I Browse Rehab Centers While My Brother Browses Blinds For His New House
I browse rehab centers while my brother browses blinds for his new house. The name of my future memoir? Venetian vs. vertical, locked gate vs. open. His blinds hang neatly; mine are blackout curtains duct-taped to hope. l've climbed mountains, crossed rivers, seen beaches that look like a Carnival Cruise ad. Visited more countries than there are breakfast cereals, and still the hardest place to be is my mind. Whatever distracts me from that hellscape is my next adventure. Pristiq, Lamictal, Abilify, yoga (can we normalize hating yoga), meditation, embroidery, CBT, DBT, EFT, the GRE. Positive thinking, a bland diet, Valium, more protein, less carbs, holy water, hydrotherapy, a Himalayan salt lamp. Screaming I AM ENOUGH from a high chair. If you can dream it, I've swallowed it. The universe is allegedly listening. I've made 'almost-okay' my brand, and people pay me for it. Hope isn't free, but it's got great branding. I keep refreshing the page like maybe salvation is out of stock but shipping soon.
There were the no mayo days, the extra mayo days, the days where sun slapped me against concrete as I ran through July. There's l'm chill, man, l'm cool, there's control freak with a clipboard. There's ocean and stream and feet in the grass. There's morning pages and Googling how to disappear without hurting anyone. There's community, and still nothing has been such a balm. Is it more surrender, less surgery? Is it less coffee, more awake? A mineral, a prayer, a miracle folded like a receipt at the end of my rope? Is it really that easy for the ones who share my DNA?
Maybe you are the point and that's enough right now. Maybe closing that Google tab and saying fine, I'll stay for you. There was a day we believed long summers would never end and everyone we loved would always be laughing in the kitchen. Maybe the answer isn't an answer. A 5-year-old once asked me "does it get easier" and my spirit split in half. Maybe it's keep trying and loving each other in the fault line. Keep laughing in the kitchen. Nothing is forever - no summer, no. sadness. They don't give out degrees in that; if they did, God knows l'd have one.
Maybe the cure isn't in a bottle or brochure. Maybe it's in the not knowing - in the trying anyway. Maybe the meaning is hiding in the absurdity - rehab and window treatments in the same search history. If the world won't stop spinning, maybe the trick is to spin softer inside it. Maybe the whole thing is just this: a day small enough to hold. The blinds go up, the world spins, and we refuse to let go. Maybe the key never comes but we keep building rooms we can live in. You stay with me here, okay? Until the blinds close, the dark hums, and we try again anyway.