7-30-22

Nothing Lasts

“I don’t know if I’m numb or at peace.”

The words that have been echoing inside my mind spill out at ten-forty at night. I lay on the bed beside my mom and stare at the gold-framed Klimt that sits on my parents’ dresser here in our new house, the way it hung above it in our old home.

House and home. More thoughts. More unanswerable questions. My mom is silent, but I know she’s listening. She’s put her book down.

“I haven’t cried in weeks. I can’t cry, but I want to. It feels miserable. Like my emotions are constipated. I’m afraid something’s wrong with me.”

“No,” my mom scoffs gently, quietly, into the dimly lit room, pedestal fan humming dutifully in the corner, my dad’s iPad noises coming from the first floor, all the way up the stairs. The stairwell is open here. It makes me feel vulnerable. It reminds me that I’m not home yet. Yet. Maybe one day. Maybe about the time my parents decide to sell and move. What will that be like, doing it all again? All the goodbyes and panic. Faint anxiety and dread creep up, and wash back, like tide. What’s left, rather than tiny bubbling shells, is the ever-present, low-grade sorrow.

“But I’m not depressed. I sat in my room this afternoon, in awe of the warm sun on my rug, and in awe of my rug itself, and the memory of buying it. I felt pleasure.”

“That’s good.” my mom is tired, but I know she is listening deeply. I scoot closer, my head against her shoulder. I do this every night, and in a week, I will be alone. A lot of empty space. So empty that the walls sometimes feel like they’re closing in on me, and I have to get up and go to Target, buy some pony beads for my students, ice cream, some lip balm, and talk to the cashier, pretend I don’t know what I’m doing, just to remember that I have a body.

“I feel like I’ve been rubbed raw by sandpaper, then sprayed with rubbing alcohol.”

“I thought you said you felt numb.”

“I do. I feel both.”

My mom pats my arm. I know, it makes no sense.

“What if this year is harder than last year?”

“It won’t be. There are things you have to look forward to this year that you don’t even know about yet.”

“Maybe it’ll be easier.”

“I think it will.”

“But what if it’s harder?”

“It won’t be.”

“I’m so scared. I feel wretched. Why don’t people use that word more?”

“You’ll have what you need when you need it.”

“I can’t feel music. I can’t feel happiness about good things. I want to be excited about things, but I can’t. I want to feel my grief, even though it scares me. I want to feel things. I still feel like there’s something wrong with me.”

“Honey, think of the millions…” she’s listening hard, and she’s tired, and in pain. I will miss her. I miss her even now. I miss home. I miss my heart. I miss everyone I’ve ever lost. I wait for her to continue.

“Maybe not millions, but certainly hundreds.”

I wait. I press my head into her shoulder. I hear my dad’s chair creak. I know he’s getting up to get popcorn and a glass of wine.

“The hundreds of emotions swirling inside of you right now.”

I think of them. She was probably right about her first estimate.

“It’s no wonder you feel a little numb.”

“Yeah.” she’s usually right. Not always, but usually.

“Just let yourself be. Things will settle down.”

“But what if they don’t?” I think of those millions of emotions, and what a miracle it is that I only have to feel them vaguely.

“They will. Now I need to go to bed, unless you want me to come and wake you up at six in the morning.”

“No, no, I’m leaving.” I sit up, slide off the bed, and walk towards the door.

“You are…” my mom starts, and I turn around, wondering.

“So…tremendous. So incredible.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

In my room, I see my books, my mobiles, my posters. My room is an amalgam of old and new, the convergent lines of time, chapters of my life intersecting, then passing on by and becoming divergent once more.

I sit down on the carpet, not quite ready to sleep, and think about home, and what it means, and try to remember why I moved when no one was making me.

I didn’t want to live a small life.

I didn’t want to squander what my parents gave me; not just financially, but emotionally.

I didn’t want to get to an old age only to regret not pushing myself out of my comfort zone.

I was curious to see just how far I could push myself out of my comfort zone.

Then I was pushed out of my comfort zone by someone else.

I lay down and reach for my earbuds, turning them on and playing a song. I will myself to feel it, to cry, or be ecstatic. But the tide washes in and out, and what’s left is uncertainty. I’ve never been so uncertain about who I am or what I want or where I should go. I want to quit my job and travel the world like a vagabond, try to figure out who is inside of this body I have been so harsh with. I remember the words of friends: think of that little girl. Little me.

I do.

She was so full of determination, adventure, courage. Is she still? When did the world stop looking sparkly? Probably more instances than I could pinpoint, but mostly in college. I should write about college. I don’t think my hands could write about it fast enough. I never processed it, but I processed all around it, and all around the months leading up to it. I should write about The Little Prince, selkies, cottages in Maine where sad teachers go and meet beautiful ceramicists. I should write about feeling numb. About not being able to cry.

My body is the vessel for too many thoughts mixed together.

I want to stand at the edge of the cliffs of Ireland and look out into the sea and feel my insignificance.

I want to curl up in someone’s arms and feel my body to know I’m here.

I want to stay here. I want to go home.

But there’s no home.

Yet.

I don’t know if I’m numb or at peace. But I know that nothing lasts.