The thing about change is that, whenever you’re ready, it just… happens. All on it’s own. No one needs to shame you into doing it. You simply roll out of bed one day, and somehow, maybe because of a lucid dream, or that expired casserole you ate last night, you’re now… different.
Once you get to that place there’s no going back.
That’s what happened to me, anyways.
It’d been a long year of failures. A failed relationship, many a failed friendship, a job that offered little opportunity for growth, a beaten down apartment, and the main thing being I had no idea who I was.
“This is why I keep leaving you,” my then on-again-off-again boyfriend said, both trying to hurt me but also telling his version of the truth.
“You’re going nowhere, and fast.”
The entirety of my year was filled with feedback much like his.
Sometimes, life leaves a bad taste in your mouth, and you stop trying, and you get real comfortable being a do-nothing.
That’s where I was stuck for a while.
But today, I woke up feeling different, and I can’t tell you why.
With morning breath and my hair in two tangled braids, I pressed on my iPad and unlocked it to the Notes app. There’s something to be said about iPads and getting your life together.
My fingers, seemingly possessed, typed out a list of five goals, all of them very typical.
Get back in the gym
Stop blowing off my therapist
Write something everyday, even if it’s bad
Stay single all year
Put down the pills
I no longer cared who hated the version of me they’d known for the last year. I’d spent enough time hating myself, and dishing out apologies, and nothing came of it. Plus, all those people were gone now.
For once, I wanted to live only for myself. It’s the one thing I hadn’t tried yet.
“Hello…” she called out.
She pressed her forehead against the little glass window in the door. It was foggy from the cold air and impossible to see through. She banged her fist against the door’s oak, “is anybody home?”
Someone pulled back the door, sticking only their head out. Nosey, and looking for a clue in the background, she looked straight past them. She could see only an old staircase covered in carpet, and a single lamp at the top of the staircase, lighting up a wall-papered corner of a second floor hallway.
“Do you live here?” she asked, “I’ve been sent to deliver a package to the owner of this home.”
“Then hand it over,” the person said, reaching their hand out from behind the door.
“Nope. No, no, no, no. Can’t do that. You need to sign for it first,” she insisted.
“Do you have a pen?” they asked.
She scratched her head. I guess she didn’t think of that.
“Alright, fine. You don’t have to sign. Just take it,” she said, and shoved a brown paper bag into the person’s hands.
They stopped for a moment, reluctant to accept this… gift.
“Do you know who I am?” they asked between a growing grin. Their teeth were as yellow as the stains in their carpet.
“There’s no name on your package, so no,” she replied.
“You don’t remember me?”
She scratched her head and thought back to every possible interaction she’d had with a person in the last few years.
“Are you, like, my second cousin or something?”
Without missing a beat, the person retreated back into their home, slamming the door shut and turning the lock with purpose.
Puzzled, she walked backwards away from the door.
Was she supposed to know who this person was? Had she offended them?
She could see the stranger peeking curious eyes out from behind outdated paisley curtains. They were watching her.
Something was not quite right.
“I can see you, you know!” she shouted in their direction. She was clueless, but she was not afraid, and whoever this person was, they knew something she didn’t.
She stood in their driveway.
“Come out, then, with your silly package! I don’t know anything! They only sent me to deliver it!”
A loud, humming noise filled the neighborhood as the garage door slowly lifted. They should really get that fixed.
The stranger stood in the middle of the garage, holding the paper bag.
“Who are you? You’re scaring me,” she said.
“I’m scaring YOU?” the person replied.
They reached into the brown bag and pulled out a piece paper folded in half. They held it out towards her.
“Take it,” they said, “if you want to understand.”
She walked towards the paper reluctantly, and took it into her hands.
It was a birth certificate with her name on it.
“…mom?”
It’s been years since I’ve attempted this, you know, whole blue collar thing. I’ve made great love to the pay checks of many a man with a 9 to 5, but holding one down myself has proven to be a bit of a challenge. And today is a perfect example.
I threw my legs out of bed and reached for the bottle of antidepressants at my bedside. I considered taking an extra pill but these little bundles of forced joy don’t work that way.
Ah, screw it. I fingered a few pills out of the bottle and swallowed with a deep inhale and a swig of stale tap water. I closed my eyes.
I’ve been in and out of strip clubs and hotel rooms and spa doors for so long. I don’t even know how to fake being a professional.
I looked at the clock.
Whatever it takes to look and talk like a bored teacher on their first day back from spring break, I’m gonna have to figure it out, and fast— because I’m half an hour and one Uber ride away from an interview at the only place I’m willing to walk away from the cold, hard cash for.
I rubbed the sleep out from my eyes and threw on an outfit I’d picked out the night before.
You know, my skimpy lingerie sets are more comfortable than business casual attire. I mean, seriously. My vulva lips are spilling over these pant seams.
I peered down the hallway at the kitten heels I’d borrowed from my best friend the night before. I already know I’m coming back home with blisters. I’ll take a blow dryer to them before I leave, maybe stretch them out a little, not that it’ll help. I live in high heels but faux leather makes my skin crawl and the lack of rhinestones is really cramping my style.
I don’t know what made me think I could do this.
My problem is blending in. I don’t feel like an active part of society, but rather someone who sits on the outskirts watching the world as if it were a reality TV show that I’ll never be casted for. It doesn’t bother me, either. I like my little corner of this world. We’ve got great hygiene and lost our minds a long time ago. But, if you want what they refer to as a “normal job,” that just won’t swing.
Taking a peek in the mirror, I caught sight of my fluffy eyelash extensions. I raised my finger up to poke them and my focus shifted to the long, acrylic nails I’d had done a few days before.
Sigh.
I need to look like I spend my free time baking pastries and writing children’s books, or something.
I really should’ve interviewed somebody’s geriatric mother before I sent in that application. Granted, I lied on my résumé. I’m a firm believer in lying on your résumé’s… just be prepared to back up those lies with more of them.
“Come on, I know you can do this…” I muttered to myself in the mirror, “you lie to men for a living, for Christ’s sake, you were born and bred for this moment.”
December 29th…
When I woke up, the sun was already setting.
I have a bad habit of destroying my sleep schedule any time I’m depressed. Plus, I rarely have anywhere I need to be. There’s no sense of urgency in my life. I don’t work a regular job, I’m estranged from my family, I don’t have any children yet. It sounds peaceful, but some days the loneliness gets the best of me.
I’ve had to make a friend out of these less than ideal experiences. I’ve turned my weaknesses into meaning because, if not, I think they might just kill me.
This weight on my shoulders is so heavy that I couldn’t even cook the Ramen noodles. I didn’t open the packet of seasoning and pour into the bag and crush it all up. I just ripped it right open and bit into the dry noodles like a chip. Bland as hell, and yet it’s all I could do to take care of myself in that moment.
I managed a shower, and I did brush out my hair, and I did sit down to read a little as if it would make me a better person.
But still, no one wants to be around me.
And it’s my fault.
I can blame it on my mental health, but I’m the one who pushed everyone away. I’m so used to the pain of being lonely that it’s uncomfortable to be anything else. But then Christmas comes, and New Year’s comes, another year of my birthday comes, and then summer time, and visiting the beach alone.
All I have is my things and whatever sanity is left over.
Sometimes I don’t know what I’m holding on for.
Sometimes I think I might be happier if I have a baby. Like, maybe if I procreate my life might mean something.
At least I brushed my teeth today. At least I tidied my room. At least I stayed mostly sober, except for that weed I’ve been staring down for the last 45 minutes with tears streaming down my face. I think I’m about to give in to miss Mary Jane.
I could text my plug right now, I could ask him for Xanax and be out like a light within the hour. But then I’ll wake up in the darkness again, and nothing will have changed, and no one would even know I was high.
Today, loneliness is the one who sits beside me and holds my hand.
I’ll try not to be bitter. I’ll try not to be mean to the next person who smiles at me. I’ll try not to grow older while getting none the wiser.
“Then… it begins,” he said, reaching into his backpack.
“What begins?” I asked, my eyes not leaving him even to blink.
“Our story…” he answered, then he turned around with speed, reached for my throat and held a knife strong against my cheek.
The initial wave of adrenaline spiked through my body and fell short very fast. The calmness that washes over me in life or death situations has always frightened me a little but I think that’s typical of someone with a broken fight or flight response. I won’t say this turns me on, but it’s very hard to surprise me, and there’s nothing I doubt more than the humanity of human beings.
“I guess we’re starting off strong, huh?” I remarked with a smirk.
“Oh, you got jokes, huh?” he said, pressing the cold pocketknife deeper into the hollows of my paper thin skin, “no one told you girls aren’t funny?”
I wonder if his mom’s at home watching game shows and bragging to their neighbor about her great son and all the accomplishments he’s lied about achieving.
“Do these girls normally put on comedy specials before or after you threaten them with knives?” I asked rhetorically, then quick kicked him in the shin as hard as I could.
The knife fell to the ground and slid across the room.
We turned to looked at each other, making eye contact for only a moment, and then moved towards the knife. I tripped over his shoulder but my fingers, sliced by the blade, touched the knife before he could.
He grabbed my ankles and flipped me over onto my backside, climbing on top.
“You can fight it but I’m still gonna kill you,” he said, holding my wrists to the ground above me.
“Go fuck yourself,” I said, spitting into his face, “you should really take a shower some time.”
Add him to the list of people I’ll prank call when I get famous or win the lottery.
Leaving does not come naturally to me.
Abandonment has long been a lonely friend of mine. Or maybe more of an enemy that I kept close.
My heart is sore in every way.
This feeling might kill me. I know that it will kill you too, and you will think that I’m immune, but love is not something that comes with a flu shot.
Love is not something that dies at the door you walk through when you leave it behind.
Love, in fact, is something that lives on long after you’ve walked away.
Most of the time, love is not even the reason you’ve walked away, but rather the reason you’ve held on for so long.
And that, my dear, is why this pains me.
Leaving is a dreaded activity that comes with no training. And so, most of the time, it is easier to leave with lots of noise, and with one million reasons why we are doing the right thing banging on in the background.
Much more difficult is it for me to look into the eyes of someone that I still love and say, “I no longer choose this. I no longer choose us.”
Maybe I should’ve left this job up to you.
Maybe I should’ve done more to create chaos in our connection.
Maybe I should’ve made you hate me.
Maybe I should’ve handed you the shovel and said, “go ahead, my love, dig a grave and bury all that we are beneath the soil.”
Why should I be the one? I wasn’t raised to handle this moment with grace. My home was loud and emotional intelligence did not live there.
Still, I must go.
Might I not know what this next phase of my life will be or what it will look like, I must go anyway.
I cannot look back.
The future we had planned will die in the past, never to be more than just an idea.
But still, one thing is true… this current yet overdue and unevolved version of me has loved you from the start.
The future that I am now stepping into has been shaped because of you.
I will not forget this.
Unique but not beautiful. For to be beautiful is not to be unique.
A big nose that stretches further than my lies do. I am no Pinocchio, but I am unique. To be a liar is not to be Pinocchio. But to have a nose longer than my lies means I leave a queasy feeling in the stomach of onlookers.
Eyes, they distract from a scan to the floor, but will it be enough? Am I enough? Am I lovable, if unsightly? Is to be unsightly, to be unlovable? Who am I if not lovable? What is love to purpose and what is purpose to love? Must I be anything at all?
Can I not lay in this bed drenched in my own sweat and still mean something? Does my purpose have to be more than being a person? If my purpose is to live, then what does living look like?
If I was living, then I would not be here drenched in my own sweat. I would be cruising down the roads of a warm state in an America that I have yet to see. But here I sit in these four walls, white as I dreamt about, but not free.
My nose is as long as the lies that were sold to me, and I then sold them to myself to get this far.
Who have I sold out if not my own self?
I did not come here for you. I do not want what is meant for you. I do not use to get one step ahead and yet my nose is the first thing you see when I open the door.
Let me cover up my misfortunes and put emphasis on my eyes in hopes you will see their brightness before all of my shortcomings.
