Notes Before Bed
Every night I write a story in my head 15 minutes before I fall asleep. It’s always well thought out, sometimes funny, and almost always gets me to promise myself that I’ll put it down on paper the next morning. I never reach for my phone to write these thoughts down. I have this delusional self-trust that I won’t forget. You would think that after the hundredth story has been lost I would start to keep notes, but I don’t. So every morning the concept escapes me entirely, and the promise I made to myself the night before goes broken.
My boyfriend recently took me to see David Sedaris read a few essays from his new book, and I listened to hundreds of people audibly laugh in unison. And if there is one thing about myself that I do trust, it’s that my jealousy will get me to actually do the thing I want to do. All the stories I’ve stored somewhere, deep in some part of my brain, came up to the surface when I was met with that jealousy and the desire to stand in front of a group of people. People who can love me and hysterically laugh at my stories, and then go tell their friends that I’m incredible, and well spoken, and just the coolest person they’ve seen.
The urge to write has never been stronger. So I’ve been keeping some notes since.
Hajar’s Closet
Hajar’s closet is the most organized space you’ll ever lay your eyes on. Organized not in the traditional sense, but in the way that she remembers the placement of every purse, every jacket, every single article of clothing. There’s a section in her closet dedicated entirely to my father’s things, two leather jackets, a few windbreakers, a tan sweater, a yellow polo sweater, and a handful of other pieces I can’t quite remember.
I often sneak into her closet to look at his clothes. I try to recall moments when he wore each piece, but at this point no memories come clearly. Somehow, she always knows when I’ve been digging around. Either it’s a hanger slightly out of place or something just off enough for her to sense it. One particular fight stands out. I wanted to take one of my dad’s jackets to wear in Paris, and she refused, yelling as if the clothes belonged solely to her. She insisted they had to remain exactly where she put them. I don’t necessarily agree, but I suppose everyone grieves differently.
She’s in Spain for the next two months and her closet tempts me every time I come home for the weekend. I’ve walked in and out freely since she’s been gone. Touching things, discovering new purses she’s bought, studying my father’s clothes. I grabbed his yellow polo sweater, tucked it into my tote bag, and took it back with me to Brooklyn. I laid it out on my couch, waiting to find the perfect place for it. I wore it once, just for a day, but then took it off because I was afraid of ruining it. I placed it back on the couch, where it stayed for days.
Eventually, the anxiety of my sister finding out got to me. The next weekend, I commuted back to Queens with the sweater in my bag. I put it back on the exact hanger, in the exact spot she left it, exactly where she would know it belonged.
We’ll Start Tomorrow
2015 was a weird year. It was great, but I did nothing. My sister and I are big “let’s start tomorrow” girls. And we had rules. If tomorrow was a Thursday, we’d wait until Sunday to start because that’s the first day of the week. But then Sunday would roll around and we’d have the urge to actually start tomorrow because everyone knows Monday is the actual first day of the week. But if Monday fell on the last day of the month, we’d have to start tomorrow because you absolutely can’t start on the last day of the month. We’re lazy, not psychotic. And forget about holidays. If the banks were closed, so were we. Eventually the year went by, and on December 31st, 2015, we promised that tomorrow we’d start. Because it was the new year.
I wish I could tell you that I’ve since changed, but really, I haven’t. I still have timelines for myself that make no sense to anyone but me. I still look at a calendar and decide when a good time to start is. The one thing that has changed is the deep self-awareness I have. Will I start tomorrow? Who knows, but if I don’t, guess who I’m not letting down? Myself.
Wrinkles
I’ve always thought that I liked the idea of aging, I like to think I still do until it hits me that I just simply don’t. I like the performance of telling someone my age and watching their eyes widen, their jaws drop, they scream and throw up in disbelief. That tiny moment feels like a compliment. And I don’t like when that isn’t the reaction. I’ve started noticing the lines around other people’s eyes and mouths, not out of judgment but because I’m analyzing the same ones on my own face. Every few weeks, I find myself googling Botox before-and-after and prices at clinics near me. I’m spending more time and more money on skincare all in attempt to try and save something that I associate with my youth.
And then I get mad at myself for caring at all. Because I know that the cooler, more evolved version of me would embrace every wrinkle and every coarse gray hair with grace. And I would very much like to be that girl. But maybe aging, actually aging, isn’t some bold spiritual awakening. Maybe the real, honest process is kind of embarrassing. Maybe part of the process is allowing myself to hate it. Maybe from there, I’ll one day learn to be okay with it.
I’ll keep writing these stories before I shut my eyes, whether they’ll make it out of my brain will be a mystery and a struggle. There’s a 90% chance wake up tomorrow with nothing on paper. I’ll bank on the 10%.