It feels necessary to explain an absence. Why? I feel a sense of gratitude and connection and obligation and so, let me explain. I’ve been a bit lost in the muck of life. I wrote something and it wasn’t exactly what I wanted to say so I started over. Well, actually, I supplemented. I refined. I edited. I’m changing things up. I’m going to start to tell my story. In a real way. I hope it resonates. I hope you connect. I hope you stick around. I’m going to start in the middle and then go forward and then go back. Here goes…
There is rain falling outside my window and my apartment is mostly dark, with only a hint of the waning day evident through my curtains. I can hear my father telling me that I should turn on a light but I don’t.
I will send you an article. It’s terrible for your eyes. Awful, really. You don’t want to do it. It’s just not a good idea. Really.
Please understand that this is not an act of rebellion on my part, at all. I just feel lazy. No, not lazy. The lethargy I feel is not the result of some personality flaw. I am just tired. Of everything. Of everyone. I need a break.
That sentiment feels incredibly self-serving and a bit first-world and yet, it’s the truth. I feel the heaviness of one thousand fake smiles. I feel the weight of every time I bit my tongue. I feel the leaden presence of every bad decision I’ve ever made that brought me here. That propelled me into today. That catapulted me into this moment, into this darkened apartment, on a Friday almost-evening, in front of my laptop and its bright, finger-smudged screen.
I’ve always loathed the expression ‘to take stock.’ What does that mean, really? Just hearing those words strung together makes me cringe. You know what I think of when I hear them? A storeroom. An actual room filled with stock.
I used to work in retail, you see. I used to take stock. I counted well-folded, rainbow hued garments, piled high. Endlessly. Meticulously. Boxes checked and notations rendered. I can see Stacy standing over me, both of us intently staring at clipboards. Was her name Stacy? Something like that. She had that perfect thing going on at a time in my life when I was decidedly and obviously messy. Gelled curls methodically styled, crisp white button down tucked into straight leg jeans, medium wash, and always with the fucking Keds. Keds. White canvas Keds. They weren’t scuffed or filthy. Oh no, hers were sparkly white. I had this vision of her taking a new pair out a box every morning and slipping them on her average sized feet. She was artful in her condescending micro-management. Gritted teeth.
Leah, I think you missed a few.
Did you hear me?
We are missing one 2T in cornflower blue. Also, there is one extra size 16 in vermillion.
I smile back at her. Genuine. I find this hilarious.
Cool. Right. I’ll fix it.
I look back down at the clipboard and envision her perfectly choreographed stomp away from me, in time with the Muzak version of You’re Still The One. Fuck Shania. Fuck Stacy. I imagine her driving home every night in a white Mitsubishi Eclipse, singing along to Mariah Carey, curls unmoving. She was definitely someone who had her boyfriend’s photo encased in a plastic rectangle hanging from her keychain. I bet his name is Chad. Or maybe Steve.
She always reminded me of the perks of working up to management at the Gap.
Did you know they actually reimburse for education? I mean, it’s really amazing.
Yeah. That’s pretty fucking amazing Stacy. Thank God for the Gap.
I was a Visual Display Specialist, which was a very haughty way of describing the underpaid human responsible for dressing and undressing and redressing mannequins. I worked the overnight shift. I shuffled around the store, pulling t-shirts and jeans over immovable and barely pliable limbs. I drank gallons of too light and too sweet coffee from Styrofoam containers, sitting on the filthy floor of the front window. I stared out at mostly abandoned streets and measured stacks, refolded denim, and re-hooked socks that had fallen to the floor, lonely, left behind and adorned with dust.
I worked all night long and then, just as the world around me was awakening and emerging, I slipped out to my car, drove home, and put myself to bed. My sleep wasn’t fitful back then. It was deep and continuous. I often fell asleep in the clothing I wore to work, teeth brushed, face greasy and unwashed, body smelling strongly of the hot pretzel kiosk and the musk of labor.
I wore my unruly hair twisted into a bun for work but set it free on the ride home, rubbing my tender scalp and feeling heavy curls fall down my back. I would often awaken in the afternoon before my alarm, loose hair a knotted mess, neckline damp from uninterrupted slumber. I ate breakfast at dinner and dinner at breakfast and lunch was mostly skipped altogether. I spent three to four nights a week taking stock but I never, and I mean never, took stock.
Why? I had no need. I didn’t think I did anyway. Life felt simple and straightforward. I had my relationship issues but they were easily digested. I could point to a thing and say, see, there, that is why. That’s the thing that really did it. That was the catalyst. That was the beginning of the end. Romantic love was mostly superficial and definitively unimpactful and most everything was a means to an end.
I looked outside myself and yes, I compared, but rarely in a way that was meaningful. I was routinized. Regulated. In control. I felt like I was meant to be there, then, doing that. It was just the way of the world. The way of the universe. The plan for my life. And so, I did. I drifted. I accepted. I molded. I fit.
Then I went to college and something was decidedly ill-fitting. There was an unspoken uniform. Conform, it screamed, or face the wrath of comparison and envy and falling short. Jet black North Face puffer jacket, Tiffany heart bracelet, Kate Spade nylon purse (or Prada, if you were particularly lucky), some variety of designer jeans, and Steve Madden shoes. Act like you fit in, walk like you don’t give a shit, talk like you don’t need to be there.
They all walked around like Stepford Wives in training. I could hear their puffers making that swishing sound as they leaned in to share intimacies of the most staggering sort.
I mean, I’m not like a blow job person but he’s just so appreciative, you know?
No, yeah, I mean I totally get it. You are the best girlfriend ever. Really. I hope he appreciates you for real.
Yes Dara, I also hope he appreciates you and your magical skills in the way of fellatio. You should put that on your resume.
I cut my jeans and sewed in colorful fabric for my version of DIY bellbottoms. I wore t-shirts purchased from markets in Beijing and well-worn Birkenstocks and my pocketbook (what the fuck is a purse?!) hailed from the overstuffed shelves of my local TJ Maxx. I wore stacked jelly bracelets and silver rings from Mexico and I had never had my own credit card. Never. I hadn’t really drank in high school, not really, and drugs were an entirely foreign concept. I was hideously shy and outrageously opinionated. I waitressed private parties for Dean & Deluca and interned at a 19th century art gallery and rarely contemplated what I wanted to be when I grew up. Growing up felt mostly too far away and also, scary.
I was very fond of cheap, sticky clear lip gloss and laminated book marks with frayed yarn fringe, and I regularly lamented my shitty handwriting. I spent my campus bucks on frozen yogurt and sugary cereal, wrote papers early, and studied for quizzes too late. I was mostly dishonest about what I wanted but I also had no fucking clue what I wanted. I wanted to know what I wanted. I wanted to want what others thought I should want.
I was mostly immature and also, an old soul, and also assured, and then mostly insecure. I loved the library and the art studio and sometimes even Jamba Juice. I painted my nails with glitter and cut my best friend John’s hair and loved many of my soft, rarely exercised parts. I can feel his thick, rough curls under my fingers and smell that clean odor that always seemed to radiate off of him. Dove soap and good manners.
I wore rust colored lipstick on Saturday and drank too much Diet Coke and loved walking around the Washington Monument at dusk.
I imbibed cheap vodka, poured from a plastic handled jug and mixed with orange Crystal Light. I painted mostly with acrylic, despite its inflexible nature, and saw my first cockroach. I had less than one dollar in my bank account more than once and laughed so hard my belly hurt more than that. I downloaded music illegally and listened to Ben Folds Five and Dave Matthews Band and prayed I wouldn’t get arrested.
I would look up as I watched the download bar move across the screen of my heavy and well-used desktop.
Hey Annie?
Yup?
Do you think that the guy who got arrested for downloading songs from Limewire had like 100 songs or like 150,000?
I have no fucking clue Leah, but I imagine it was more than what you have, right?
Yeah. I guess so.
I stopped the download mid-stream. Maybe later. Maybe tomorrow, Maybe never.
I dated three awful men, each one more selfish and crueler than the last, and figured out that I was destined for ruin where relationships are concerned. I tried too hard and loved too much and wanted too little and accepted less. I relentlessly tore delicate and precious petals from my very core, one by one, until there was nearly nothing left. I lost myself over and over again. I never, and I mean never, took stock.
That’s where it began, really. Well, not there, not exactly. That’s where the manifestation of a profound fear of loss began. That is the exact place where I discovered the scope of my self-destruction. That is when I fully and unequivocally embraced my overly solicitous nature and raging desire to fix everyone and everything.
Over two decades have passed since that time and yet, I know those years to be the foundation, the springboard that jettisoned me into this moment. THIS moment. A lone figure, seated in front of a glowing screen, in a room growing ever darker.
I’ll see you tomorrow? Hopefully. More to tell. So much more.
x
L.
thepathtoworthy.com 