My phone autocorrected “heart” to “viewer” this morning, and it was right. I have clumsy fingers. It corrected “started” to “shatter”, the sentence still made sense.
I have this newsletter about questions to ask our moms, but I still hide inside my body — I still hide outside my body, I still hide behind my mother, I still hide. I still forget to ask her how she’s doing (I’m still afraid to know).
Dad woke up and whispered he felt like his toes were dead, dad has dead toes everywhere, there are dead dads everywhere. This was all a year or so ago.
None of these things go together, all of these things go together.
Bodies, bodies, bodies, bodies, bodies.
My therapist told me to write a letter from my mind to my body. All I can hear is not good enough; all I can hear is not good enough; all I can hear is not good enough; never will be good enough; never will be good; good; enough.
I Instagram the pain away. I tell myself I’m so real; tell myself I’m so real; I’m so real; it’s a convincing game.
I wonder how my parents raised me so perfectly; raised me; so perfect; and I still ended up rotten on the inside. I still ended up perfect; and perfect was an empty word; and perfect was nothing; I still ended up nothing. I wonder about lavender pills and never closing doors; I wonder about hurt. I wonder who else cried today.
If you read anything I’ve ever written you’ll know I’m breaking and fixing all the time. Breaking and fixing. Breaking and fixing. That’s what we all do, that’s what they all say, I sound like a broken-metaphor-broken-record, I just complain, I just pretend, I’m so real, it’s a convincing game.
There’s a cup that’s so empty, a cup so empty, wants to be glass but is plastic, is synthetic; it bounces when it falls; it doesn’t shatter; it thuds on contact, it doesn’t scream.
It is a small cup. And it feels small and cups have feelings. They like the dishwasher, they want to be clean.
My therapist told me to write a letter from myself, to myself. All I can hear is never good enough.
I feel this constant need to tell people not to worry about me. Maybe it comes from the fact that I’m constantly worried about everything. Maybe it’s because I know myself better than I let anyone else, maybe it’s because I’m worried about me too, maybe it’s not. I know nobody needs to worry about me because I suddenly miss the rain in Seattle (I’m hungry for gray skies?); because mom still makes rice crispy treats and eats them from the pan (things get sweeter with age, ah, yes, they get sweeter with age); because I still want to climb mountains just so I can count the trees, I still love trees, I still want to cry, I still want to love and love and love and love and love. I want love to pour out of every crack beneath my skin and once I am empty I want to trust fall into the ocean and refill a million times, I want to be a small plastic cup with feelings and I am because I’ve fallen a thousand ways and bounced and thudded with each and I’m still here and I’m still pouring pouring pouring.
I haven’t done an interview for the newsletter in a while. Oh, how easy it is to make things about ourselves. Oh, and it has always only been about ourselves. Oh, lies and excuses, lies and excuses. The truth is it is hard for me to talk to people right now, much less ask questions, much less ask for answers, who knows anything anyway. I know we just keep moving forward.
Someday I’ll have the capacity again to offer you a beautiful wonderful interview from a beautiful wonderful person with boundless knowledge to give but now is not that time and I hope you’ll bear with me until then.
In the meantime, here’s what I can do. I’ve always said that words of affirmation are my love language (really I just want assurance, really I am always avoiding). But yes, for now and for vanity, words are my love language — by that I mean I’ll tell you what I mean, by that I mean I’ll tell you that I love you.
This is my best, then. To pass along the words I’ve been keeping close (and then sometimes forgetting about — how do we let that happen?)
A list of books I started this summer and didn’t finish (but want to someday!)
The Mothers by Brit Bennett
How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America by Kiese Laymon
Dear Memory by Victoria Chang
Time is a Mother by Ocean Vuong
Calling a Wolf a Wolf by Kaveh Akbar
The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan
Question to ask your mom:
What is your favorite book?