Goodbye
The end of an era
It’s only May, but already 2026 seems to be shaping up to be a year of goodbyes.
In February I made the difficult decision not to renew the lease on my apartment in Beirut. My condition hadn’t improved, and I could no longer justify sinking rent money into a place in Lebanon when I needed to focus full-time on my treatment and recovery. Two weeks after I left, a new war began.
Before I left I’d talked incessantly about wanting to travel to southern Lebanon, to the ancient cities of Saida and Sour, and my therapist had talked me down. “This isn’t your last chance to visit southern Lebanon,” she’d said. “One day, when the region is safer, you’ll be able to go.” I’d believed it then. Now I’m not so sure.
Last month my agent and I amicably parted ways. Later that day, I withdrew my option book from consideration at my former publisher, due primarily to irreconcilable editorial differences. I wrote a personal note to my editor as a way of (I hoped) gracefully closing the loop.
And so now I’m in the same place I was a little more than two years ago: no literary agent, no book under contract, no idea of where my career will go.
Of course, I’m not technically in the same place; I am a published author now. My first novel was acquired by a big 5 publisher and is now out in the world. But here’s something I thought I’d known at a theoretical level, but didn’t fully grasp until my book actually came out: becoming a published author doesn’t change anything. You are still the same person that you were before, ignoring the same leak in your bathroom, wearing the same eight-year-old pajamas, ordering the same pain au chocolat and café allongé from the same neighborhood boulangerie. I live in France, a country where my book does not live on the shelves of bookstores or libraries. My author email inbox is not exactly overflowing with enthusiastic missives from readers who have discovered me. The only quantifiable difference? Having that extra bit of money in my savings account from advance payments. And I’m so grateful for it.
Psychologically, however, the place I occupy now is very different. Two-plus years ago I was excruciatingly anxious. My first two manuscripts had been rejected by every agent I’d sent them to, and by the time I finished writing a third, somehow the stakes felt different. It was now or nothing. If I don’t find an agent right now with this manuscript, then it’s all over, I’m done, I am garbage and I will never be published. Who, or where, had this invisible deadline come from? It was as though I’d been diagnosed with a terminal disease that would kill me in exactly three months, and the only cure was finding an agent and selling the book.
Now that I am on the other side, this is what it feels like: picture yourself standing outside in a thunderstorm, peering into a house with frosted windows. Behind the glass are glowing lights and shadows and movement, and you convince yourself that inside the house you will finally find refuge from the rain. You would find warmth and magic and wonder and The Answer to everything — if only they would let you in.
But in the end, it was just a house.
Maybe the chimney didn’t work and it was always just a little too cold in the living room. Maybe you really wanted to paint your bedroom yellow but someone else insisted on painting it purple and now it doesn’t feel like your room anymore. Maybe there weren’t enough beds for all the residents, so you ended up on the couch. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that one day, you finally gathered the courage to open the front door and walk back out, ready to brave another thunderstorm. Only to realize what was outside had never been a thunderstorm — it’s nothing more than a drizzle, really. And it feels surprisingly good on your skin. You stop and take the time to jump in puddles. You breathe in the scent of water washing over free grass. You realize that existing in the rain isn’t just a holdover limbo period between finding houses to live in. As Chidi says in The Good Place, “It’s simply a different way to be.”
After all, how amazing is it that I can write this letter, hit send, and watch it sail into your inboxes without waiting for notes or rewrites or acquisitions? Here it is. Here I am. Easy as that.
I’m not done with traditional publishing, don’t get me wrong. At some point, I’d like to find a new agent. I’d like to find a home for my second book, which is already done and (in my opinion) very good and deserves to have its day in the sun.
Today, though, I am knee-deep in rainwater, playing with mud pies.
