ode--to-viceroy

[ode--to-viceroy]

another surgery. another last minute flight to save me, or at least pretend to. stand there while i do it myself. she wants me to move back home. everyone does, the ones i don’t even know or care for, she says. i find it hard to believe. who do they miss? what do they miss? i’m not the same, and i’m not better. leave me be. nashville is an option, and the only one for now. i don’t want to leave this job in five months, but it may not be a choice. maybe friday, i’ll be a new person. i’ll be a happy little idiot, at my happy little desk, then at a happy little bar with a happy man pretending the music sounds the same as it used to. there’s no one here to hurt me without me putting in some effort. effort i can’t afford. it’s horrible to say but i find myself regretting getting a dog, something to tether myself to. it’s a responsibility i knew i would need, but not want. without the tether i’d be dead. how long can i keep it up? should i? the babe, the rampant sexism, the burning sun, the uncomfortable conversations with my boss every other day. i’ve been a bad person, even worse than before. lying. the smallest i’ve ever felt. we’ll see. i just want to relax, whatever that means.

[ode--to-viceroy]

i’m drifting. spineless. desperate.the bathroom floor is gone. my bedroom floor, too, almost. two men yelled and slammed doors today so now i feel like this: down. cloudy. putting myself in a stupid situation tomorrow, out of desperation. i’m like a wolf in a trap, but the trap is my own brain. i just think that if i try hard, hard, hard enough, then i can save up and change twenty years of patterns, move to a small down in a dark cabin, and relax. but even i know that can’t happen. i could move, pick somewhere he hasn’t touched. but then it’s still about him. i’m going to have to drug myself to get through christmas. i’m in denial, i think, but also abject disassociation. so many overdue bills. a new light on my car dash, every week. a new bulb going out. taking the pictures off the wall, again, only to put them back up a week later. never finished. this boy likes me, but he doesn’t really. i understand why men get fascinated, infatuated, whatever, now. i’m just reflecting their personality back. i went to see a movie last night and i said 5 words the entire time. it doesn’t matter. i thought that if i could trick myself into being a stupid, vapid, vain girl that maybe it would become true and i wouldn’t make myself so miserable by thinking all the time. but that didn’t work, so plan b. back to the old ways. 

[ode--to-viceroy]

[ode--to-viceroy]

oh, it’s so bad, overnight. there wasn’t a warning, but I knew anyways. I just didn’t think it would be so bad. and that I would be so unprepared. it’s too much. there’s no xanax for depression, no quick fix. maybe ketamine, but i don’t have a thousand dollars laying around. I took benadryl, smoked the hell out of the resin, all at 8pm, and here I am, still awake, crying. I can hardly stop when I go into work. it’s endless. I texted my mom asking if she told my brother’s girlfriend about me visiting for christmas, but what I wanted to say was: I don’t know if i’m going to make it until christmas. I don’t know if i’m going to make it to the end of the week, at this rate. it’s the darkness--and it’s only october. it’s me trying so hard, and yet, still, ending up in the same place. should I move home? act like the last 8 years didn’t happen? try to get out again? at least I had something to look forward do. it’s like charlie brown and the great pumpkin, except it’s me and the great seasonal depression. I don’t know what to do, except keep trying to survive it. there are bugs, still. I don’t have the energy, still. I have these goddamn horrible migraines from, I assume, being dehydrated, depleted, not eating. not enough sleep. I was seeking male validation for a couple weeks, again. deleted all of that. all the apps. I disgust myself. I think i’m going to try to shut down, hibernate for a bit. minimum function. sleeping pills, more often. go to work. eat, enough. but I can’t even do that. I have so many things right behind, waiting. return the rental computer--it’s months overdue. be a good friend--can you imagine? people would be shocked. got a late payment notice and eviction threat on my door when I got home today. I just wasn’t built for this. i’m so, so, so, incapable of living on my own. but it’s still the only way. if I go home, i’ll see him. I don’t want to go home for christmas at all. it’s only obligation. and my mom might even understand that, at least halfway, but she already told people. so I have to show up, and act fine. nice. bring presents. I can’t even pay my bills and make it to work on time without crying, but I have this now. i’m so ungrateful. it’s what happens when you’re like this. bitter, ungrateful, selfish. I can’t stop it. I want to start over but it’s too hard. and it just feels pointless now anyways. 

[ode--to-viceroy]

it’s forever. the heavy heavy heavy feeling. the light light light--in the worst way--anxiety. i’m not even trying to be dramatic. i think i’ll stop seeing betsy. i’m not getting any better. it’s so much easier to just let it be. give into it. last night i got so sick that i thought it was the end, again. it’s so hard to walk on eggshells around yourself. i’m such a burnout. leah texts me, asking if i’m still living in north carolina. jessie texts me, saying she had a breakdown like mine and quit the same job. tomato boy texts me, asking to see me again. no, i know, but this time it will work, he says. he really wants it to. maybe he should just get a hotel? the offer made me almost throw up in my mouth. i felt so sick all day. i know that’s what it is, what it’s always been, but for some reason it makes me feel more disgusted with myself than with him. chris texts me, saying that we should  get back together, he was being selfish that week, and now that he’s so, so busy, it will be different. he’ll be more understanding. i told him i wanted no part of that. hopefully he leaves it alone. it doesn't help that i have to drive past his house every day on my way to work. at least he’s oblivious, and not downright cruel, at the end. most men get cruel. my mom texts me, saying she wants to come visit. a project visit, already, i can tell. all i have to do is pretend to be okay, and fun, and normal, for a weekend. i’ve just been getting so high i can’t think, and watching the last waltz over and over and over on my couch. i could recite the whole thing, probably. i’ve taken all the decorations down in my apartment. 

[ode--to-viceroy]

july is sad. a new sickness, a miserable ER visit. getting dumped, for the same thing, for the second time. third, maybe. I didn’t know what to tell him. I don’t know why all these breakups feel like long, arduous, drawn out therapy sessions. i’m behind on almost all of my bills. it’s an apocalypse, but a slow one. I did a bad thing last night. my body is sore and my insides feel worse. it won't be good, but it’ll be better. at least a little. i’m just going to focus on surviving. anything else is too hard. no classes in the fall. no dating. no big plans. no visits home, still, I guess. I have no clue who I am, again. what i’m doing, again. and on and on. summer feels good, for a little while. if you trick yourself; ignore the nightmares. but now it’s cloudy, monsoon season, always confusing skies during confusing hours of the day. maybe fall will be quieter, easier. i’ll renew my lease, try to be okay, and be gentler with myself. 

[ode--to-viceroy]

got it together, a little. therapy is rough. exercising. new job. some sort of exposure therapy, working with a warehouse full of men. dating a man, who seems good for me. and vice versa, not in the usual way. it’s slow. in the best way. ignoring stoner boy to hang out with him. it seems healthy, at least now. god, the things he says. the bar is so low and so i knock it out of the park and it’s good for both of us. he’s real. serious. i have a note in my phone of the things he says. i mean, god. not even in a sexual way. some of them. 

anyways, i get it. it’s not love but i get the whole thing now, i think. the appeal. of dating someone you actually like. not someone who’s convenient or just transparent about liking you. we’ll see. he picks me up, takes me to parks and diners and all the places i like. is genuinely nice, in the quiet way. not the love-bomb matt way. i’m proud of myself for not talking to him again. god, that mess could’ve gone forever if we/i’d let it. he’s a little grumpy, but considerate, and gets it. gets a lot. gives me these looks. it’s always the looks that get you in trouble. anyways, i’m happy. genuinely, some days. it’s very strange but maybe ten years of therapy and 90mg of an SSNRI can do that for you. we’ll see how long it holds, anyways. 

[ode--to-viceroy]

I think, just maybe, quietly, that this is forever. the sadness. the low. i can sometimes run away from it for a bit, work myself to death, pretend i have a new goal, but it always catches up. and here i am…again. i will say it here, quietly, so it doesn’t get back to betsy. i don’t want to do the work. i’ve changed my mind. i can do that, right? i didn’t think it would be easy, truly. i didn’t. but the new kinds of hard…i’m not prepared for. i’m not strong enough for. i’m mad at her and i’m mad at my mom for convincing me to quit my job, then leaving me to pick up the pieces. it’s been five months, for fuck’s sake. everything is falling apart. always. still. 

[ode--to-viceroy]

in one life, maybe i stuck it out through school, picked communications as my major, stayed close to kyle, maybe lived in the cottages on the hill. or in west jefferson. tiny west jefferson, with the best antique store in the world. the roadkill cafe. the giant, empty italian restaurant. the coffee shop with the couches and the little gallery upstairs. i'd live above one of the stores on main street, soak in the quiet. go canoeing on the weekends.

in another, maybe i stayed at the beach. finished up school, transferred to wilmington. although that city never felt right. it could be. live a few blocks from the beach. embrace the quiet. the ocean. a plan for hurricanes. find a few tiny record stores, watch the guys surfing. like 13th avenue, on those foggy mornings. i had this life, some of it, and it didn't feel real. it felt dangerous, but not dangerous enough to stop. i narrowly avoided a lot. so, maybe not this life.

maybe one where my naive plan really worked out; the ideal. i had two years, nestled in the mountains. alone on holidays, but it wasn't like before. canoeing on breaks. quiet creeks. the thrift store with the smell that is just like my childhood. your childhood. everyone's, i think. after two years of smoothies, dark hallways in old buildings, eating alone on the third floor, crying in the stairwells occasionally, i move on. right before comfort. remind me to talk to betsy about that. then, to florida. i'd be miserable, but by choice. the humidity, the bugs, the sunshine. who knows what would happen after that. i wouldn't fit in.

[ode--to-viceroy]

i miss it. intimacy, i guess. stoner boy, when he looked at me then tucked the blanket around my feet because he knew they were always cold. matt, when he reached over and held my hand on that drive to the park. calm down dude, when he squeezed my hand under the table at the awkward christmas work dinner, deflecting all my boss’ questions. anyways, I'm sad. tired. maybe worse. i feel bad telling my therapist i feel worse because i’ve seen her three times a week, no, every day, forever, so it just feels bad. my mom went off her medicine a few weeks ago, possibly because of something i said to her. i thought she was gone. still tenuous. schizophrenia, was the thing me and my brother were thinking but afraid to say out loud. i’ve never been so scared in my life. car accidents, my father, being so sick i thought i was dying. nothing comes close to this. it’s like grieving my childhood or something. i have no rock. i have no support. i’m 26 so i guess i should have expected it, but still. it’s so backwards. she was talking about terrorists, bombs, people listening. psychosis. ‘this is what you have to look forward to.’ you’d think, maybe, when someone says out loud, the worst thing you’ve feared, that you have to convince yourself is irrational, just to get past it, and not overwhelmed. you’d think that it would hurt less. or at least the same. but god, it’s still awful. i’ve never cried so much. once the worst was past, my body was punishing me. is, still. my home is once again, the bathroom floor, with an ice pack, my medicine cabinet scattered in the hallway, 9/10 pain, my phone blasting music but on 1%. the stars. stars never looked so ugly, except when it feels like your insides are dying and they just sparkle to tempt you of being put out of the misery. betsy says to write. write write write, because otherwise i swallow it and my body somatisizes it. bombed another interview. i wish i didn’t get a dog. as much as i love her. it’d be a lot easier to disappear. i’m just so tired, but there’s no time for me to be tired. there’s things to do, things to take care of for my mom, now. things to do to keep up the pretense that i’m not nearing the end of something. 

[ode--to-viceroy]

I woke up really early the other morning and filmed the rain.

[ode--to-viceroy]

substances. am i better? matt is still lingering. too much drama. weird drama that seems fake and like the stuff on tv. nothing i’ve dealt with before. he’s 30 but i have to act like the mature one because if i just agreed with him, we’d be on and off again until the end of the millennium. it’s like he has a short term memory. are all men like that? i’ve never dated anyone long enough to fight so much. anyways, maybe he’ll go away. i do some good things, to get better, but then i feel like i have to do something bad to even it out. what is that? betsy would have a lot to say, for sure. finish resume, catch up on laundry. text stoner boy. apply to some jobs, talk to my advisor for school. smoke enough to make myself sick and then lie about it. i’m sure there’s a term for it; other than self-destruction. i guess i just focus on the good. participated in the workshop, hung some more things on the wall to make it feel like home, transferred my gym membership. but the bad creeps in. the peripheral anxiety. the outright paranoia, but is it, if it’s warranted? three incoming calls yesterday, one right after the other, from a blocked number. a package without a signature or note. this time of year just freaks me out, because he won't stop trying. here’s to hoping he doesn’t have this address. but my gut says that i should worry. 

[ode--to-viceroy]

very very very lost. quit my job. boss made me cry in a restaurant downtown. too much $$$ on therapy. think i’ll go stay with my mom for a week or so. pretend everything is better and spend more time in the sun. i honestly feel like i’m trying, i just don’t understand why every little thing is so hard. at least, in my disassociated state, all the mean things matt said to me mostly bounced off. 

[ode--to-viceroy]

this is the funniest thing a man has ever texted me after breaking up oh my GOD it's basically a meme

#it was a numero group 'early emo' playlist #i didn't even pretend that i made it #i honestly want to frame this and put it on my wall

[ode--to-viceroy]

got really sick sunday night and thought it was all over. again. forced myself to work yesterday and called my mom between zoom meetings, sobbing. tried to pull it together and not quit or get myself fired. it feels like something bad is coming, but I don't know what. I miss dating, but not for the right reasons. seeing betsy twice a week is unraveling everything, and I can't compartmentalize anymore.

[ode--to-viceroy]

things are bad, but in a new way. nothing feels real. i'll keep going through, only because the alternative is even worse. has anyone else been exhausted since the day they were born? I feel so dramatic. I just want a break. my mother and my therapist and a man who wants to date me and the woman at the store and my neighbors all tell me good things, they care, most of them, with nothing but good intentions but the good things reflect away before I can catch them. the disconnect. twice a week for that and once a day for all these pills, and twice a day for these, and once a week for that too, and if you feel like concrete it's fine, it's just depression. prozac helped elizabeth wurtzel, but I think it's doing the opposite for me. i'm surrounded by books and light and high ceilings and why don't I feel better about it all?

[ode--to-viceroy]

spent the weekend in the ER. sliced me open like a fish. i’ve been thinking i’m going to die for a week straight. it’s exhausting. thinking about giving up and moving home and being miserable but safe. but it’s not realistic, i have a job and 10 more months on my lease. still, though. i’ve never been so terrified in my life. even of my father.