Mortal Chains

Don't worry y'all, this one isn't sad I promise!

Lately, I was sitting with a friend who told me he couldn’t read my writing before bed. “Too dark,” he said. I nodded.

Later, out of spite, I opened a new document and decided to write something positive. I called it Mortal Chains, an essay on what makes life worth living.

I stared at the blank screen for twenty minutes. Then I typed: “I haven’t been suicidal lately, although if I hear ‘Fergalicious’ one more time while out dancing in L.A., I might reconsider.”

I got up. Sat back down. Made tea. Called a friend. Spent the rest of the day on Facebook Marketplace. Every morning after that, I opened the document and stared at it again.

For a full week, I couldn’t think of a single reason life was worth living. On a foundational level, I didn’t understand what was so good about any of this. The daily scrabbling. The acne on the back of my neck. The bills. The half-defined relationships with men. The vices that carry me through and shame me in tandem.

At some point I realized I wasn’t dating to find someone to have children with. I was dating to underline the fact that I don’t want them. I don’t want to raise a family. I want to maybe live another ten, twenty years. Tops.

That’s the question, really. Could you see a life with me that’s hard, fast, romantic, and ends when I decide I’ve had enough? Enough of the toiling. The headlines. The starving children. The noise. The exhaustion of being perceived.

Which is apparently not something you’re supposed to say out loud.

You can announce that you’re freezing your eggs or looking for someone to build a life with, and people will nod and say that’s beautiful. But if you mention, even offhandedly, that you might not want to grow old, that you’re considering tapping out at fifty, you’re unstable. You’re a red flag. You need help.

How do you tell someone you’re dating that you don’t want to start a family, you want an exit strategy?

Turns out, no matter how hot you are, that’s a deterrent for ninety percent of the men I’ve dated. The other ten? I’m like, sorry, I actually think you’re too unstable for me.

But recently, someone died.

A formative man in my life. At once a lover, a father figure, and a rich benefactor who was abstractedly in love with me. I always knew that if things got bad, he’d take care of me. For someone with no real family, you can imagine the role that played in the architecture of my survival. His presence was a safety net. His death cut through it.

I’d like to write something deeper and more honorable for him someday. But for now, I’ll just say something shifted. Something opened. In a strange twist of timing, I started Prozac the same week he died. So as I’ve been grieving, I’ve also been kind of... stoked? And that feels wrong.

I remember being in Krista’s kitchen the other day before starting Prozac and breaking down. I said, miserably, “Nothing feels good. I spiral, I do breathwork, I meditate, I take three walks a day, but it’s like I’ve lost all access to pleasure.”

There’s a word for this: anhedonia.

I’m not sure when it started. I remember my breakup. Every moment was gone to my ex, a long-distance puppeteer in my suffering. But then that passed. I got my new apartment and felt pure, euphoric triumph. That lasted a week.

Then slowly, imperceptibly, I began to realize I felt dull. Not stupid, per se. Just not curious. I’d lose my train of thought in conversations or drink too much to pretend I was paying attention, when all I really wanted was to lobotomize myself long enough to get through whatever social gathering I’d forced myself into. Because that’s what single people do, right? You go out. You meet people. You build community. Blah blah.

The world greyed. I know how my writing comes off. A woman on the verge. I think about all the uncomfortable feelings and words that come easily to me, but writing about happiness feels like homework you’ll never finish. It also feels contrived. Like yes, the coffee is nice in the mornings. And there was a funny story about a dog as a mayor the other day. But when it comes to the real happy stuff, I tend to feel it so enormously that it makes me nauseous.

For example: I was getting an AC unit installed, which I was feeling ornery about. Two full days of drilling and having strangers in my tiny space. I sequestered myself in the kitchen and opened the Mortal Chains doc. Around lunchtime, I got up to offer the guys some water, and instead was forced to take two slices of pizza. Their lunch. We did that whole oh I can’t possibly song and dance until they shoved the slices into my hands and I sat eating at my built-in dinette, face flushed with hot tears clinging to my eyelashes. The particular kind of tears that happen when gratitude embarrasses you.

I reflected on that as I finished the two slices, and a third. The gesture of sharing, of care, of unexpected kindness was, in that moment, so lovely to me that after they left, I could feel my body shaking. How often am I bracing for the worst?

I wake up in the mornings already worried about what happens next. But lately, what happens next is: I wake up. The dishes have been done the night before, stacked neatly, ready to be put away. The Brita has been filled. I get the tea kettle started and drink a big cup of a honey lemon mixture and take my medication.

I put on an outfit, often a beautiful dress, or if it’s cold, a sweatsuit in Princess Diana style with my New Balances and my hair slicked back like a ballerina. I look at the light that illuminates one side of the snake plant and imagine myself as that particular leaf, and how good it must feel to be caressed by the sun so early in the morning.

I’ve been keeping myself busy during the day. Cleaning this or that. Walking around the neighborhood, smelling perfumes and touching soft things. I don’t buy anything. I just give myself a little portal into sensory pleasure before I walk home and sit down to write, apply for jobs, and make myself something to eat. I text my lover with no real intention, just to let him know that I’m thinking of him and that the watermelon he carefully quartered for me tastes just like him.

So, is this a happy post? Not really. It’s really just my rambling musings about the small mortal chains that keep me here. The reminders that although the world is vast and dark and wonderful, I don’t have to feel it all. To glance out the window to catch a glimpse of a wing. An unexpected smile. His hands. The cold, exhilarating violence of a soda crashing down a hot, thirsty throat. That’s enough.