I decided I needed to try something different. A lot of different things. Differently. Here goes nothing:
In Studio City, off Coldwater Canyon, is the subordinate version of the famous Highland Park-originated Civil Coffee. My hands wrapped around an iced figueroa–that's their specialty drink, which is comprised of espresso, condensed milk, oat milk, and cinnamon. A single Maria cookie is placed on the top of the plastic cap, which provides the perfect circular divot for its place. Sitting on the patio with my headphones playing Claire De Lune (à la Spotify's "Classical Classic Mix"), my gaze turned upwards to the unusual grey overcast skies. Maybe Los Angeles is always this gloomy this time of the year, and last November was out of the norm.
The book in my bag is about a bisexual woman slightly younger than myself, equally as neurotic. In the initial pages, she detailed being photographed, and holding her left wrist awkwardly with her right hand, "as if the wrist were going to get away from me." I've always been awkward like that, too. Lately, I'd been finding myself in words, phrases, and little worlds like that. Seeing reflections of myself in distressed fictional characters; ones who danced drunken and alone, felt the pressure of breathless perfectionism, and willingly waltzed into unethical or morally grey (at best) situations.
One is Beth Harmon from The Queen's Gambit. Too smart for her own good, addicted to tranquilizers, and offensive. Another is Peter, one of the brothers in Intermezzo. A lawyer who has a nonexistent relationship with his sibling, a slightly pretentious taste in ethics, and two girlfriends. Astrid, from Perfume and Pain who is abrasive, hypersexual, and also addicted to her famous personal concoction, The Patricia Highsmith, which is essentially a low-grade speedball. What do all of these characters have in common? I've only just begun to see it myself, unfortunately.
The book in my bag is about a bisexual woman slightly younger than myself, equally as neurotic. In the initial pages, she detailed being photographed, and holding her left wrist awkwardly with her right hand, "as if the wrist were going to get away from me." I've always been awkward like that, too. Lately, I'd been finding myself in words, phrases, and little worlds like that. Seeing reflections of myself in distressed fictional characters; ones who danced drunken and alone, felt the pressure of breathless perfectionism, and willingly waltzed into unethical or morally grey (at best) situations.
One is Beth Harmon from The Queen's Gambit. Too smart for her own good, addicted to tranquilizers, and offensive. Another is Peter, one of the brothers in Intermezzo. A lawyer who has a nonexistent relationship with his sibling, a slightly pretentious taste in ethics, and two girlfriends. Astrid, from Perfume and Pain who is abrasive, hypersexual, and also addicted to her famous personal concoction, The Patricia Highsmith, which is essentially a low-grade speedball. What do all of these characters have in common? I've only just begun to see it myself, unfortunately.
Reading is my reintroduction to myself; at some point between my daily clocking in and clocking out, I realized how much I missed her. She'd never really left, of course, that teenage girl out on the playground at midnight. In the cold, looking in the distance, wondering if it would ever be different. Sometimes, there are memories I know will stay in my mind forever and that was one of them. Dark, alone, feeling raw and wrong. I look back with nothing but sympathy for her, but I can't say the same about the woman in the mirror. In secret, I sometimes imagine strangers and friends complimenting me.
You're the funniest, most caring person I've met, they'd say. You're genuine and my best friend, they'd add. Driving around at night, I'd play these on a loop in my head, and force myself to feel better. They couldn't see, or rather wouldn't care, that I've been an incessant mess since I was born. Pouring my feelings out over ounces of barley, stumbling over words and shoes and clothes and mistakes. They'd offer me the same understanding I give to the characters I read about. They'd dog-ear every page that had a phrase they liked, like I do. They'd continue to turn my pages after learning about the awful things I'd done and the awkward way I, too, held my wrist in photos.
Thinking your existence is wrong is painful. Being untrusting of your own thoughts, and feeling like you might wish the worst things into power is unimaginable, and yet multiple times an hour, I find myself thinking it. OCD stands for obsessive-compulsive disorder, but I've self-titled it as "obscenely cruel dysfunction". Same thing. Before falling asleep, my mind lands on the worst possible idea. An explosion of brain matter, an overflowing neck, a giant, warm, obscene red mark somewhere in a quick impression, and my palms are no longer warm under my cheek. Flicking them in the dark, casting away the concept, and rinsing and repeating until I've been convinced no such things could occur.
Stealing glances of myself naked, fixating on all the errors, thinking my flesh is inherently unlovable. Wishing it could be fixed with a pair of scissors. Quickly dressing to stop the obsession, and weighing two pairs of socks in either hand, convinced one feels wrong. Slipping them on, feeling the sense of impending doom, going to slip on the others, and stopping myself once realizing the absurdity of it all. Every night in bed as a teenager looking at the specks of glitter on my ceiling, illuminated momentarily by car lights flooding into the window, they all make sense. The girl on the playground. Burying my rosy, wide cheeks into books. Lining up my right eye with the spout of a bottle to see how much was left. It all makes sense. It's all so lonely.
Growing tired of myself, as usual, I'm trying to pour into healthier habits. The sobriety clock has reset, and the escapism now comes from novels and daydreaming. No matter the vice, I can't help but think, it must be a sad, sad thing to spend a lifetime trying to escape oneself. A beautiful person, nonetheless. One that's persistent, and painfully optimistic. Humorously callous at times, and other hours, way too nice. That's per my friends. When the bad thoughts come, I try, with difficulty, to disengage. Try to mentally flick them away like my hands do at night. I try to fill my mind with other things–like the books. Like staring at the sky with my iced figeroa, thinking of a version of myself I could be kinder to.
A version that's in Ireland somewhere, with a neighbor who plays piano loudly. Another, a tired but passionate lawyer, maybe just as distressed but in a manner that provides satisfaction. A true sense of belonging, a sense of right. Any version that is not this one. With hair cut too short, a round face, lanky-limbed, with a round, soft stomach and uneven but big dark eyes. Tired from doing nothing, too tired to do anything else. Obsessive. Compulsive. Disordered.
Sick.
Who cries to her mother on the phone, rubbing her moon face in her hands, wishing they were claws and she could tear it off and become someone new. Who murmurs sardonic things dryly, making people laugh, or at least, quietly bemused. Who, without understanding exactly how, eventually gets everything she wants; and, without understanding why, always feels like after a while, it's never enough. Boy, I am tired of her and simultaneously in love with her, like some deeply twisted, mutually benefitted Stockholm-syndromed lover. If I hadn't learned to be so tender with her between these (long) moments of resentment, not only would life be that much more arduous, but possibly nonexistent.
After all, there is a study that sufferers of OCD are much more likely to die from unnatural causes. Typing this makes me freak out as-is, but upon reading said article, it was stressed that 'unnatural cause' was self-undoing, because of course. Maybe by forcing myself to enjoy who I am, I'm doing the world good. Becoming an anti-statistic. One of the OCD-ers who, despite being in constant pain, finds power in her Achilles. Carl Jung called this the "wounded healer", adopted from Chiron, the Greek mythos centaur and asteroid. Injured with an incurable poison, Chiron transformed his pain into wisdom. Or whatever.
While I am an acquired taste, not the easiest person to like, and finicky, I do think I try hard to be a healer. If that isn't over-ambitious to say; if it is, then so as well. In one of the crying-to-my-mother calls, I said how sorry I was for my sickness. Apologized for its instability, and invisibility, likening it to waves ebbing and flowing, turbulent and swallowing underneath the surface. God. If only she could comfort me.
If I could split myself in two (in a non-brutalist way), I'd make someone fit perfectly into the swell of my navel. Soft where I was rigid, cushioning the points of my hips that protrude when I'm feeling unwell. Long, slender fingers to interlock in my small ones, and full lips, a little more swollen at the top to catch perfectly with mine. Would eat the crusts I couldn't bear to discard and play odes on ivory keys; would wash the morning drool out of my hair, and most of all, comfort me with silence. Would make their forehead always slightly warm, to lean into mine on occasion, as if to say, you know you're safe, right? The truth is, that kind of affection exists, somehow, somewhere. If it's imaginable, it's tangible, if only in thought. If only in my Stockholm syndrome self-love.
Yes, my head is an absolute nightmare, between the books, wishy-washiness of self-importance, worry re: the current state of affairs and other human things. Work. Lust. Boredom. Missing school. Family. Friends. More lusting. Sleep. Lack of sleep. Imagining things that have been and never will be.
Obsessions. Compulsions. Disorder.