Maddox K. Pennington

You probably knew this already but in 2017, I was a married writer and managing editor in New York. 

In 2017, I flipped my whole life over and started again. I left my day job, left my marriage, moved back in with my parents, got my first full time teaching job, and my first book came out. All within about two of your human Earth weeks. It was…a lot. 

August 2017, I moved into my own apartment in DC for the first time, and promptly decorated it with every rainbow ombre rug I could find. I still needed a nightlight for the first week or so, but eventually my dog and I adapted to our new life–parks, 8:10 am start time for our first class, and all. I managed to outrun most of my feelings about Life Redux for a few months, until October and my usual course of seasonal affective disorder came in….

I spent most of late 2017 and early 2018 on my couch in the fetal position. I felt like I had scrapped my entire social life when I left NYC, despite a series of book events to promote A Girl* Walks Into a Book* where old and new friends graciously reappeared to get their copies signed. My office was in an isolated campus annex where I felt isolated and unmoored. Until I didn’t feel much of anything. I took a “What Even is a Groove” solo trip to someplace gorgeous, and felt glimmers of a person I might be if I could just get out from under all this opaque choking haze. But the haze persisted. 

The winter ended, eventually. I revived a little. For my 11th sober anniversary I made my annual visit to a 12-step meeting, and, realized what I was actually in the market for….was more active alcoholics. And that’s what brought me to stand-up! 

I kid. A little. Partially. I took to the open mic circuit as only a theater kid who never really learned how to act would. I found I was actually still a night owl–my life with my ex had involved going to bed at 9:30 when he did, and staying awake for hours on my phone or watching Netflix with headphones. If you learn nothing else about what to avoid in a marriage partner, nix anyone whose sleep schedule is incompatible with yours. I will never share a one-bedroom again! I started out pretty good, and soon got very good. I enjoyed the stage time, riffing with other comics, finding my feet, establishing a pace and refining my voice. Comedy carried me through the spring, with 3+ hours of dopamine multiple times a week. 

But, October and November took me out for the count, and I finally started trying to find help. It took 3 months, a dozen phone calls, a doctor’s referral, an intake and another intake but finally I got some diagnoses, medication, and a counselor. Somewhere in here, various threads started to connect. I was breaking down patterns and choices from my last relationship and my family; I was realizing that all the negative feelings I’d had about my body, which I always thought were about weight, were actually about gender (all my adolescent journals just stormed out, shouting “DUH” over their shoulders). I made self-centered choices, in a good way, and found that it freed up my teaching, my creativity, my energy. And the medicine started to work!

That summer, I found a boost of inspiration and drafted an 8-episode mini-series adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s Villette. I built about 30 minutes of consistently performable standup. 

I made big 3-5 year plans and goals and dreams for myself, which I hadn’t had since that last gasping rocket segment that got me out of my old life, my old marriage, my old self. 

I would liken managing depression and anxiety to a plank bridge over a river. Even when I fall down and land flat on my back, I’m not drowning. There’s still weather, storms and fog and darkness and heat, but even at its worst it’s not what it was a year ago, or two years ago. I can distinguish grief from depression, and discouragement from despair. That’s pretty good. 

My anxiety refuses to be eradicated. It just wants to be “managed” for the rest of my life, like a lawn my landlord put in THAT I NEVER ASKED FOR. I guess I’ll use my TOOLS on it now that I’ve worked so hard to acquire them. I don’t feel that sense of “Why do any of us do this? Why don’t we just lie down and wait for the end” indifference anymore. I sometimes feel overwhelmed, still, but I also feel anchored to this planet and the aspirations I have for myself. Which is good. 

Writing this, in 2023, I’m an out trans and nonbinary playwright and writing professor in LA, a dream I practically discarded half a decade ago that refused to be recycled or overwritten.