Gaping

Fiction drop: https://nomoreprostitutes.com/Althea-Champion

settling - good

For a week or so I was taking big bites and eating fast. I wrapped my mouth around danishes and sandwiches and pieces of chicken and filled it completely, gnawing and gnashing. The week after I was plumper than before, because I had swallowed everything without thinking at all. I ate less then and had headaches, from screens or dehydration, fatigue or my food embargo. I suspected my vision was going slightly also - I was straining to see in a way I hadn't before. I also found it very hard to focus - my brain felt weak, and I vulnerable to temptation. I wanted very much to buy things and indulge… I craved new things: clothes, decor, hobbies, knowledge. but all I felt capable of was aimless thought. The next day I was getting dinner and I though that would be good. I had also lacked a good book for a while. Still I subsist off of scrawny books we have around the house, which I read and reread. I want a large juicy delicious one very bad. (Won’t you send me one?)

The day after that I bought clothes, envelopes, mascara, a pastry, dinner, and an Uber home. My credit card bill shot through the roof.

I felt like flesh and wondered separately if everyone’s flesh felt like mine? so prone to bursts of flame and fits of constriction.

Now I have calmed a bit. I feel quite beautiful actually. settled in my body, at least for the time being, and true to my presentation. 

Settling is aspirational, when you consider it really. peace. 

I had a story published, and I did a lot of thinking about it after the fact, where it deserved more attention, etc. But I’m content with it as is, as it is, in its way, like yesterday was: simple and stunning. I got off work and circled the same few blocks. I spoke to my mother for the first time in months, and then my dad. d, too - I’m getting better at contact. Then I went home, invited w for dinner, and helped c salvage her cod and potatoes. We drank wine and debated the death of New York. Probed each other's relationships to love, sex, and gender. It was entirely unselfconscious; we buzzed, with ecstasy! somewhat inappropriate for such a simple meal on an ordinary Wednesday guided by routine impulses toward food, wine, friendship...(...another example of aspirational settlement.) Will said his goodbyes, give me a few book recommendations, and left. I put Girls on the tv, Cynthia went to bed, and I followed shortly after - we dreamed.

terminal

 All of my socks have holes in them. I am out of almost every product. I know, I know… but I did order a new calendar! I have many plans… And the calendar’s theme is hope. Funny, because that was front of mind this year. Keep the faith, I said. And the faith I kept. 

A mole on my arm scabbed over and for a few days I thought I had cancer—the doctor at Urgent Care said I didn’t (♱). But naturally I started planning: I considered potential subletters and figured I’d move in with my grandparents and then start treatment —that is if my prognosis was the manageable sort. If it wasn’t, and I had months or a year to go, then I would be challenged in a much different way. My first thought, in that case: kermit. 

I am a person deeply tied to the future—it is in many ways my lifeline. I do hardly anything without thinking about it, not so much in a responsible way. Moreso along the line of, how nice it will be. But I do consider it very much, and am highly responsible. While this was borne out of necessity—I have been in sole charge of myself for a long time now—I quite enjoy responsibility. I look forward to owning a house very much (it’s my one real goal). I relish in saving and planning. Etc. A future is the greatest gift, and to not have one would depress me endlessly. A future, actually, is the one true salve of my sadness. I do not take it for granted. Everything I do, quite literally, is for it.

But if I were to resist the reaper, which I likely would because I’m not one to really give up anything (ie. my holy socks and dried up mascara tubes), I would like to live my life quite similarly to how I do now—isn’t that sweet. I would give up my ---, surely. I would write during the day and work at the restaurant at night. I would stop saving, obviously, and eat at my favorite places, plus a few more I want to try, with my beautiful beautiful friends. I’d order the freshest thing on the menu. Drink lots of wine and coffee. Buy the best olives, cheese, and tinned fish. With my meager savings I would buy a car and take long drives alone to the woods, listen to music sometimes, sit in the sun, and stay in motels. I would use my new car to visit g in Philly, m in Boston, i in Florida, and my cousins in Maine and Sacramento. Hopefully I would make it to London to see e, who I would then grab and take to Mexico City. But mostly I would enjoy my days. 

The rest are things I already plan to do, but if I was terminal and money thus ceased to be an issue, and my pride in making it expired, I would do them all in quick succession. How lovely, though, really, to be so close to this ultimate life. How lovely to live so close to my desire. What a gift 𒀬 After all, this life is made of days. The end lends importance to the means, but the means are all we have. Enjoy, please, enjoy! And if you focus each day on the how, I believe the what will become a much richer thing.