I watched a video last night of one of Daniel Johnston's final performances of True Love Will Find You in the End. He was shaking—fragile, unsure, possibly terrified—but the song came through anyway: pure, beautiful, steady. And it made me cry.
There's something in his voice that feels like the ache of a thousand selves trying to coexist. The weight of being too much and not enough, all at once. Watching it, I thought about the pain I've been through. The pain I've caused. The strange, enduring miracle of the true love I've found—in my wife, in my daughter, and in the reflections of my many selves.
I've always had to work very hard to feel empathetic depth. Not to act empathetically—that part came easier—but to feel it deeply in my body required extraordinary effort. For years, I was on 25mg of Lexapro a day. It helped in some ways, numbed others. Three weeks ago, I stopped taking it.
Since then, something has shifted.
I've been swimming in emotional depths I've never experienced before. The tears I've shed haven't been just from sadness or anger, but from something subtler and more mysterious: awe, recognition, tenderness. A fullness. A remembering.
I celebrate these moments when they arrive. I rewatch Daniel Johnston sing. I watch videos of dogs being rescued from the side of the road. I let the emotion swell. I don't push it away.
Right now, even as I write this, I feel it again.
And here's what's come with it: the quiet realization that there were so many things I simply couldn't express before—not because I was unwilling, but because I had never felt them. I didn't know what I was missing because I had never experienced it. I didn't understand because these feelings were entirely new to me.
Now, I kind of do.
I don't feel guilt about the past—but I do carry a hope that I haven't hurt others with my lack of depth. Or if I have, that I can now be more present going forward. More tender. More attuned.
Lexapro helped me for a time. It did what it needed to do. But this "side effect" of stopping—this cascade of feeling—has been a gift I didn't expect. And I want it to keep going. I want to stay open. I want to feel my life.
So I write this as a marker. A moment of presence. A note to my future self:
Keep watching the shaky performances. Keep crying at roadside rescues. Keep holding your daughter's hand and letting it mean everything.
Let the thousand selves speak.
Let them feel.