Instructions to Her Mind

She sat alone reading over her paper in bed. She could hear the rain through the crack in her window as it was sputtering on the plywood deck outside. She thought about the characters in the current book she is reading, searching for ways she related to the narrator. There is music playing out of her phone but she finds it hard to focus when she doesn’t have her headphones on. Something about music playing out into the room makes it a distracting factor, but if her headphones were hugging her ears and not sitting next to her charging, the music would be white noise funneling into her head to assist in her focus. Before the third song can play, she skipped through the majority of her playlist out of frustration and pulled out her computer to start writing.

Recovering from the seven-minute walk it took her to get to her car and drenched by the Los Angeles rain that was pouring down in mid-March, she made the two blocks home. She rushed to grab a blueberry bagel from the cupboard and finish her paper so she could read before she had class again. Sitting on top of her duvet in her jeans she lasts ten minutes before the feeling of worn denim on her bed drives her crazy. She takes off her jeans to see her bare legs in the mirror before slipping into clean sweats and her headphones before she gets back into bed. Sleeping has been reckless for her the last few nights but she has kept herself busy being productive with school work and reading when she has free time. Reflecting on the last couple of days before she had to go to class again, she has this calming feeling sitting in her stomach, a stillness of independence and freedom. While spending the entire day at a coffee shop doing homework yesterday she felt this familiar feeling of being alone that she had not felt in a while. A feeling of being alone and not being lonely. It felt good to feel something for herself and to feel so in love with being autonomous again.

After her class, back under the covers while the sun was still up, she let her spine melt to the curve of the pillows behind her back. The natural light dims her room perfectly with the early evening sunset and storm clouds muting the aggression of light peering through the window. Scrolling through her phone waiting for a text she is reminded of a post she saw earlier. If you had to choose one person in your life to write an instruction manual on who you are and how you work as a person, and say this manual is to be given to a complete stranger to try to understand you, who would that person be? Who would be the person she chose? This question had been turning in her mind all day. Immediately able to name people she could write an instruction manual for through and through, but she felt as though she could not find someone who knew her like she knew others. Pondering the answer repeatedly, she thought her mother might be most successful, but as the sun began to set and the text notification popped up on her phone she became dreadful that her history of being alone was a bad habit. She feared that the stillness she was feeling was her slipping back into a life she did not find nearly enough joy in. She knows that her confidence in her time alone can only be balanced by the moments she shares with others, but as she sat there she felt fatigued thinking about the former weekend and feared the latter.

Later that evening she curled back up in bed after making some dinner and cleaning the kitchen. Listening to the new songs on her playlists, it is one of those weeks where it seems like every song is specifically describing her mental state, frustration, and overall disapproval of uncertainty in her life right now. Questioning if she should text a friend to hang out or if she goes to the gas station down the road to grab something sour. Her knees are tucked up beneath her computer while she stares at the assignment in front of her before getting up to get ready for bed. She thinks about how if she had gone to the 76 she wouldn’t have buckled her seatbelt because there are only two stop signs between her house and the corner where the gas station is. She is exhausted from the week and she is only two days in, all she wants are the original sour ropes that she can only get from this 76 and super obscure liquor stores hidden in the depths of LA. After washing her face for the first time today, she gets undressed and crawls back into the elegantly soft touch of her line sheets that go through her perfected laundry routine every other week. So comfortable, yet unsatisfied with herself. Why didn’t she just go and get the candy? Regretting staying home, she is hungry and becomes irritated reading for school. Looking around her quietly lit room she becomes overly upset with the candle that is burning crooked next to her bed, making the side of the candle jar charred and smokey colored. She knows she needs to work on the fact that she cannot dwell on the little things that are out of her control, like the way the candle burns. As she blew the candle out to soften her frustrations, she notices the pile of clean clothes illuminated by the foggy night sky that is amplified by LA city lights. Before finding a reason to sit up and fold all her laundry, she turns over and falls asleep, ignoring the empty pit in her stomach, ignoring the laundry, and ignoring the itch in the back of her brain. She slept restlessly that night.

The following morning she went to class forty minutes early to try to get some homework done before the day. Sitting in a quiet classroom reminded her of last spring when she lived in her own apartment. She thought about her old therapist and how bad that woman would be at creating an instruction manual for her. Her old therapist would just sit there and listen, never have an answer for anything ever, and the way she nodded her head was extremely upsetting. She had never felt further from a person, other than the select few people she had met at her university. Those kinds of people she genuinely felt lived in a different world than her. For her, it was easy to talk to people and it was easy to understand them. For her, it was hard to not analyze people and it was hard to not read into psychographics. She has this need to be in others’ heads, it is really hard for her to not have control of knowledge. How others view the world, how they perceive her or if they like the same things as her, and whether or not they would get along in the future.

She felt as though people did not understand her habit of control. When she met a person, she thought about all the mutuals they had in common, why that person may have been in the same place as her at that moment, why they bothered talking to her, or wondered if they liked her or not. It was a matter of making things perfect. For example, her clean clothes sitting in the hamper instead of being folded did not bother her, because she put them there and she will fold them eventually. It was a matter of knowing her surroundings so that her next move was the right move. It was about making sure what she did seemed perfect to others. However, the candle burning crooked did bother her because she had no control over the fact that the candle started to burn and charred the jar and she did not like that there was nothing she could do to maneuver the wick straight upwards so the flame would burn centric to the candle. It bothered her that there was no way to change the position of the wick so the candle would burn correctly, and therefore would be perceived as a perfectly normal candle.

That night she got home at seven forty-five and was starting to fall asleep lying bent on her side like a dog after a day at the beach. The lights were on and she was still on top of the covers, her arms were stretched over her head, her right shoulder supporting her jaw while she faced the wall. As she drifted off to what felt like seconds but was nearing an hour, she sat up to her phone ringing. Peeling the workout set off her body, she hopped in the shower in hopes of brushing her teeth and tucking herself in, satisfying that comforting feeling while falling asleep. As she closed her eyes her mind was blank but something was keeping her up. As she turned onto her left side and curled up and tucked her hands between her neck and her collarbone, more content than she has been in the recent past but she could not bring herself to fall asleep. She lay there for the next hour with no intrusive nor productive thought, not even a fantasy filled her mind.

Sleeping was never easy for her when she was younger. It was the largest representation of her anxious behavior. When the end of the day came and she ran out of stuff to do she would begin to spiral. She is comfortable with herself, and she knows herself better than anyone else will. It was not a moment of panic because she did not like to be alone, for she loves to be alone. Falling asleep and laying there gave her the time and space to worry about the things outside of herself. She thought about other people and their perceptions, she would become reckless over the thought of losing the people she loved. While she has learned ways to give her anxious thoughts their own space, like running, reading, and neighborhood walks, there are still nights when she will toss and turn, or wake up before the rest of the city, while the air outside is still silent. She is complicated and sympathetic and sometimes it suffocates her. She becomes overwhelmed with the feelings of others. It is easy for her to be understanding and empathetic to others, however, it is just as easy to become overwhelmed by how invested she gets. It is not an obsession. Sometimes she feels that is how people see her. But her compassion and interest are not part of an obsession, it is a passion for understanding others. If it is an obsession it is only over the fact that she wants to know and have an understanding of things she does not have control over. People can overwhelm her when she doesn’t have a good read on them. She loves to meet new people and she loves to learn and understand the people in her life. The reality, or at least her reality, is that she needs others to need her. She functions on the fact that she has a purpose to others and that in itself gives her a purpose. When something is amiss or seems to be drifting away from her grasp she always begins to panic. If someone were to truly know her and understand the way she is, they would know that the challenge of learning to let go and loosen her controlling tendencies was one of the biggest challenges she has ever tamed or learned to manage.

The next morning she woke up content, she loves waking up in peace. She is learning to cherish an early morning that is not forced but comes naturally. She dreads the mornings she does not want to slip away from her pillow fort, or when she is reluctant about what the day has planned. Her day is always off to a better start when she is ready to climb out of bed and wake up to her morning mug of green tea. She had a day to herself and loved every moment of it. She loves to live in her own head. It is not a matter of fantasy, it is a matter of comfort. Knowing her week of persevering was coming to an end and she did text a friend that night and she was proud of herself. It was out of the normalcy of her life and the handful rotation of people she was used to. Spending the evening giggling and sinking into the cushions of her second-hand couch, she notices how happy she is.

It is nearing eleven thirty and she is refusing to get out of bed, she is lethargic and exhausted. She has been up since eight am and she is emailing her professors about how she will not be in class, while the class she is not attending is already in motion. It is more than her heart that is sunk into her stomach, her bones are heavy, and the eight am light that morning had reminded her everything that just happened last night was real. In refusal to process anything that happened following her dropping her friend off last night, she texts her roommate who is upstairs. Forces herself to get up and go get breakfast while the rest of her house is already buzzing for the party planned day. She laughs to herself as she is perfecting her beauty in the mirror, for she knows that she is in denial. She accepts the fact that she is in denial. The oxymoron begins to slip from her mind because she intends to enjoy her day and spend time in the present with people who make her smile.

It is five pm and she is starving but hasn’t noticed it. Leaning back on a barstool with the comforting voice sitting behind her she receives a text. After reading the first few lines she stops reading and goes to charge her phone, followed by changing into comfortable clothes. She pulls off her open-back top, where everyone has been admiring her lean shoulders and the back of her hips under her low-waisted pants all day. She intentionally does not put effort into fully closing the door, with the panic that someone may walk by and see her standing there in just her jeans as she is slipping into a soft cotton t-shirt. She really would not care if someone saw her, but she is glad no one does. It is nearing six and her head is starting to hurt, she goes to grab a glass of water while leaving everyone to socialize in the living room after doing her rounds and making her appearance. She pulls off her boots and folds her jeans up nicely while keeping the cotton tee and her socks on. Crawling into bed she pulls a pillow forward toward her head and reads the text message she had received earlier, placing her phone down and turning her back to the door as she closes her eyes.

Two hours later and she wakes up to the sun gone and to the room lit by the lights outside on the street and the occasional passing car. Rolling over onto her back and her head is beginning to throb. She props herself up on one arm and goes to grab her phone, looking at the time saying quarter to eight she scrolls through a copious string of notifications. Everyone is asking if she is going out with them tonight. She looks around and replies with no. After texting back and forth with multiple people and taking a few phone calls about evening plans she realizes her head feels like it might explode. She swallows two Tylenol with the room-temperature tap water on the bedside table. She spent the rest of the night watching movies and chatting with friends on the phone. Before she knows it is two am and she is taking a shower followed by climbing into bed in a set of clean clothes and a damp head.

She slept the majority of the day Saturday as if she was glued to the body-shaped dent in her mattress. She began to think about how mortifying it is to think someone she loves may be lonely. She really worries through the afternoon, while she knows she cannot reach out or formulate a text, she tosses under the covers knowing how much she cannot fix everyone else’s issues just by sacrificing all she has for them. She struggles with acceptance of what happened on Thursday night and she knows that she will not process it for at least a few days. She is embarrassed to admit to herself that she refuses to acknowledge bad things when they happen. She is embarrassed to know that she is the queen of denial. She prides herself on how intuitive and grounded she is, she prides herself on how responsive she is during challenging moments like it is her superpower. She sits there and questions when it was and what happened that started the custom of denial. She felt dirty and lazy like she had let others down by not wanting to think or talk about it. Like she owed it to others to be able to handle everything and process everything perfectly as if she owed it to others to know the solution. She didn’t tell many people to begin with but the select few she had told did ask if she was okay. She can tell who knows her best when they ask a few times and double-check that she is okay, but soon drops the questing when she confirms her lack of interest in talking about anything. They leave her alone and continue to just exist, they don’t treat her like she is delicate.

After being asked a few times if she was okay yesterday she said she was really okay and that she wanted to not think about it. The conversation ended and it was like it never happened, and she thought maybe if more people understood her like this, they could write an instruction manual for her.

The week was not an easy feat. She felt good that she filled her days with productivity yet she was ashamed that her busy days were not stemmed from her self-interest but out of avoidance. The week challenged her to exhaustion and she did not feel like she won the game. As she lays in bed on Sunday she reflects on how much she was forced to think and feel for herself this week. She thinks about how much she avoided the inevitable, and that she spent too much time pushing people away. It was out of character and she left the poor behavior to be blamed on mere tiredness and weak joints. She spent most of the day coming down from the adrenaline she was trying to stretch out for a few more days. Confrontation is something she has learned to strongly dislike, and as she lay there with her neck upheld by a wrinkled pillow, she knew she had to deal with confronting herself. It was time to acknowledge that she was reckless this week, her anxiety was high and she did not do much to subside the irritability she felt. The day existed for her to realize that her fear of her self-appearance was weighing heavier than usual and that her need for validation peaked in the most self-deprecating ways. She sat there and thought about all the small things that she could not fix or alter this week, from the candle burning unevenly to the phone call she received on Thursday night. It feels as though there is no fixing either.

When the rain came back at the end of the week so did her unsatisfied feeling that her loneliness was at fault of a bad habit. She got in the car that afternoon to go pick up some food and watched the light rain turn into mist while she was waiting for the left-hand arrow to turn green. Listening to the droplets hug her windshield, she watched the wipers rob the raindrops of their mission to roll down the slant of the glass. She could not help but recognize the feeling in the back of her mind that she had robbed herself. She spent the week being anxious over what she cannot fix, being frustrated over the little decisions that she had made out of laziness and pity. She was so worried that no one understood her, and that she had neglected the thought that people may want to understand her. As the arrow turned green she took a wide turn and slowed down the car to pull over. Sitting there in the parked car she realized that her love to be alone is a gift but it does not entitle her to be isolated from others. She had let go of what she had and pushed away what she could have kindly in front of her.

This week taught her that if someone were to write an instruction manual for her it would probably be herself. She knows the solutions to her problems. She knows which laundry detergent to use to make her bed sheets smell right. She knows how long to steep her tea in the morning, and she knows to squeeze half of a lemon in it. She does not know why the candle burns the side of the jar, but she knows she needs to learn that she cannot dwell on small things like that. She knows that there is someone out there who can learn all these things and maybe will even teach her the reasons behind why the candle wick is burning sideways. She knows that starts with her being less ignorant toward the bad things that happen. It starts with letting people know her and love her. To give up some of her fear of attachment, letting her love and interest in people be seen as affection and not obsession by the people who learn to understand her. She concludes that there is no need for her to come with an instruction manual when she meets someone new, or when she finally lets her guard down. She concludes that knowing herself and knowing others is the growth in life, and learning to understand others as you continue to live is one of the most beautiful things humans can experience. So as the rain falls tonight, she let it be the calming fixation for her mind. She let the candle flicker crooked while she uses the light of the flame to read before she could not keep her eyes open any longer. She slept well that night.