To Keep Living — Jet Trails

I must provide a warning–this piece is probably going to mention a few topics one might want to avoid.

CW: Suicidal Ideation, Depression, Seasonal Affectiveness Disorder. Pretentiousness.

If you wish to stop here, I understand. Just know, the heroine doesn’t kill herself in the end!

Awesome Doodles throughout this piece are by the dearest, daring-est Lydia Hynes. I love her.

I prefer to exist in the edges of the day. I teach Yoga in the early mornings, and I’ve grown accustomed to slouching out of bed, abandoning warmth and bracing against the cold floor. I coax myself to splash frigid water on my face, in hopes of shocking myself from sleep. I wind up with cold water dripping down my forearms. This is the first time I look in the mirror every morning. (I have a lot of mirrors in my apartment, but I try not to peek until I’ve baptised the day.) This is where horrific (pimple,) or just ok (no pimple) discoveries are made.

I’ve hacked my morning routine, so I need just 20 minutes to get from bed, to the subway platform. As I pee, I slip out of my pjs and put on my clothes. Seated, as I toss my shirt onto the floor, and pull my pants over my shins. As I brush my teeth, I pack my bag. Toothbrush hanging out the corner of my mouth, like Churchill’s cigar.

No matter my shortcuts though, I’m always five minutes late to leave. (I spent too long examining the pimple) I run through the brisk dark. By the time I emerge from the subway, the sky is pale blue and pink–that is, if I can see the sky at all between the tall buildings. By the time I’m done teaching, I’m running on endorphins and am absolutely starved. The sky is bright, commuters hustle. The day unfolds.

When I wasn’t working a 9 to 5, I’d go right back to sleep upon arriving at home. I’d rest till about 1:00, waking up angry, lethargic and then waste time until about 4:00. Then I would decide I needed to capitalize on my angst ridden state. I’d call friends or take a walk. Usually I’d wind my way to my bar, too late for coffee, a tad too early to drink. I’d choose between the two anyway, usually opting for the wrong choice.

At 7:00 or 8:00 I would find myself in Brooklyn, typically surrounded by the most beautiful, funny, smart women I’d ever met, and some guys. The guys talk too much and the women hope for too little.

I love nights especially. I enjoy bitter drinks, that I force down, the tip of my tongue and front of my throat stinging like I’d swallowed astringent. I like how people, places and things (nouns!) get a little blurry. I like the still quiet of the night, when you pause to snap a photo. I like the raucous laughter when you look back to the photograph, and notice how sloshed you all look. My nights, like my mornings, end with a sprint–much to my friends’ fear.

Under the influence of tequila, I tear ahead of packs, peeling away, comforted only by the sound of my breath and the blue-black-brown of the passing buildings.

I’ve gotten better, though.

When I was a teenager, I’d run and run and lose the group, and eventually have to walk back, 15 minutes later, tail between my legs, greeted like a failed-Odysseus.

Now at least, I take pauses to jog under foot, keeping pace with myself, letting my friends catch up, looking more like the monstrous Polyphemus.

I end the night staggering up my stairs. Tipping side to side as I push the key into the slot. I’m always sure to wash my makeup off, and give myself one last dissatisfied glance in the mirror. Preening for a flattering angle.

I jump into bed, literally, jump into bed, a habit from childhood that I’ve yet to break. (Though I’ve broken many bed posts this way.) Then I lay perfectly still, sure if I pretend to be dead, unable to move, I’ll fall to sleep.

I don’t sleep through the night. And I wake up too early again, and waste my time, and stay out too late. Only alive in the edges of full days.

I’ve often been told I am intimidating upon first meeting. More than once, I’ve heard the phrase, “I thought you were a bitch when we first met.” And though meant to be a compliment–a, “yea, but look at us now! We love you! Happy Birthday!” It’s something that keeps me up at night.

I’ve crafted responses, quick, witty remarks, silent head nods, silly faces I can make–all to combat this preconceived notion. But none of them seem to serve. The remark typically leaves the mouth, and falls splat on the floor, staining the room with icky, gooey backwards compliments.

I am not someone to be intimidated by. I really think of myself as an idiot. Really. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve had eight (?) odd jobs since I’ve moved to New York. I cry most days. I weaned off birth control a year ago, because I thought the chemicals bad for me, and gave myself an Ovarian disorder and adult hormonal acne.

I am a mess in a slightly well-maintained package. I do a lot of trade-offs to keep up with existence. When with my eclectic art friends, I think to myself, “yes they’re brilliant, but I can rock a red lipstick.” With my come-from-money friends, I soothe myself with “ok, they look tailored, but I can write a heart aching haiku.”

Why I make these comparisons, I do not know.

Reader, there is no competition. No end-of-life-participation trophy. There is no tier ranking on your life. It’s just a life.

But I feel a compulsive need to judge and compare and hope to be worthwhile. As if my life isn’t worth existing, because Kate Berlant has already written a solo show that I wish I’d written.

Like I’d be denied admission to the pearly gates because Kendall Jenner can wear my natural hair color better than I can.

And though I’ve tried to see what others do when they meet me for the first time, it’s all been in vain.

You can’t make a first impression on yourself.

There is no way to intimidate yourself in the mirror.

Though I did manage to scare myself, once. Twisting my nose and baring my teeth.

There is no war for love. You can’t fight your way to adoration.

There is no way to be beautiful and clever and easygoing and loveable for the entirety of your existence. Beauty is fleeting and ugliness hidden in plain sight. Like a pimple-covered in concealer, that's bound to rub off by the end of the day.

In short, I used to be an ugly duckling. I can be beautiful. I still hate my body. I love when someone loves me. I used to read more. To my detriment, I always try to be the smartest person in a room. I still can’t dance in a night club. But I do know how to keep rhythm. I used to be cute, and I’m still a child.

How can I be intimidating, if I’m an embarrassment to myself?

Confessional time. Really raw stuff here guys. I hate to be so dark…

But I have SAD. Seasonal Affectiveness Disorder.

I know, I know. It is my cross to bear.

I know that it became trendy to say that in the past year or so, *eyeroll.*

And, sure, I’ve never been diagnosed by a doctor, but why would I ever need the gaslighting-white-male-centric-medical industry to validate my story anyway?

My symptoms? Well, I just get really sad. Like all the time. Yeah, I mean it’s so dark, and cold. The sun sets at 4:50 PM! Like, what?! I just want to stay in bed all day. With a PSL. Maybe with someone to watch movies with. Ooh like Harry Potter?! Oh my god, you are such a Ravenclaw. No, I mean–yeah, her transphobia is inexcusable, but when do we separate the art from the artist? Y’know?*

*This is a character, fuck JKR.

You can bet on me to ruin a perfectly pretty day.

All my worst fights have been on the most beautiful days.

At high noon, on a summer day. Days I wish were spent in freckled sun, instead stuck in the blinds-just-parted-mildew-dark of a living room I don’t belong in.

The contrast between sunny-side-up skies and screaming at someone was never satisfying. Just a little disappointing.

Like a trained animal biting the hand.

A slap on the nose. A tut of the tongue.

I only fight when I need to, but I’m sure to waste a beautiful day.

Like how I hate to wake up before the sun rises

when the weather’s too cold to leave the comfort.

I choose to waste my time.

Kicking the comforter, cursing the day, bound to unfold.

I choose to bide my time. Waiting for something I do not know.

I wring my hands, and check the weather report, searching for the perfect time to verbally kick someone’s teeth in. And later cry over being so cruel.

You can bet on me to trip when the gate opens.

To second guess whether that was the gunshot or a pin drop.

Bet on me.

To lose each race and every fight. No matter how hard I run, or how fiercely I gnash my teeth.

I choose to fight when I need to. And I force myself to do it, even on the most beautiful days.

I fight for things I think I need, and then learn how to live without them.

You can bet on me to keep living, and to lose.

Slivers of silvery light.

Morning dew, and dread

Nah. No. You know what? There is no poeticizing of what I am going to say. Or, for the more talented, or more veiled, there is. But I will make no attempt to do so.

There is a moment that slowly edges its way into my life every year. But never so much as this year. It has never been so drastic.

I’d estimate it arrived on October 9th of this year. It wasn’t at first dawn but in the middle of the night. I woke up at about 2:00 AM, as I am oft to do. I remember trudging through the kitchen, mussy haired and bleary-eyed, and opening the fridge.

As I blinked against the orange juice light, I thought to myself “I want to quit.”

It wasn’t a new feeling, in fact, it’s a feeling I’d embraced lovingly throughout 2022. Every new job, new idea, and new person I met that didn’t suit my needs, I left on the curbside, tucked between the cushions of bedbugged couches and under the piles of Glad Bagged trash.

That particular night, I knew my insomnia was inconvenient, as I had to teach early that morning. I believe the sentiment of “I want to quit,” came from a deep desire to SLEEP IN FOR ONCE, DEAR GOD. I went to class though, getting there early, giving my all to a room of strangers more dedicated to themselves than I.

From that day on, the feeling intensified, until the mantra became, “I want to quit everything.”

As my eyes would crack open, “I want to quit everything.”

Stretch of spine, feet on the floor, “ I want..”

Involuntary yawn, a mournful sigh, “to quit…”

Look in the mirror, new zit, “everything.”

I felt this strong, almost primal urge, to run into the woods, and kick it there for like two weeks, tops.

10 days paid vacation, my only salvation. Except I don’t have 10 days paid vacation. And I don’t have a luxurious cabin in the woods, or better yet, a cave to hibernate in.

And then the sun abandoned us between the hours of 4:30 PM and 7:30 AM, and ruined the edges of my day.

That, and a few particularly stressful days at work, morphed the harmless mantra yet again.

“When do I get to kill myself?”

That is not poetic (though I put it into italics)

That is not beautifully tragic. It is scary. I say this because at a relatively recent time in history an entire social media platform glorified suicidal ideation, and I want no part in contributing to that. #tumblrgirlspleasestandup

The thought is so passive, though. If my brain were a void–as I suppose I really think it to be, rather than a series of interlinking tissue and neurons, the thought would apparate from the blackness and just as quickly disappear, leaving the void in stasis.

Like the shake of an eight ball. Bang against my head. Get out, out, out. (damned spot.)

“When do you get to kill yourself?”

As though I’m waiting for my turn. Like I need to put it in my day planner. Like, the White Rabbit, running very late to a very important date.

Like I wasted too much time dallying in bed, scouring at my alarm clock, and had to tear down my block, running for the subway.

Saving Slyvia

“Do you think if she hadn’t stuck her head in the oven, that she’d be famous?”

“Laina!”

“What?! It’s just a question, I’m trying to incite a thought provoking conversation.”

She stands in the center of our warm, smokey living room. The lavender incense propped in her snake plant, spiraling smoke around her shadowy frame.

“I think you mean a provocative conversation.”

“Did you know that her children were in the other room?”

“Yeah, everyone knows that.”

“Not everyone.”

“You’re right.” I blink. Hands folded.

She stays still as stone, blank expression. Before adjourning to the kitchen to pour herself another glass of wine.

She calls out, not too loudly, as the kitchen is only a few steps and a thin wall away, “Don’t you think that’s reckless?”
I stare at the grey wall, bespeckled by Laina’s family photos, and artwork she’d bought from folk craft fairs.

“Well,” I summon after a moment, “I think she was trying to kill herself, so…her forethought of the consequences of her actions were most likely limited to the remainder of her life?”

“What?”

“Like she, I don’t know–”

“I mean she put towels under the door, so the kids wouldn’t die.”

“So then it wasn’t reckless.”

“No, it SO was!”

“Ok.” I shrug. Happy to let her be right.

She sinks into the soft velvet of the couch, folding her feet underneath herself. The red wine in her mug sloshes dangerously.

“Do you read that in bed?”

Her eyes point to my copy which sits on the green cushion between us. Its cover is a blue hypnotic spiral, “THE BELL JAR,” in a fluorescent pink. It almost feels as though an Instagram graphic designer made the cover, it’s so modern. But it’s the 2005 re-printing, there’s a prolonged forward, written by a biographer who theorized on Slyvia’s mental state, and the autobiographical nature of the ‘novel,’ if one can call it that.

“Of course, why wouldn’t I?”

“Because it’s from the library.” She cocks her head to the side, obviously.

“Laina.” My voice is low, threatening.

“What!?”

“It’s not gross.”

“It’s a sad book! People have probably snotted all over those pages.”

“Ok, well it’s gross if you think of it like that!” A beat, a point. “At least I have room on my bookshelves.”

Laina’s bookshelves were filled with knick knacks and books and journals–stuffed with disorganized thoughts and ramblings.

She shrugs. “I like to have my own copy, I can mark ‘em up.”

She pulls her own copy from where it had slipped between the armrest and her seat. It is the classic, dark blue cover, with a pair of stockinged legs, and mary-jane clad feet. The same fluorescent pink font. A thousand sticky notes, and dog-ears, volumize the pages.

A soft smile creeps along my lips, inadvertently causing my nose to itch. I rub it, as Laina takes a sip of her wine. The silence goads her.

“How would you kill yourself?”

I sit up, “I actually have an answer to this one–”

There is no Laina. The above interaction isn’t one that I experienced with anyone in my life. I don’t have an adorable, live-in-best-friend-roommate situation and a green velvet couch like I expected I would when I envisioned my twenties.

Rather, it’s a conversation I had with myself, in my head on the N train home one night. It had been a particularly hard day at work, and an unexpected rain had begun as I walked through Prospect Heights. The B and D were down, so I opted for the ‘bullet.’

I was returning to Manhattan from a visit with a few friends from childhood, which made me long for a time I couldn’t have back. There was a sinking dread tied to my ankle, and a tired behind my eyes that kept me from avoiding the rain. I walked slow, letting it drench my hair, and drown my makeup. I stomped on soaked, dark leaves.

I assumed I looked like a crazy person sitting in the unforgiving fluorescents of the train. It was the Thursday before Halloween. The man across from me wore a hyper-realistic skull mask. As the train broke above ground, I contorted my spine to look towards the skyline behind me. It glittered against the black of the East River below.

Through the plexiglass of the subway door, and the racing raindrops, the shine of one particular building and one peculiar thought.

“When do I get to kill myself?”

And the New York Life building. It's shiny dome, a pillar of light in the darkness.

“I think I would jump off the New York Life building.”

“Ew, why?” She sips her wine, consuming it eagerly, like it was gossip.

“It's a beautiful building. I mean, the bronze top is just decadent. But mostly for the irony–killing yourself by jumping off a life insurance building.”

“I think jumping is one of the worst ways you can do it.”

“Like the poor people on 9/11.”

“Otessa Moshfegh has a cool idea about that in “My Year of Rest–

“--of Rest and Relaxation, yeah.”

“Right.”

“Another melancholic book.”

“ That we’ve just read.”

“Because you’re not real.”

“I’m your imaginary best friend.”

“Ew, don’t say it like that.”

“Ya know, It’s a good cheat as a writer, ‘oh your characters don’t have distinctive voices,’ oh, yeah, well it’s because they’re all one narrator, it’s a demonstration of my psychosis!”

“Ok, rude.”

“Sorry.”

“I’m trying to do something here, you know–”

“No, I’m really sorry. It’s really, very, I mean, it’s avant garde.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re pulling the veil over the audience’s eyes.”

“I’m trying to make myself an unreliable, but deeply honest narrator.”

“Believe everything I say, but don’t listen to me.”

“I’m not trying to only do auto-biography, you know?”

“Like Sylvia.”

“Do you think she’d be lauded if she hadn’t taken her life?”

“Can I get back to my point?”

Laina stands now, hand on hip, and cigarette in hand, only kind of standing by the open window. Only kind of ashing into the Beatles ashtray. She’s drunk.

“Yes, of course.” I lay down across the entirety of the not-real-green-velvet couch. The cat I tolerate, but secretly adore, purrs in my lap.

“Otessa Moshfegh says, “Each time I see the woman leap off the Seventy-eighth floor of the North Tower [...] I am overcome by awe, not [...] because I’ll never see her again, but because she is beautiful. There she is a human being, diving into the unknown and she is wide awake.”

There’s a pause between us. Laina gives me a soft smile, just like the one I gave her.

“You didn’t just quote that word for word.”

“ If you jumped off a building, I’d say the same about you.”

“No, if I jumped, you’d be dead too.

“Because I’m–”

“--a figment of my imagination, yeah.”

A tear rolls down my cheek. Then another. In a moment I am keeled in half, my messenger bag falling to the floor. Crying.

The Skull Mask Man “hey miss, smile–” he sings, “every little thing is gonna be alright.” I bare him my teeth. A SMILE. A smile saying, “leave me alone please, thank you.”

He sings through the rest of the train ride, at 28th street, skipping off.

I am not sure of who is crazier.

“Do you wish you could take control?”

“I could never.’

“We hate the sight of blood.”

“And are afraid of heights.” I breathe, “I wonder, if Slyvia had been saved, how much more poetry she could have given us. But in the end, that would only make us happy, it would’ve probably made her want to kill herself more.”

“Does writing poetry make you want to kill yourself?”

“You tell me.”

“This is embarrassing–are you gonna publish this?”

“I’m not afraid of being accused of pretentiousness.”

“I am.”

“Well that’s what makes us different, I’spose.”

She stubs out her cigarette, and scoops up her cat.

“I’m going to bed. I love you.”

She swaggers out. The ‘juicy’ on her bum, swaying to and fro. Yes, she’s been wearing a juicy tracksuit this whole time.

It’s hard to be suicidal when there’s a puppy nibbling your toes.

That’s all.

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I am afraid of blood. That is true.

In my Freshman year, I went to my college’s medical center to get prescribed antidepressants. This is all true:

And in order to exhaust her options, before giving me SSRI’s, the nurse asked if I’d be ok to get my blood drawn. At this point in time, I hated the school I was going to, I had just been broken up with, was convinced all my friends hated me, and was convinced antidepressants to be the only answer.

I nodded, smiling tightly, “Yeah! Sure.”

She disappeared, the absence of her neon scrubs, dimming the room’s light.

I sat in silence. The drone of the fluorescents above the only white noise.

She returned, what felt like eons later, with a large red cart, filled with at least thirty small vials, poised for attack.

“Are you eager to faint, hun?” Her twang hitched and her gum popped.

“Am I eager?” I laughed.

She smacked her forehead, animatedly. She smiled.

“Need I remind you of the time?”

It was 8 in the morning. It was the first appointment I could get, and the only one I could fit in before my 9am class.

“Are you easy to faint?”

“Um– I don’t think so. I've only had my blood drawn one other time.”

I had been sleeping too much in my senior year. My mom was convinced I had anemia. Turns out I was just depressed.

“Well let’s have you lay back, just in case, m’kay?”

I confront the fluorescents now, head on, squinting against them as she preps the needle.

Her bright neon, like a bumble bee, flitting on the periphery. Just out of focus. Out of focus. Out of ffffff…

“You feeling ok?” Her manicured hand on my shoulder.

Brow furrow. Was I asleep?

“Yeah, yeah, that uh–doesn’t hurt at all.”

“Needles already out hun.”

Oh. I had passed out.

“Right! Right. Yeah, I’m all good!”

Eager to please, I stumbled to class anyway. I was front row in a 100-person lecture. Psychology 101. Jesus, I wish I’d made any of this up. It was taught by Professor Bacon.

I leaned over my desk, as he stood in front of his podium, about ten feet away from me.

“Just so you know,” I stage whispered, “they stole my blood at the health center. So if I’m giggly or loopy throughout class, that’s why.”

“They stole it?!” He slammed his hands against the podium, his eyebrows raised, his mouth agape, mocked shock.

He broke his play pretend, when he noticed his 6-foot frame leaning over the podium was much more intimidating than he meant.

“Do what you need to, kiddo.”

I didn’t like giving my blood then. And I really don’t think I’d like to give it for my own life.

I couldn’t withstand harming myself in that way. I think I’d faint before I fell asleep. I’d wake up embarrassed in a hospital bed, searching for a way to make the nurses and my mother laugh.

“Whoops, must’ve slipped! Typical klutz behavior!” I’d shrug my bandaged wrists, ‘oopsie!’ Begging for a laugh.

Maybe the nurses would. Nodding their heads politely, only to heave a heavy sigh in the hallway.

I was 17 when I wanted to die. I turned 23 this year. A lot had happened, a lot has happened, and a lot will happen.

When I was 17, I was being abused by a teacher (story for another time,) my beloved Nona died (her story for another time,) and I was dating an older man (not worthy of a story.)

So, suicide seemed convenient. But the practice of killing yourself, didn’t. So I slept a lot. For hours on end. I’d get out of school by noon, go home and sleep till 5:00, eat dinner and then do homework till midnight. I began to exist in my edges.

Over the years, I gradually fell back on my feet, after toppling and tumbling through what felt like my infinite rabbit hole.

I went through a breakup, I moved to Greece for a summer, I started practicing yoga. I met the man I love.

Then the world seemed to end. I stayed inside, I attended zoom seminars and started practicing Yoga 3 or 4 times a day. I watched movies I always said I was gonna. I stared at the ceiling and I wrote.

Eventually, I moved to New York. I got an apartment, and a job I like. I started listening to myself more. My life is what I’ve always wanted it to be (minus the green velvet couch, and live-in-best-friend.)

But I suppose the rearview makes objects appear happier. But I was over it. Past it. Grown. Happy. Resolved. Safe.

And yet.

I waste beautiful days. I lay in bed and stare at the blue, that shines between the buildings, and curse the day. I mimic lifelessness. I fake death. Pray for sleep.

I bite my tongue through dinners and drinks. I hope for too little. I crane my neck down during conversation, giving myself a neck ache. Headphones in, thoughts plugged up. Shoulders shrugged to ears, the cold can’t. get. in.

I can run from it. Into the night. Past the bluebrownblack of the world. Away from the cold. Away from the silences before snaps of photos, and through the ruckus laughter.

I could run right by the cabin I could retire to, or the cave I could hole up in. Trip over the secret entrances to bomb shelters built, and abandoned mine shafts.

Maybe I’ll find the edge of the world. So I can forever exist in the edges.

Maybe there, I won’t be deadly. Maybe I’ll have sprinted so hard, and so fast, letting my feet fly from underneath me, that the sadness will never find me.

It’ll be left in the dust that my feet kicked up.

And at the edge of the world. I won’t jump. I’ll just look. Stare and stare and hope, and sleep, and wake up to stare again.

And yet.

There is no edge we know of. So for now, I will live.

I am alive. I choose to be alive.

I choose to waste my time.

I choose to bide my time.

Until maybe I wake up, better.

Healed. Patched up. Mended. Saved. Alive. Maybe I will wake up alive.

Maybe I already am alive, or dead. Maybe this is all written to eulogize me, long gone or simply run off.

Remember, the goal is to be an unreliable, but deeply honest narrator. Believe everything I say, but don’t listen to me.

But just this once, listen: