theeimportanceofbeingearnest

[theeimportanceofbeingearnest]

How to describe it

I'd describe it as ennui. Maybe something more malicious. Music makes me feel it sometimes- movies not so much. Television almost never. I'd describe it as an itch, something below the skin, focused around the joints. It makes me want to stretch, shake my wrists out, pull faces in the mirror.

The issue with writing is avoiding cliches. The issue with avoiding cliches is that it's impossible. Every subversion has been subverted. Even the sound of the keyboard tapping feels like a reference.

My worst fear is probably poverty, or rape, or something equally terrible and likely. My second worst is being absolutely average in everything. Another cliche: procastinators are actually perfectionists who are scared to fail. I think that one can't be true. If I swapped bodies with a perfectionist, within the hour I wouldn't have a body to return to. They'd be punctual on account of their perfectionism. Another minor concern is that I take on morbid airs to overcompensate for a lack of maturity in my writing.

I wish I could cook, or knit or do pottery. Mainly because I have starved myself of the satisfaction of contributing to the world. Partially because, as things stand, my womanhood is worth less than one goat on the open market.

I'd definitely describe it as dissatisfaction, but it doesn't cross the line into sadness. Irritatingly, I can't wallow. I get emotional trenchfoot when I wallow. It doesn't look as good on me as it does on the Didion-Cappola-Moshfegh girls. Maybe I should get bangs. Maybe I should deal with the mild fungus that seems to be developing on my right foot's Big Toe. Every next step feels equally vital when you're in the mood I'm trying to describe.

It's a strange position, being just convinced enough of your own intelligence that you can be disappointed with yourself but not enough that you feel you owe yourself the effort. Maybe I would describe it as sadness. But a kind of distant sadness like, 'it's messed up about the Amazon'. Major-city-not-funding-the-arts kind of sadness. Again, a recognition of injustice not riling enough to inspire action. Actually, some action is inspired. Ordering food, for example. Watching YouTube, but nothing made well enough to trigger me. Buying things, with a current focus on Acai Berry facemasks.

When the feeling strikes, I can't talk to people. I'm very aware in those moments of how boring it is to listen to a person who can't articulate themselves. (It's why I don't get along with children until they can read.) Affection can only make up for so much waffle. You can only hear so much 'It's just that-'/'Man, I don't know-'/'You know what I mean?' before you come to resent a person.

I'm too self-indulgent. Five hundred words about how I have no words of use to share. Another side effect of the Feeling is a compulsion to note it down.

[theeimportanceofbeingearnest]

[theeimportanceofbeingearnest]

You see a message and make a mental note to reply. You block the calendar out with half-hypothetical plans. These are white lies you need to get by, chocolate chunks of pacification. When they taste stale, you spit them out.

This is not sustainable. This is not healthy, and rot is is building in your back teeth and the crevices of old friendships.

By the time you decide to do anything about it, your toothless smile is off putting to strangers.

[theeimportanceofbeingearnest]

I want a love that bites my ankles. I want a love that sneers and pokes and sniggers. I want a love that holds my waist at a party and pulls me away from boring conversation.

I want a love that burns a mark, hot-poker pricking skin and pushing me to better things. Or at least to more exciting ones.

I want investment, even if the odds are bad. Especially then.

[theeimportanceofbeingearnest]

Everything is slightly off-kilter. I asked for light, but when the sun shone through the window the squinting I had to do to thank it gave me a headache. I'm not in pain, but name any one part of my body and there are guaranteed low levels of discomfort. My ankles click, my foot cramps, my stomach is bloated, I have stabbing pains in my arms.

If they could communicate, different bits of me would form a union and demand better from Big Brain. Big Brain would then go and lobby Stomach, the weakest-willed and yet most powerful member.

"Break this up", says BB, "or there are no no more late night cravings for you, buddy." BB is wise. Without cravings, I would be healthier, increasing the influence of Calves and Biceps in the union. Stomach is hungry for power above all else.

Skin is a silent victim, too downtrodden to consider a union. "What's the point," says Skin, "she hates me metaphorically as well!"

[theeimportanceofbeingearnest]

I don't do the things I'm meant to. As a punishment, I shackle my hands and feet. I keep all food in one bowl, not washing it between meals. The taste of last week's lunch and this morning's breakfast blends and festers and eventually I'm not hungry. I choose instead to take the acid gurgling in my stomach as part of the retribution. Tied up, I can't do any of the tasks I've been set. The sentence lengthens.

Occasionally, someone walks by with the keys and offers to let me out. But I've been here so long I think that, without the weight of the metal, digging into my wrists and ankles, I would float away. Free as a bird except less like a bird and more like being carried up by a single large balloon. I'd have to pump it full of air constantly. What if my arms got tired? My stomach drops at the idea of freefalling. No, this is safer. Here, I can feel the ground.

[theeimportanceofbeingearnest]

Today my mum came to hug me. I reacted, as always, with a flinch and a curled lip and a grunt of distaste. In my mind, I said, "you haven't earned this."

Today, a voice in the back of my head told me to give it a chance. To let her rest her head on my lap and smile at me, to press pause for a moment on the speaker that listed her crimes on loop twenty four hours a day. I played pretend that I was 12 and nothing bad had ever happened to me. It was nice, and we laughed, and we talked like we hadn't in a long time.

Afterwards, I felt guilty. I felt like I had betrayed myself, as if I had forgone justice for a momentary reprieve. After all, she hadn't actually redeemed herself. Was that all the suffering of my childhood would amount to? Where was the reckoning? If I couldn't have justice, why not exact revenge?

I felt perhaps for the first time the temptation to forgive, to abandon the slate of her sin, crudely tied to my back with twine and digging in between my shoulders as I carried it around waiting for her to acknowledge it.

But then what? Who was I without the slate? She wouldn't clean the wounds where it had rubbed away thin skin and pressed into flesh; if I brought it up she'd deny that I had carried it at all. Surely, someone had to remember. If I let it fall to the ground, the pieces shattering across the floor, would my history disintegrate with it?

Today, I realised that almost all of my childhood has been soaked up by this slate. Specks of blood along its edges contain memories of day trips. Sweat from the effort of holding it up pours down my forehead, infused with the scent of family dinner in front of the TV. Maybe carrying the slate in order to honour my past had tainted everything else. Maybe if I let it go, I could raise my shoulders and learn to walk unburdened.

I am not 12 years old, and bad things have happened. I am not 12 years old, the bad things aren't still happening. I am 19, I am allowed to acknowledge the good. I must.

Inspired by a post by @inanotherunivrse

[theeimportanceofbeingearnest]