
Currently:
📖Reading: The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow.
🎧Listening: always La Dispute, but also Bad Bunny, Cameron Winter and the song “All My Friends are So Depressed” by Joyce Manor.
🖋️Writing: a poem about snow, and my WIP called Dead Spells.
🎮Gaming: I’m jumping around a lot right now with Animal Crossing, Kirby Air Riders, Stardew Valley and Breath of the Wild.
thank you for being here.
Loved the way you ended that. This made me think about how, when creating anything, you have to sacrifice that ideal that exists in your head for some imperfect representation. And when you’re a kid that trade off means nothing to you bec you understand innately that what’s important is just the fact that you’re doing ’it’ — doesn’t matter if it’s with a shitty pen or on the back of some junk mail. Then, maybe when you’re older the imperfections of life can overwhelm that impulse and that can be bleak. But finding your way back through some kind of imperfect totem is a great reminder of where the value lies—that is, in the process, in the message, imperfectly done with imperfect tools.
Before the ‘emotional support water bottle’ or ‘emotional support stack of unread books’ we had our emotional support stationary items. Thank you for so lovingly giving a voice to the magic of returning to ourselves.