Everything Everywhere All At Once

I am an oasis. Life draws to me.

Last week, I reduced and screamed at my mom. She knows the word trigger, but not when it applies to me. I sobbed, “I just wanted to be sad and talk to my mom.” I cried, asking why the same events happen to me over and over again. I tried to say, I try to change so why doesn’t life?

My friends call me, and I always have something to say. I start every call by asking how they are first because I know the conversation will revert to my unending hurt and anger and annoyances. This week a friend reaffirmed she calls because she wants to hear about my life. I have a deep fear I don’t know any of my friends as well as they know me. I also have a deep fear they do not know me at all.

I can’t sleep. I’ve been starving myself for two weeks. A storm cloud has rolled out, and I am out to sea. My body holds itself at swordpoint, and I swallow Trader Joe’s Ginger Shots like a weekly multivitamin. I don’t like ginger so my chaser is a children’s dose of strawberry yogurt.

I have never forgotten when a boy labeled me “the fun one.” I am an oasis, but an oasis is a stagnant mirage. I am fun, but mother fate holds the medium at arm’s length. Tonight I read, “Only have one drink on a date because otherwise, you’ll forget if you like him or if you’re just fun.” I could have used that advice years ago, if not two weeks ago.

They have no idea, and I will never see the land.

The same boy who labeled me “the fun one” (versus “the smart one”) once looked me in the eye and asked, “Why do you assume you’re an imposition?” The people who hurt you are often the people who restored you.