Jan. 16, 2024
I’m just going to have to send this as a doc. Otherwise, you’re going to get annoying message after message. And the beginning may seem irrelevant, but trust, it ties together.
I’m in an intro writing class where the whole class is about hunger. I have a working theory that hunger in the first-world is a sort of “performance.” This specifically includes eating disorders (performance of control, discipline, self-induced either from/for others or yourself, etc.), sue me. Example being if you or I said we were starving. We wouldn’t actually be starving, just really, really hunger, but we’re going to exaggerate to somehow add more weight, superficial though it maybe, to the statement. This example is solely based off of how my mom never let me say I was starving growing up because my dad actually grew up with maybe a meal a day. And if I ever even say, I’m hungry, like saying, “You don’t understand, I haven’t eaten all dayyyy” he will say he understands. In those moments, I quickly whip myself into shape again. Anyway, this is leading to me saying that these performances are a form of ego, specifically a narrative egoism. I’m going to even go as far as classifying hunger strikes as performance. Literally, performative activism. Again, sue me.
In class, we were reading this poem about a man who argues no one in the whole world understands his hunger (metaphor in this case, still holds). But anyway, he gives himself over to total self-importance, and the Prof. basically got the whole class to hate the guy for writing about himself. And I made the argument that if the man in the poem believes pain is the only real feeling in the world (last lines: “And I have learned that only this is not proved vain : (the colon is important) hunger by which a world is fed as I am fed pain) we should be sympathetic towards him. Then the Prof asked me why we needed to be. And I mean, he had a point, right? Do we owe it to others to listen and sympathize with an experience? I get that everyone has a right to tell their story, but they aren’t owed the right for people to listen.
The Prof basically went on to tell me that the writer is already so selfish that he doesn’t need me, or anyone else in the room, to listen or care about him. I mean, I could just cry right now. Isn’t that so terribly sad. I understand, but loath, the argument of people saying “Why would you care if they don’t care about you back” and blah, blah, blah. But isn’t that where the kissing stops (figuratively). Maybe I don’t know when to stop, but to me, the Prof., and everyone who agrees with him, are just as selfish as the writer. At least, in this case, the writer has narcissism as an impairment. It’s actually exactly what I wrote about in my common app. Anyway, how does this relate? My ego gets in the way of a lot of things. Like the above for example. Instead of stopping myself from sending you this, I’m asking you to not respond. Breaking it down, I’m messing with autonomy that isn’t mine, just as the writer has, just as the Prof has. But I pick and choose who gets my sympathies because I can, and am a hypocrite when it comes to others doing the same. What I’m trying to say is I’m sorry in as many words as possible.
You wouldn’t believe, but this is an attempt at an apology - the most self-involved one you’ll ever read.
Leyu
Some April morning, I felt the dead space, air, whatever it is that surrounds you in the morning after leaving the window open in spring. Scratchy throat, troubled breathing, it was one of those rare times I didn’t want to get out of my bed. It had rained either that morning or the night before. I had the next four days off. I hadn’t been able to write in four months.
I know that I’m missing something in those blank moments. I woke up from a dream where I was put on trial for an emotional affair. I try not to ruminate. Dreams are fiction, and by definition, so is the past. Looking around, I’d replayed the comments on my bare room, the lamp light still on. It was bright, sigh after sigh, I toss and turn because I’ve never closed the blinds. It was chilly because I turned the heat off. I’d avoided turning it on since M stayed the night and I thought her face melted off when I woke up. I was so scared, I fell back asleep - a morning delirium. I remember when she was here, she suggested I turn off the lamp light. I only did it the one night. I checked the messages from the night before, pricking my finger every slide up, remembering my phone hit against a metal chair two afternoons ago. It’s around 7:30 at the latest. I no longer need alarms. I knew it was Thursday but I lived Wednesday like a Friday night. So, in practice, it’s a Saturday morning. I’d made plans to run, in more ways than one. I didn’t and rarely ever actually do.
I’m caught in between interventions, regarding my own life and others. My hyperawareness has slowly killed me; I’m having trouble sitting through conversations because I swear to have heard them before. Everyone’s teetering between annoyance and endearment, and every other week I think I’ve met either someone I used to know or the love of my life. But I can’t help the latter. He just has a way of weaving in and out. I’m assumed to be blinded by a sort of nostalgia for October, where it felt like I was sleeping in a city that never woke up. I’ve easily become that same romantic again.
At some point, last month, I washed my hair in the dorm bathroom for the first time and almost passed out. I thought I could avoid similar fits because I’d chosen not to fast. I know I’d be giving into something I shouldn’t if I continue. What I’m trying to say here is that I don’t admit things when I’m wrong, I tell myself I need to fix that. I tell people my new fast is trying to be less judgmental, but that I’m failing daily. I tell myself I need to fix that too. It’s become a season of saying “sorry” reflexively because stepping over others in conversation has never felt more unavoidable, getting the locations of the people who matter, realizing that things don’t mean anything other than what they are. Knocking over the stack of coins on my dresser doesn’t represent the state of my life, let alone the world.
I’m crying listening to “Sex” by the 1975 when A knocks on my door. I’m reminded of a certain summer. I won’t realize that I will cry even more about two weeks later. That it’ll be the same night N will tell me to stick up for myself and say what I need to. This I’ll forget by morning, and need him to reiterate when I ask almost a week later. What I will remember is being the only one holding my hair that night, occupying a weird space for the rest of the month.
The next day, I’ll wake up to a phone call from my Dad, not the first to ask if I’m okay. My responses will be delayed because I’ll be running on less than two consecutive hours. He’ll tell me he had a dream I went missing. l’ll cancel all plans because of this and what I’ll call a psychogenic fever. It’ll last about a week; the okays, the canceling plans, and the fever. Soon, R will tell me my kind of cry means I’m living with something I shouldn’t. I’ll wonder when I learned to shut it off and linger on the conversation with T, where I told her I just needed someone to wake me up when it was all happening. She told me that wasn’t how it works, something I’ve known for a long time but hate to admit.
The day before, F will talk about London and its instability. She’ll say her life works in parallel when living there, how her here and there will coexist when she goes back. Then she’ll counter, that when here, there is on pause. We’ll be walking as she’s talking about the contradictions of the two, wishing the world would choose. When we part, I’ll figure the cigarette in my pocket is in ruins because of the humidity. I’ll be right.
I’ll pack up my room in less than three hours, then help some others, then come back the next day to help some more. I’ll hear Y saying, “Aren’t you going to miss this?” on repeat, and probably falsely envision her doing a spin as she says it. Each time, I’ll remember that here and there have always felt and been the same, that nobody has ever really had a choice, and that we all occupy a weird space in some way or another.