Roses, Ropes, Rooms

An essayistic journal entry.

            Walking into my friend’s bedroom an hour after her breakup was like entering a museum exhibit on her emotional state. The triptych mirror of her vanity had been severed three ways; the shards dispersed into glistening flotsam atop her carpet. Her wall decals were strewn across the floor, and spidery lines of distress had been clawed into her wooden desk. It could make for a stirring art piece on despair, a life-size collage of pain. I am not proud to admit that I am jealous of her.

            I’m jealous of people with ropes of rage that burst from their mouths and shoot into the sky. Of course, they are destined to plummet down to earth in a tangled heap, but for a second they get to feel the rush of release. The tingle of momentary uncertainty. I’m jealous of people who send text tirades in all caps, who scream things they don’t mean, who swipe the card to buy the bag that is light years beyond their budget just because it feels good. This kind of impulsivity is frowned upon and pathologized, but there is a bravery in choosing to bound through the rosebushes and accept the thorny lacerations.

            My room is always tidy, my skin always Cetaphil-ed, and most of my days are held together by the scaffolding of a to-do list. I’ve never broken an object or damaged property or cursed anyone out. I have organized myself into neat compartments and become a toolbox in the process, heavy with the weight of preparation. I restock myself in anticipation of the next time I’ll need a screwdriver, and I live with the lingering sense that I am missing a pair of pliers. I spend time getting ready for the next time so when that time rolls around, I’ll have more time. Time to do what, I’m not sure. 

            When I have enough idle time, it can be a problem. I say “enough” instead of “too much”, because unless I am in a truly positive place, enough is too much. My mind is a sprawling subway map with lines that need lassoing. Especially before I try to go to sleep. Without schedules and directions, the trains veer off the track, clattering across unpaved country roads before losing themselves in the thick of a forest. I sound paranoid, but I’m simply familiar with the eerie creep of darkness that starts to settle over those steel caterpillars as the sun sinks behind the trees. I’ve let it take the reins and watched it tip the trains over many times. 

            The last time I visited my childhood home, I found a sketchbook I had dated between the ages of five and eight. Most of the pages were splashed with crude drawings of animals, but on one I had written “why do things exist?” in crayon. I’m hoping that breathes life into my train metaphor. Much of my cognition today toils beneath the thumb of that question and hundreds like it; questions that are compelling and worth asking, but distracting and impossible. So distracting that I must tether myself to earth with things to do and places to be, because I know how disoriented I feel without them. I am so dizzied by the vastness of the human experience, nauseous from the conundrum of existence, angered by the unsatisfying platitudes to explain suffering, that I often ask myself if it can all even be real. It seems too much to be more than an illusion. I squeeze the skin on my finger, watch it whiten, and wonder how many bodily processes came together to make it happen. How my anatomy was arranged in such a harmonious way, and by whom, and for what purpose. I unpeel a banana and silently inquire about the life of the person who plucked it from the tree when it was still stiff and green. Where do they live? What are they thinking of right now? Do they even like bananas? Unlike the many self-professed true crime junkies I know, I listen to one episode of a serial killer podcast and spend next day wondering what the victims were thinking, where they are now, and oh God, why why why why why.

            But it is not feasible to occupy all of one’s thoughts with life’s melodramas and existential mysteries, so I have learned to write my to-do lists and reapply my Cetaphil and tidy up my room again. I’ve tried a less restrictive approach and found that I am truly happier when I pack the inconvenient parts of myself into travel-size bags. But I am a bit ashamed of the fact that I need to. I’m jealous of the people who do not feel obligated to, or who haven’t learned how. I have ironed the desire to smash a mirror or send a vengeful text or stray from my budget out of myself; like a Pavlovian dog, I’ve been trained to by repulsed by the idea of doing so. I’ve used my internalized toolbox to construct a working machine, but what dysfunction lurks beneath the surface? 

            Until recently, my outlet for unruly feelings was binge eating. Most of us understand the phenomenon of emotion-induced indulgence. Like an alcoholic who reaches for a bottle, I headed to the kitchen when under duress. But my most uncontrollable binges happened in peaceful times. I would start each morning by examining the size of my stomach, the prominence of my collarbones, and pledge to behave myself that day. And most of the time, I would. I let hunger persist until I was unable to think straight and would congratulate myself on my willpower, all while thinking about food constantly. This constituted a good day. It was at the end of these days when the urge to tear it all down was the most mouth-watering.  

            Some people relish in rebelling against their family or authority figures, but no blood is as red as that lost in battle with oneself. There was nothing more satisfying than the middle finger I raised to that confined, hungry girl as I lodged another spoonful of peanut butter into my mouth. I barely even tasted the food, but savored the crashing defeat of my inner disciplinarian, the shame that immediately followed, and the stillness once what was done had been done. The drama of this masochistic cycle took up much of my mental energy and allowed me to exercise my bloodlust without anyone else witnessing or being harmed. I hid it so well that no one even suspected it. The next morning would be devoted to rigorous exercise to undo the damage: I would wake with a purpose and do it all again. 

            Thanks to an instructional book on recovering from binge eating, pages of journaling, a period of daily Overeater’s Anonymous meetings, and hours of uninterrupted dialogue with myself, this addictive behavior recently came to an end. It’s now rare that I even have the urge to eat past fullness, and the times when I give in are unremarkable slips. But now I’m left wondering where this energy goes. It was my equivalent to smashing a mirror, firing off an angry text, or making an extravagant purchase. Now what do I do? Where are these untamed impulses and feelings that bring color and action to the lives of others? I have consistently waxing and waning moods, and plenty of feelings to express, and yet I am so contained. I carefully trim the rosebushes instead of running through them, wondering what would happen if I let a thorn pierce my skin.