A Day in The Life

Talking about absolutely nothing - thinking absolutely everything.

I was up until three in the morning yesterday because I was certain that everything I’ve ever written was terrible, and everything I’d ever done was just me running way too fast, in the entirely wrong direction.

So, I tore everything down and rebuilt it.

Momma says that I stay still for a little too long, and when I move, I move a little too fast. But what’s too fast if I’m getting things done? Isn’t the faster the better? She said that’s my prerogative. I wouldn’t know how to slow down so for now I accept that this is just that. My prerogative. I looked in the mirror where golden stars sat on my forehead where pimples used to be. They’re gone now, but I like the stars; I pretend I got a gold star for finally doing something right. Maybe it’s for moving really fast. Probably not. Maybe it’s for actually writing. Probably.

I did my laundry today.

I separated loads this time like a big girl. I even bleached the whites. I even made an all-black pile. I even put them away instead of banishing them to that infamous laundry chair. I finally did something right. That’s how I earned my second golden star.

I remember thinking I’m a somewhat old and rusty shell with a really juvenile brain and a real penchant for staring at myself in the mirror until I can almost see my brain through my eyes and have direct communication with it. I think I wrote that in my journal at one in the morning, after staring at myself in the mirror until I could see my brain through my eyes. When it looks like vanity, and smells like vanity, is it vanity? No. It’s paralysis. A paralysis demon that brings an inconsumable number of questions. Unrelenting questions of subjects to which I don’t even want the answers to. This time my demon brought questions of love, and wouldn’t let me go until I found answers to it.

What makes any part of love survivable?

Well, what makes any part of anything survivable? Love is sliding your bare beating heart across a marble floor, scraping squeaky beating flesh. And you have very limited time to find somewhere safe to keep it before the blood gets tacky and when it’s scraped across the floor, the tissue tears. But it’s that one percent chance that you may find somewhere safe to keep it before it does tear. It’s just that if you do find somewhere “safe,” you must pray it is actually safe. Your heart needs a while to rebuild itself to be slid across the floor once more to find another; if the place you found isn’t safe, if it isn’t as great as you thought, your heart won’t make it. It won’t. Especially if the place you entrusted your heart to slams it back on the marble floor before it has time to heal. It won’t make it. I’ll spare you the details. Though, it’s that one percent chance that you will find a safe place to make your heart two times better than before, that has all of us sliding our hearts across the floor. That bloody, fleshy, massacre was completely preventable, and one hundred percent chosen by the victim as the number one way to die. Heartbreak. Can you believe it?

And so, I found the answer, and I came to, in my body, staring at the mirror. I broke away, turned off the light, crawled into bed, and rested my head.