The other day as I was buying beer, toilet paper, and ibuprofen from a man named Justice (who resembled John Goodman on several different levels), I thought to myself, “I should probably blog about this.”
Then I remembered I haven’t written a blog in months, and I panicked that maybe I don’t know how to write in my own voice anymore. So I went home and drank my beer, and cried a whole bunch, and wrote in my journal until I thought I should be tired. Turns out I wasn’t actually tired, it was just late. There’s a difference between those two things. While “tired” generally leads to turning out the lights and falling immediately into a peaceful sleep, “late” means restlessly tossing and turning, lightly dozing through two or three podcasts, and worrying endlessly about why your body refuses to become tired.
Thank god I bought that ibuprofen, I needed it for my sleep deprivation headache the next day.
I want to write something poignant and funny and heartfelt but not in a sappy way like my Facebook posts have been this last week, and not in a self-deprecating way, because that feels too easy. So maybe I’ll just stick to the facts. Wednesday, May 10th at 8:30pm I turned in my last assignment of my first year of grad school, which means I’m one third of the way through this MFA program. A lot of people, myself included, might expect me to feel relieved now that everything is done for the semester. Instead I feel guilty and restless. Guilty because there should be at least ten productive things I ought to be doing; restless because there aren’t.
Since turning in my last assignment I have watched a full season of Sense8, had drinks AND dinner with my little sister on two consecutive nights, taken three naps, spent hours mindlessly scrolling through social media, finished the book I was reading for pleasure, and proceeded to start another one. The only thing I haven’t done quite yet is crawl out of my own skin. Don’t worry, I think I’m getting close.
I don’t know how to explain what this reacclimation to my “real” life feels like, other than uncomfortable. Right now, I’m sitting on a couch in Del Mar next to a sleeping schnauzer, watching The Matrix, and this is literally all I have to do for the next 15 hours. Still, there’s something frantically spinning in the back of my mind saying Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop and it has the same heft and general shape as the existential crises that occasionally swallow up my afternoons.
Maybe I can only draw this parallel because I’m watching Keanu’s dumb face, but stepping into summer feels a little bit like The Matrix. Like for the last few days/weeks/months I’ve lived exclusively in my head, and now I’m suddenly acutely aware of what it means to have a body. A body with knotted shoulders, random acute abdominal pain, and potentially a consistent, low-grade fever. A body that seems larger and softer than I remember. A body that navigates space differently. In a few days my sweetie will be here, and I’m hoping that once I see her everything else will feel less like missing and more like real. I know, I know. That’s a lot of pressure for a person to live up to, but it’s where I’m at in this moment.
In the meantime I will watch this movie, and pet this dog, and try to get rid of some of these knots in my shoulders. Sidenote: I have a very important question. Why do people in movies just rip IVs out of their arms like it’s not a big deal to have a giant needle nested in your vein? I feel fairly certain that if I ever become suddenly conscious and I’m attached to wires and tubes, I will leave them there. Reason #1,459,385 I will likely not survive the apocalypse.
Hopefully in the near future I’ll resemble a human again, and be a little less puddly.
I love you all.
-b
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