I decided to walk to the deli tonight and buy a Diet Dr. Pepper because they are free at work and I suddenly find myself dabbling in the stuff again. When I was a nanny I used to drink two of those $1.25 Diet Cokes a day and Bobby used to yell OHMYGOD YOU’RE ADDICTED.
Addiction was a word we threw around a lot in that house, pretty casually. It was how we talked about the little things we used to get us through our days. It was always framed in weakness. His thing was computer games. His mom had gossip, red wine; ordering expensive shoes on Ebay. I had cigarettes and Diet Coke, napping while he was at school, sulking on park benches, sleeping with all the wrong men, and writing all about it in my little notebook.
So as I walked to the deli I could hear Bobby mocking me on Columbia St, with his backpack on running up ahead to catch the light. I felt myself becoming inert; weak, as if someone might shake their head at me if they saw me walking home with a goddamn brown paper bag and a straw.
When I explore all of this guilt, this wanting to be free of all vices— I should stop eating fish, I should stop drinking coffee (pah!), stop drinking— it occurs to me that what I want so badly is to stamp out any possible thing that could explain my imperfection, to eliminate things I could point to when I mess up or come up short.
This is so new for me, and I know it to be neurotic. I know that I could become a vegan, celibate meditator and I would still not fucking take my bike to the repair shop to replace its pedals. Ya know? I would still wake up once in awhile and lay there panicking because I am unsure of what I want to do first. I would still waste hours refreshing Tumblr rather that do the piles of work I have left to do, that I want to do, that I love doing. But how do we forgive ourselves? I know that is key, because as I think back to nannying and when I was reeeally waking up everyday not knowing what to do, I knew the first thing I did was forgive myself. You are a nanny, I said, you are not writing enough, you feel incompetent and inferior and you know you know little to nothing about life and what it is to be an adult and support yourself, and god forgive (I meant to type “God forbid”, but I think it’s a poignant typo.), god forbid, let someone in and see what a mess you are. And then I said, okay, so there it is. Let’s read a few books and watch some Oprah and write about what it means to smoke a pack of cigarettes a day and what you love and hate about yourself and all the things you imagine will eventually be happening in your beautiful, wonderful life.
I quit Diet Coke, but also, and more importantly, I asserted to myself the idea that I could be good, that I could do well and survive it. Fear of doing well is such a riduculous, real thing for me, and it’s something with which I constantly do battle.
So tonight I went to the deli and felt like a failure for doing it.
But I forgave myself.
When I went to the counter to pay, the man, who I felt watching me the entire time I was in the store, rang me up and said, “22 dollars.” “HAHA!” I laughed far too loudly. He could say that every time and I would still laugh; that willingness to be an idiot for a stranger, I always love it.
The role of the pretty girl laughing at the store clerk’s stupid jokes and then thanking him gratuitously the next time he gives her stuff for free— I dunno, I’m well aware of the paradigm, but it’s a warm, easy, happy one and I will gladly play along.
I came home and didn’t finish the stuff I wanted to finish, my sad de-pedaled bike frowned at me as I came through the door, I drank the DDP, called a good friend to give him Life Advice, wrote this, and thought about the people I passed on the walk back. They were young and all piling into a minivan in the middle of our block. The van had one of those sliding doors and the light was glowing all dreamily, they were excited, piling in together with bags slung over their arms, heading off into the night somewhere I can’t even imagine, maybe nowhere but in my mind it is some grand roadtrip, and I really wished for the same. The security of the interior of a car, with only you and people you know, with the radio and those dreamy night lights and if you’re lucky the rhythm of the windshield wipers, I long for that so often— to not wake up and not know what you want to do, to not walk to the train worrying your skirt is going to fly up, to somehow escape the terror of imperfection and the waiting on street corners for friends, kicking yourself for not taking that fucking bike to the fucking repair shop on fucking Saturday.
