Despair, Part I

I went to the gym a lot in 2018 despite many setbacks. I don't know what really motivated me. Maybe I thought that exercise would help solve my reproductive problems. Maybe I was intuitively easing stress. Whatever it was, I kept going back, even if it meant I walked a 1.2 pace or less. Even if it was small kine embarrassing to be walking so slowly that I wasn't even breaking a sweat. I went.

Sometimes it was scary. I was scared. I was so light-headed and out of breath that I thought I would pass out. A few times I actually did swoon. I had to get off the treadmill at that point and maybe apply some Breathe, drink some water. In those moments, I'd sometimes wonder if I were actually already dead and experiencing a dream of myself.

This was not a fanciful notion. It was not an existential contemplation. It was not a thought exercise. It was a true question: Am I dead and is this just a dream?

And I would think about that as I snail-paced my way through thirty minutes of "cardio." I would think about ways I could prove my status as a living or dead being. How would I know and would I want to know? Would it even make a difference? Could I just pinch myself? That seemed unlikely.

I envisioned my body abandoned somewhere as my consciousness fled. What if I'd actually fainted while on the treadmill and it flung my body to the ground and people were even now surrounding me, checking for signs of life? How would I know? What if it had happened sooner-- this morning before work, for example, or maybe I'd never even woken up from sleep overnight? How would I know? Would it ever end?

It hadn't occurred to me then, but maybe something was wrong. Maybe suspecting I might be dead or unconscious somewhere meant that I was going through something terrifying, menacing, and exhausting and it was taking a toll on my psyche. I hadn't even thought about what I was thinking about. I didn't analyze myself. And maybe there was one question that I'd been too afraid to ask, one that I cannot even bring myself to type, one that I have tried to type at least twice and deleted both times.

Whenever I write about this, I am always inclined to justify everything. "Chronic illness made me do it" sort of thing. But I'll just leave this here as a note to the cosmos, for all eyes to read and interpret and judge. I'm always judging myself, anyway. I don't know when I'll ever be free of my cruel inner voices. So you can think of this as a big "fuck you." As me sticking my middle finger at those voices.

Thinking Everything So Simple

I take his hand in mine because I know he wants me to.

"When can I see you again?" I ask. We are walking on the path that runs along the length of the canal, and the sun is slowly setting at our backs. Some kids are having soccer practice in the field to our left, while cars whiz by on the street beyond. It's chilly and it looks like it might rain or not, you can never tell, and he's wearing a red cap I've never seen before, which matches a jacket we'd given to him as a birthday gift five years ago.

He takes a drag of his cigarette. "I don't know, Peaches. Next week?" He exhales. "I want to say 'whenever you want,' but I don't think that's gonna happen."

I resist the urge to pull away, to escape those long tendrils of smoke that I used to pretend were mystical dragons. "What if what I want is next week?"

He laughs.

"Why not tomorrow, though?" I ask, hating the whine in my voice.

This time he pulls his hand out of mine and shoves it into his jacket pocket. I wait so long for his answer that I don't think it's coming. I watch him take a quick drag, his face unreadable.

"I don't know why," he replies and pulls on his cigarette again. The cherry flares for one long moment then fades. "Since when do I make the rules. I don't get a say. Nobody cares what I want."

"Well, as long as you're not bitter," I snap before I can stop myself, but he doesn't say anything and I'm glad. Or mad. I almost want him to react.

We continue our slow meandering down the canal, his free hand stuffed in his pocket while mine hang at my sides. I watch the canoes approach then past us as they glide down the canal toward the ocean. The paddlers move with practiced, synchronized speed, and long lines of water trail the boats and radiate before they disappear.

"She's never going to make it easy, you know," he says. "I told you I'd leave her and I did. I did what I said I'd do, that's all."

"Why would she? She doesn't even like you. Besides, if it were easy then everyone would do it." I pause. "Even you'dve done it a long time ago."

He shakes his head. "They'd do it anyway because they're miserable."

I stop. "Is that what you are?" I ask, stung.

He takes a last, lingering pull on his smoke and flicks it into the canal. "I hate these fucking trees. Those fucking pods always stick to my shoes." He checks under this foot. "Shit."

"Just scrape it on a rock. Like that rock wall. Just scrape your shoe on the edge." I hate these monkey pod trees, too, for the exact same reason, but I don't tell him that. They line the canal path at regular intervals, and are almost unavoidable. It's nearly impossible to ride a skateboard down these sidewalks without eating it. Plus the pods look like enormous, oozing scabs that someone peeled and let float down to the ground. They look like they'd get blown away by a strong breeze, but they are heavy and sticky and disgusting. When I look back at him, he's already lighting up another cigarette.

"I can measure my sorrows in the cigarettes I smoke," he mumbles. "Maybe I am miserable. Would you still love me if I were?"

I stuff my hands in the back pockets of my jeans and a man pushing a baby in one of those jogging strollers passes by. "It seems I am doomed to love you no matter what," I say.

He scoffs. "Lucky me."

"Hey, I'm the only person you've got right now, asshole. You really think sarcasm helps?" I don't know why I keep talking to him. I don't know why I haven't just bolted from this tree, away from him, away from this conversation.

"What do you know about it, huh? You're just a kid. Think you're special. Think you know everything. Thinking everything is so simple." His hand is now out of his pocket and he's pointing his finger at me like he's telling me where to go. His voice is gruff but he isn't yelling at me, which somehow makes it worse. "What the fuck you know, anyway. Fucking kid."

My eyes sting and I hate him for it. I look away and see that the canoes are almost to the ocean. They are specks on the horizon, parallel to each other, searching for the freedom and uncertainty of the open sea.

He sighs. "It's not your fault, Peaches. Come on."

He walks up from behind me and rests his free hand on my shoulder. I wince. He smells like cigarettes and mint and I want to cry. "I'm stressed out and lost my temper. This whole thing sucks." He clears his throat and his voice softens. "I thought once I left her, I'd have all this freedom. Life would be better. And it is. Small kine."

I can no longer see the canoes or their paddlers. They must have turned the bend.

"You know I love you, Peaches. Maybe you can come over more now that I got my own place, huh?"

I turn toward him and pull my body out from his grasp. My Vans crunch against the monkey pods as my hands bunch into fists.

"How can you be miserable," I yell at him. "You said it yourself: you left her. How can you be miserable if you got what you wanted? What about me? It's fucking laughable that you're miserable."

Except I don't actually say any of that out loud. "I gotta get home," I tell him.

He sighs and puts out his cigarette with his shoe. He leans forward and wraps me in a minty, smokey hug and kisses the top of my head. "I love you, Peaches."

My chest hurts and my eyes burn. "I hate when you call me that," I say.

He chuckles. "I know."

I wrap an arm around his waist and squeeze. "I love you, too, Dad." And before I can cry, I turn and walk away, back the way we came.

It's Not Really About the Monitor

Remember a couple of years ago I wrote a a blog about shoes that weren't really about shoes at all? I'd concluded that because things change, I had to change-- or revisit, anyway-- every now and then. Well, friends, that's a lesson that I am always forgetting.

We've had a desk in our room for as long as I can remember. I like having a desk and it was pretty necessary when a family has a desktop computer. But when you no longer have use for a desktop computer, what good is that desk? Storage. Permanent storage. The kind of storage where you never revisit the stuff you stored there. Like paid bills, school pictures (mine), and ancient desktop computers and computer monitors.

For years now we've not used anything that sits on this desk other than the landline phone, but recently Charlie helped me clear the thing off so that I could have a workspace to write. To create. So, we threw stuff out, shoved things in other spaces to make room for my notebooks, laptop, markers, and whatever I'd need to meet my every creative need . . . that can be met while sitting at a desk.

But the one thing I never touched in all these months was the damn computer monitor. "It's a flat screen," you say. "Can hardly even notice." Except it serves absolutely no purpose except to take up real estate. Okay, that's not entirely true because the reflection gives me spy powers and the ability to see when someone is creeping up behind me. The thing serves no especially useful purpose unless someone is sneaking up on me in an amateur way.

So, yesterday, I finally moved it. It was already disconnected and unplugged,so I don't know what the flying funk it was even doing there, and now I have space. For what? Nothing specific yet, but anything is possible!

Recap. I'd forgotten in the first place that I could actually use my desk for more than stupid storage. Forgot that the desk had an actual purpose. Forgot that it was thing that I was taking for granted and neglecting. Forgot that I could be using it for good instead of letting it fade into obscurity. And then, even as I was forging a useful, creative space for myself, I'd forgotten that I could remove things that were ultimately unnecessary and were impeding my personal growth. Okay, so maybe that sounds a little dramatic, which doesn't make it untrue. That monitor wasn't actually doing anything to me, right? Except I didn't recognize it because I was so used to the clutter. Like static.

What I did yesterday, then, was to remind myself to approach old things in new ways. By doing so, I've opened up the possibility for new opportunities. What can I put in this space? How can I streamline my space so that it feels like mine? I don't have an answer yet, but it's exciting to think about.