It’s 10:36 p.m., and I’m standing in my kitchen at college, holding a lukewarm mug of tea in one hand and stirring pasta with the other. College dinner at a college time. My mother’s old sweater is thrown over running shorts and leggings and my hair is still too short to braid, but long enough that I’ve started bundling it up in ponytails out of annoyance.
I’m taking a break from writing a reader’s report for an internship application to actually eat dinner, while my housemate hollows out a dozen limes in our living room for a fancy drink she’s making. I won’t be in bed until at least 1 am. So much for early bedtimes. Like usual, I’m splitting my time: running back and forth from kitchen to bedroom to stir pasta and type a few more sentences of this post. I notice a bottle of cheap vodka on our kitchen counter, next to our hot pot.
“Is someone doing shots?” I ask my housemate, running fingers through my hair and pulling more hair from the loose braid. Dammit, I need a haircut. I glance at the clock. “I mean, it’s 10—it’s Thursday—” It wouldn’t entirely surprise me.
“No,” she says, laughing. “I’m making jello shots for my date party tomorrow.”
I woke up from an 8:30 p.m. nap groggy and already overwhelmed by the stack of short stories on my floor, my half-read reader’s report book, emails that needed to be answered, the three text messages beeping insistently next to my head. I considered turning my phone off for the night. It’s a week where I don’t want much to talk to anyone—a week full of ups and downs, all blurring together like a merry-go-round that’s gone too fast.
We’re all in deep mourning, I guess, for a wonderful, life-changing professor who is leaving us at the end of the semester. It’s a lengthy and complicated story and not precisely mine to tell. But I’ve remembered waking up every morning this week, often from stress dreams about her, our department, the entire shebang. Winter is clinging insistently, stubbornly, to the landscape of this tiny Upstate New York town, and I want spring so badly that I went running today. 28 degrees felt warm and the sky was October blue. Good enough. I ache already, but I have a sneaking suspicion I also run for punishment, to feel some kind of physical response, some kind of burn after I finish.
My phone bleeps again. I mute it without looking. I can’t take care of one more person today. I can’t think of anyone but myself this week. Selfish, selfish, selfish, the conscience that lives under my breastbone sings. Selfish girl, bad girl, be kind to other people.
My mentor looked at me across her desk on Monday, with concern etched into her face, as I sat sniveling into a wadded ball of tissues.
“Be kind to yourself,” she said, in a way that only made me cry harder. “Don’t forget to be kind to yourself, Amy.”
Inside, I whispered Thank you, thank you, but out loud I said, “I know—I’m trying. I’m trying.”
I’m not sure if she believed me. I’m not sure if I believe me.
As is their right, my internship team wants things written up, layouts done, I work thirteen and a half hours a week, I have assignments due for classes, I’ve assigned myself internship applications, organizing various projects, submitting my work to journals, the list goes on.
“Amy,” one of my bosses said to me today, looking up from her desk as I dropped off mail, “I just wanted to tell you—if I ever have a daughter, I hope she’s exactly like you.”
I blushed and stammered, flattered and lost for words. I don’t know her quite as well as I know some of my other bosses, but we always smile and say hello in the hallway and ask how each other’s days are going. I’ve done a few small projects for her, but nothing huge.
“Thank you,” I say finally. “That’s so nice, thank you.”
“I told my husband that last night,” she said, “and I thought I should tell you. You’re always so put together and professional.”
I try to remember compliments like that when I’m making spaghetti at 10:30 p.m., getting anxious about how messy my room and all the things I haven’t done yet.
Breathe. Relax. It’s going to be okay.
My mom called this morning, at 7:30 a.m., which made me panic when I got it at 8:10, tucking the phone under my chin so I can hop on one leg to put my boots on. I’m going to be late for class, I’m going to be late for class. Shit. Shit. My parents never call—not because they don’t worry an unreasonable amount, but because they have a very hands-off policy now that I’m out of the house. A year abroad in a foreign country between high school and college worked wonders in terms of expanding the parent-child relationship. But because they never call, I worry when they do. My mind skyrockets to a death in the family, another announcement of cancer, Sweet Jesus, what’s happened now, please don’t let it be anything too bad.
“Hi honey! Did you get my message?”
There was a message?
“Uh, no, I saw you called—” I’m about to tell her I’m dashing out the door, as I wriggle, one-armed, into my coat. “Why, what’s up?”
“Uncle Dick’s going into the hospital today, I just wanted to call and let you know.”
I forget that I’m going to be late for class. “Wait, what, why?”
“Oh, heart surgery. I called him last night—you know Sue, she’s frantic, but Uncle Dick just laughed and said ‘Well, I’m on my fourth beer and we had steak for dinner tonight.’” Typical Great-Uncle Dick. Typical Great-Aunt Sue. I can just imagine my birdlike great-aunt fluttering nervously around her well built husband, who just turned 80, talking a mile a minute in her thick Boston accent. We share a birthday, Uncle Dick and I, and he called me on our birthday to pass me off to 17 members of our extended family, most of whom I’d only met this past summer. Second cousins, once removed, the McSorley family, on my grandmother’s side.
“Okay, but it’s a routine surgery, right? Like—nothing can really go wrong?” My voice rises at the end, as I stuff my keys, cell phone, and lipstick into my pocket.
A painful memory stabs hard in the chest: My grandfather was in the hospital for a broken hip and the day after we saw him, he was gone. Anything can happen.
It’s too early to be grieving. Jesus fucking Christ, I have been grieving all week, for someone who isn’t even dead. Enough. Enough.
“I mean, there’s always some risk.” My mother sounds cautious. “Uncle Dick’s 80, you know. But it’s pretty routine, yes.”
“Okay, will you let me know what happens?” I collect my water bottle and jar of Earl Grey tea, glancing at the clock again. 8:21 a.m.
“Yeah, I’m going to call him tonight.”
“Okay, well I don’t get out of class, meetings, or work until 5 pm. But I’ll leave my phone on for you.”
“Sounds good. Love you. Have a good day.”
I don’t turn my phone off after my nap, just in case. She hasn’t called yet. I’m operating on the assumption that no news is good news.
It’s 11:02 p.m., and I’m doing this instead of writing that goddamn reader’s report. I’m half tempted to scrap it and just not apply, but I know I’ll hate myself on Saturday if I don’t. The chances of me getting anything from them aren’t good—I mean, I’m submitting my application on the date it closes. How does that look? Pretty shitty. But why not try?
Tomorrow is Friday. There’s always the promise of a new week dawning. The promise of a Monday to make myself into a better, more tolerant, kindhearted person, who isn’t itching with stress, feelings of inadequacy, impatience, with a healthy dose of hormones whomped in there. When I say TGIF to my co-workers tomorrow, we’ll all sigh with relief and think what the weekend means to us. Maybe I’ll sleep. Maybe I’ll spend all of Saturday in bed finishing up business with tea. Maybe I’ll write some poetry and clear some of that raging in my head, or go for a run, because it’s supposed to be warm.
I’m reminded of a particular few lines from one of Anna Journey’s poems (“Letter to the City Bayou by Its Sign: Beware Alligators”):
“I’m made//of so many girls I can’t get them all/drunk at once or they’d mutiny.”
I half suspect they’ve been sneaking bourbon behind my back.
The Wanderer 