i am very, very tired
just plum tuckered out. sleepy as hell. my heart echoes restless.
(disclaimer: it’s fiction, except for the mattress topper part because that’s absolutely true. i’m actually doin great. if you read into this, that’s on you!)
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i’m sleeping better than i used to. not great. every night i toss and turn on the mattress topper that kept going up in price while waiting in my online order cart. every day, before we even started talking about inflation, it went up and up. i couldn’t stand the feeling of my ass bones on the broken mattress i inherited from the last tenant. so i finally bought it. it arrived exceptionally flat. hilariously flat. it slept for days, luxuriant in its flatness, while i did not.
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when it finally unfurled into the shape it was supposed to be, i took it out of the closet and placed it on the bed. the foam is obviously cheap, yellowed with age. how many seasons did this spend in the back of a dusty warehouse? how long did it languish in a shipping container? what port of call welcomed it? who freighted it to a warehouse in the greater montreal area? now it is here, and sort of helping me sleep. i feel i am disintegrating. i feel i am fading away. my flesh confirms this. or rather my flesh denies it, but my pants confirm my suspicions. but now i do not wake up in the early hours of the morning with my ass bones aching. so i call it a win.
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the memories i had forgotten have started to pour in again, delayed processing triggering recall triggering diary entries like this.
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i wish i could write about my teendom like people who had a better time can write about their teendom. i remember the professor who said to describe it like this: it was not a happy home. but this was not a kindness, because i did not come from a mere unhappy home. here i am, a grown adult, standing on a damp bath mat, wrapped in a cheap towel, staring at the cracked paint on the bathroom door. this is what i would say now. this is how i would tell the story:
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at 11, i was convinced i wouldn’t see 13; by the time i was 13, i was certain of very little; by the time i was 18 i had forgotten it all. i ran my body hard, chucked myself body and soul into danger, wore myself thin, waxed fat and unhappy. i didn’t need sleep. i didn’t need food. just coffee. just tea. some pills. whatever i could do to keep running, i did. those cruel synaptic reconnections keep me awake at night,reminding me why i used to run. i had a very good reason to run. a good reason to wear myself out. by the time i was 13, i had learned i did not posess this body. it was simply the pleasure of others. that the only thing it could do for me was run.
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when i feel brave i think i will sit down and knit together a maze of words that will straighten out this knot in my gut. when i feel brave i think there are words that can express this. make it not feel so self-indulgent. not like i want a pity party. all i wanted was some compassion. i wanted someone to see me the way i saw them, full and complicated and fraught. i wanted someone to see me the way i saw them, worthy of easy kindness. to believe those who you do not know are worthy of kindness is to be naiive, is to be simple-minded. a good target. there is no room for kindness here.
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i have had my body taken away again. and again. and again. at some point you are a number and a passport. at some point you are a constellation of health outcomes. at some point you are labor that stays alive enough to keep toiling. i have enough health insurance that i won’t die from infection. i don’t have enough health insurance to figure out why i am so tired. why my bones feel so heavy, so sharp. why the bolus seizes in my throat. i am healthy enough to keep running. i do not want to run now. but i have to.
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i have to keep pushing. keep progressing. keep hoping. keep grieving. keep moving. keep producing. keep researching. keep putting things down onto paper. keep writing diaries. keep sane. stay well. try not to loose face. convince all i am a good fit for the position of cog in a machine. brick in a wall. lost soul, wandering hungry and wretched in a mall.
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i know the real answer here is to admit it: admit that i’m worn out. admit that i need to take it easier. admit maybe, today, i can’t do everything like everyone else. but i have been educated. i have learned a secret that they do not tell you about western civilization. the simmering threat at the heart of a neoliberal order. it is that if you do not produce, your body becomes worth more than your person; when your body is worth more than your person, you die, even if your heart keeps beating.
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