The tiniest violin

Forgive me. I will try to be as minimally “woke Instagram infographic” as possible: you need to join the Committee of No. I’ll explain later. For now, you listen to my homily.

Look at you, and that still-supple attention span. Even as I read and reread this essay through computer light-fried corneas (a house special), a profound emptiness rang between my ears. You could knock me over with a feather. Two hands wouldn’t suffice to count the number of times I’ve scrolled past “self check-ins” or reminders to sit up straight, drink water. Maybe that should concern me. Under different circumstances, that may have been dissected more: with a friend through adjacent bathroom stalls or in line on a coffee date; one of those transient conversations that are just warm-ups for goodlier ones. Now without the luxury of those platonic intimacies-- and more coveted, coffee shops-- these mortifications turn inward, like leaves on some neglected plant. 

Each miserable day, I ensconce myself in front of my silly laptop and wear my silly blue light blocking glasses in a futile attempt to channel Carrie Bradshaw-like drive. Without a city to inspire nor, well-- sex, I am easily hung up on aesthetics: a need for more colored pens, to paint my nails, to order a hot drink; I need the New York skyline visible from my window-- and I simply can’t do any work until it is. Mentally, I’ve vacated this space. The escapism isn’t nostalgic for a “time before” nor enshrined in the divinity of ignorant bliss “before 2020.” I am too far gone. My mind, in her own rite of senescence, packs a knapsack in broad daylight (that is, ahem, on the clock) to wade her way through tangles of charred neurons to her own preferential reality. Roving all through work meetings, class meetings, final projects, and exams, jet lag is damn near an understatement. Notable destinations have included Davis library, a bus station in Cuenca, somewhere in Netherfield Park, and the 2012 Battle of the Books. Recognizing absentmindedness is always the first challenge; cajoling the mind back to its mildewy place is hardest. I fought my mind’s paroxysms in the same ways I’d been castigated as a child, and even so (possibly due-to), the tantrums persisted. So much of self-love discourse centers around listening. What was my vagabond mind telling me, then? Above the cacophony of that fight, the world’s tiniest violin played. 

Social media is a beautiful corner of hell. In one scroll, I am able to read conflicting views about self-care and why to loathe it, to get my money up and to burn it, to free myself from scrupulousness but to be about it. It goes without saying the dissonance is unhealthy. Long before I adulterated my mind there, I was imprinted with a feral need for relinquishment, building, fixing, repairing. Somewhere, somehow in the angst of my early girlhood I was cut open by a sense of importance assuaged only by giving too much of myself. Maybe it was the same corner my mother cut herself on, the same shape as the scar on her mother’s hand, that commands her to spill more blood for as long as she lives. I took the cheap spirit advice to say yes more often, but heard ‘you can’t say no.’ I rendezvoused with the “Girl Power” base that said “You can do anything!” so I convinced myself to do everything. It takes the melancholy of midnight sometimes to hear words for what they are. More often than not, I read, laugh and bookmark, laugh and bookmark. Saving things for later is becoming my pitfall. Saving things. 

In short, since I lack (or rather have been deprived of) my usual taste for actualizing these thoughts any better, here-- take them: perfectionism is the part of me that hates me. It is self-loathing leaching battery acid. Paralysis through habit. It is trauma trying to make itself into every fiber of my being; it is metastatic. Anger, I’ve read, can be quite the contrarian when used correctly, lighting up to alert you of messages from the part of you that loves you, knows you deserve better. Despite the indelicate praise for perfectionism hidden in resume buzzwords like organized, meticulous, and detailed, it sat inauspiciously at the helm of my personal plights for as long as I’ve let it walk around in sheep’s clothing. 

Unfortunately, perfectionism isn’t the culprit for all my life’s problems. The ecstasy of pointing a finger directly at it is misleading. Fitted words were always easier than explaining my toxic relationship with old trauma responses that kept me joining committees and accepting invitations. Very early in my life, it was already too late. I do not excuse myself. With the essence of myself still mostly untapped, saying no to more-- before they’re ever yeses-- will undoubtedly lay the groundwork for a life I don’t feel the need to routinely escape from.