|
Sometimes it feels like moments in life aren’t real. Not specifically the tragic moments, when someone dies or you encounter a traumatizing experience. Just random days, interactions, conversations. Sometimes it feels like I’m an actor or a character in a video game, if things go sideways, you can always yell “cut” or reload to a previous save. But I’m not an actor, nor am I a video game avatar. A small part of my brain always knows this, I think, which is why I still can’t act like a dick or believe that consequences won’t matter, but it’s not always the majority of my brain having this knowledge. Which is spooky. I don’t know if I’ve just removed myself so far from life that it feels like fiction or what, but it’s weird, to say the least, when the memories of these moments hit and I’m forced to fully realize that they happened in real life.
Maybe I can put some blame on my dreams, for they come across so often as reality, especially when based in this world and in my life. When they’re so outside what I’m used to, I typically know that it’s a dream. But the ones where I’m just working a shift, of having a regular conversation with friends, doing something I’ve done plenty of times before, that’s when it gets confusing around what really happened. So maybe that’s my problem. Or maybe only part of the problem. Perhaps another part is my chronic headaches and migraines. A lot of the time I feel like I’m not fully here, like I’m at a distance from the world. I’m currently sitting on my couch, but I don’t feel like all of me is sitting here. My head is more separate, more behind me, floating a bit, in the room. It’s partially paying attention, partially understanding it’s here, but not entirely. I often have this strange floating sensation so would that be contributing? I don’t know. There’s a possibility though, I suppose. Plenty of times I don’t want to be in my body. The thing aches and malfunctions far too often so am I just constantly separating my conscience from my body to such an extent that I don’t always know what’s real? Am I just going insane? I wouldn’t be surprised. How can I not go insane at this point? After spending so much of my life trying to do what’s right by others, by myself, by my future, only for everything to shatter into a thousand pieces anyway, how might I stay sane? Plenty of the impacting lessons I learned as a child have turned out to be lies. So much of my energy is spent being a decent person, but failing in life nonetheless whilst cruel bigots thrive despite being the worst of people. I know it takes approximately the same amount of energy to be a decent person as it does to be an awful person, one you notice the strain earlier and the other you learn much later. But gods, do I hate that plenty of people haven’t yet been forced to face the consequence of screwing everyone else over while I get to be exhausted every day. Like, what even is life anymore? Have you noticed the utter madness that is this timeline? It feels like a farce, a practical joke. It’s every ridiculous thing that could happen, happening at once. If reality doesn’t feel real, how am I to tell the difference? Sometimes I remember that I’m not far from thirty and that ageing exists and I just want to flee to my mind palace and never return because of how bleak those two reminders are. Thirty isn’t old, however, I always thought I’d be more than a shell of a person by then. I thought that by working hard to maintain my body and soul as a youngling, then I would flourish all the more as I aged and grew into myself and experienced life and learned who I was. But that doesn't seem to be happening. I wouldn’t call myself “fake”, I guess it’s really just the definition of “masking”. Appearing to the world as a regular functioning human. It just gets foggy in my brain whether or not I was humaning at one point or another. I can’t say I’m a ghost because others see me, expect things of me. I exist. Maybe I exist too much. I’m not oblivious to what’s around me or in my head and I overthink everything too much. This is why therapy should be free for fucks sakes, so people like me aren’t left to just yap away in their blog about existential nonsense. This is also what happens when I’ve broken down so many times nearly back to back and have grown too close to my couch. I need to get out of the house. I’ll do that tomorrow.
0 Comments
Delivery should be convenient, no? Ordering stuff to your door so you needn’t venture into the world is the whole point of mailpeople. That’s why mailboxes sit in the front yard or as slots in doors. Online shopping, online delivery, the likes invoke imagery of someone knocking, or notifying in some way, that you have something on your doorstep.
When I went to have my eyes checked for an annual exam, they told me they could order my contacts and ship them to me all easy peasy. I even asked how big the box would be because I know what with me living in an apartment building, and a sketchy-ass murder building at that, people don’t like to deliver to my wee mailbox. Most of the time, I can’t blame them. It’s a tiny-ass box. But the vessel for my seeing discs was also said to be small, small enough to fit. So that’s what we settled on, I would have my contacts shipped directly to me to save me from bussing to the optometrist. Yippee. Super simple. Except not actually. I got a notice on my mailbox one day, it was the “sorry we missed you,” notice. It was annoying but maybe the box was awkwardly big. No matter, there’s a Shopper’s, London Drugs, and random wee postal outlet all nearby, a quick stroll. Was my package at any of those places? Nah. It was a forty minute bus ride away. I messaged the one friend who has a car, asking her the favor of driving me there perchance. She agreed. Crisis averted. Except not actually. The place had weird fucking hours. It opened somewhat late, which worked for my friend since she would take me there, take me back and keep on heading to work right after. I checked the notice so many times because it took me forever to figure out the location of the place and because I wanted to quadruple check the hours so as to not inconvenience my friend. I think it said something like 9am-1pm, 2pm-5pm. I assumed only one person worked and had an hour break halfway. Well, we get there and the place is closed. The hours on the door stated, 10am-12pm, 1pm-4pm. That sucks. So we head back, friend with car assures me, since the place is super close to her house, she’ll just pick them up on my behalf the next day or day following. After I ranted about this in our groupchat, my pink coworker friend searched up the place again–she helped find the address–and on their cursed website it stated their hours were, 11am-1pm, 2pm-3pm or something stupid like that. Whatever it was, know this: the times on the notice, front door, and website were all different. Now, whilst my body thinks I’m eighty-seven, I am still more able than other decrepit folk when it comes to getting around. But what if I wasn’t? I had those contacts ordered to me directly to save me a fifteen minute bus ride and it turned into a two day, strategically timed, wild-with-rabies-goose-chase. I was upset, to say the least. This isn’t the first time I’ve had to bus somewhere far from home to pick something up, even when I ship things to my friend’s houses, my packages don’t always make it there. I went two days in a row to this other post office that said they were open seven days a week online but in fact were not open on Sundays according to the locked door. So I have to ask, straight up, what is the point of delivery if delivery so often fails to deliver in every way? I read semi-recently that Canada Post is gonna try stopping door to door and instead do the batch of mailboxes at the end of the street kind of thing to save on drivers and money or whatever. So have fun, anyone disabled, or old, or both. Have fun trying to make your way a block from your house in the winter over black ice and slush, or in the pouring rain, or while you have covid or the flu and don’t want to leave your bed but you live alone so you have no choice. It’s ableist and ageist as shit! I am so sick of important suit people making decisions that actively fuck us over so they can save a million dollars and buy another yacht whilst refusing to pay their employees a livable wage! My knees hurt dammit! It shouldn’t be a two day excursion to get stuff I need! Or want! I’m not particularly fond of people, let alone old people, but this is shitty behaviour and we all deserve better! GIVE US OUR MAILPEOPLE! Imagine: you’re in a stairwell, it’s dim, empty, grey. You would use the elevator, if it was more reliable, but you have places to be. So you descend the concrete steps for a while when you hear something. Eerie whistling echoing throughout the stairwell. You can’t tell where it’s coming from. Above you or below? Nevermind, you try to ignore it and carry on, down, down, down. Then you come upon them, fellow users of the stairs. You realize one of them is responsible for the whistling.Except there’s something off. Many things are off. A quick glance would have told you the source of the whistling and nothing more. But you steal more than a quick glance and now you can’t help but keep your gaze on them as your eyes catch on each thing wrong about your neighbours.
Their eyes are the wrong color, unnatural. And with the whistler, the irises are too big, they cover too much of the whites. All three have unsettling smiles, as though drawn on, but in such a way that you can’t tell if they’re happy or sad. Especially with their brows, seemingly paralyzed in an upturned shape. Their makeup, their clothes, all are made up of happy, bright colors. But the setting, the dingy stairs, the grey walls, the echo-y whistling drains the life from the rainbow collected before you. Yes, something is very wrong. It may be a saturday, the start of the weekend where stairwell traffic wouldn’t be much of a surprise. Nor would three individuals decked out in bright clothing and makeup. And it’s October, ‘tis the spooky season. But it’s only the twenty-fifth, not halloween and the halloween festivities would be on the coming friday night and saturday after. Not on an afternoon a week in advance. So why, in your descent of the almost empty stairwell, are you now face to face with three clowns? Why did the whistling suddenly stop? And why did they start staring like that…at you…in unison? You can shriek in fear now. It’s okay, they understand. No, but like, straight up, could you imagine?! That would be freaky as hell. Luckily, when we were in my stairwell, decked out in clowncore glory, there was no one to hear my companion whistling. As far as we know. There was definitely no one who came upon us though whilst we took strange, unhinged photos. Were that to occur, it would be a simple explanation, but whomst knows if it would be simply understood. The Princess Party was odd enough to explain, let alone the Clown Party. I forgot to come up with a theme when my birthday came round, but we had something planned for the friend who came next. So naturally, we went about town, the mall, and Boston Pizza as a quartet of clowns. We got questioned. We got glances. We got weird ass photos in the dark of my unlit apartment. And we got cupcakes and pie. Themed parties are really one of the greatest things we remembered we could do. And honestly, clowncore is a vibe, a fun one. It’s hard to be casual about it, but we would all definitely be down for another random clown day. It’s the spice of life, looking like a fool, and we go about it like Olympic champions. You may have been lucky not to run into us, with wildly painted faces, in the stairwell of my murder building, but I can’t guarantee you won’t stumble upon our strangeness in the future. You may very well see the artificial eyes, red noses, and bright colors coming towards you and whomst knows what might happen next? There is a house. It’s a simple house, one storey ranch, built in the eighties. It’s nothing spectacular but it has nice yards, a bay window, fruit trees. It’s a dream, a hope, a wish, this house. Something near yet too far away to reach. But it’s fun to imagine nonetheless. It’s fun to picture how I’d decorate my room, what furniture we’d fill the place with, where I’d park my plants. We can paint the walls any color, fill our garden with any seeds, choose our cabinet handles, our preferred shape of mirror. The limits are without limits.
There are so many little things that I think about at random times of the day such as changing my pillow cases each season as well as the dish towels, what all cutlery I can acquire, what is the most aesthetically cute way to store my stuffies. I remember wallpaper is a thing, and rugs, and accent chairs. All the different types of storage solutions fill my brain way too often. But it isn’t just dreaming of the house itself, it’s the lifestyle that comes with it. I start imagining the hobbies I’d pick up whilst living in this house. I’d take up barbequing, maybe do some backyard kickboxing and tai chi, I’d house bees. I see myself sitting on the deck and crocheting or knitting, perhaps sipping a cup of tea whilst watching the sun set. I see myself tending to a colorful garden, growing grapes, harvesting pumpkins. Maybe I could make a little chicken coop and keep fluffy chickens, consuming their eggs for breakfast each afternoon. Somehow, I’d create a wee contained utopia of sorts and live my best life in this house. This house that I don’t have in person but have in my heart. I could get a cat, or two. Figure out how to play the violin in the garage so I don’t make my neighbors hate me. Maybe I’d somehow become really savvy with handiwork and do minor house repairs and renovations. There’s this part in my brain that keeps telling me, this is the place where things get better, where they improve and heal and repair. Having a dishwasher and laundry machines within my reach, on the same floor seems unreal. Being able to see the night sky without all the downtown light pollution, impossible. Breathing fresh air, unsullied from pot, cigarettes, crack, and bodily fluids, is otherworldly. It feels like another life entirely, an alternate universe, the possibility of living in that house. Whether or not it happens, it keeps me hopeful for the future, any future. Hopeful that things will look up in time, I just have to wait it out and hold strong. |
RSS Feed
