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Last week, I got back to college after a month long break. But it felt like I had been away for longer than that. At the train station, there were groups of kids like me waiting out the snow, the bus lines that were all delayed. Their suitcases and their laughter. They were like me.
I checked my phone a couple times on the train, and again, seeing that the last bus back to campus would be arriving soon. Five pm, and after that, nothing til morning. I could've waited. I was going to, but in the chamber of the station I thought I saw someone I knew, and I felt ashamed, the same feeling of dread of those recurring naked in public nightmares. The cruelest part about those dreams was that none of the characters ever reacted. They only watched with their impassive faces, eyes dark and depthless, and let me run around their lives. When I bumped into them at doorways, they stopped long enough to say, sorry.
I'd rather be forgotten than ignored. I pulled on my gloves and entered the snow. The walk back was two and some miles but sloped uphill. That was fine, I'd made it through worse, and my blood had always run hot. During the height of my obsession with my body, I'd once trekked over three miles to go to a classmate's party. It was bright and sweaty late May, and he was rich, lived in a nice house that looked like it could be on Architectural Digest or a real estate magazine you'd pass by in the supermarket. Well, I could've guessed that, but at the time, I still didn't know it. I trudged through Rock Creek Park with my shirt off, bare skin and binder chafing against my backpack, a proper hike. I listened to Long Seasons by the Fishmans three times. Halfway through the third time, maps told me I was near, but I didn't see anything resembling houses yet. Then, in that last half mile, they revealed themselves to me: gleaming glass paneling, big blue pools with water so clear and clean it might've been safe to drink, long driveways and dark (dark) wood. Before long I reached my destination. I knew it was the one because I heard the music from the backyard. Songs I couldn't sing along to. I couldn't make myself move. If someone walked out right now, and saw me standing all alone like that, they could've called the cops on me and have been right to. I sweated. The Fishmans were no longer with me. I didn't know if my friends, my two friends in the whole city, were inside. I was at their mercy.
Eventually, a boy I at least recognized climbed out of an Uber and began heading towards the backyard. He was coming back from an internship at the Capitol and wore those same starched suits. He knew he was supposed to be here. He probably knew every damn thing that was going to happen in his life for the next sixty years. I followed him, and I remember the look he gave me then, like he was startled. Disgusted. But he said nothing and let me pass him by.
The party itself was unmemorable. But I'll never forget how much I wanted it, back then, for my body to be exhausted and punished, and to be near people, to be loved. They were really similar things.
In January, I remembered my motivations, and considered the ways in which I really hadn't changed. I loosened my grip on my suitcase to take off my gloves and switch hands. I was starting to sweat again, so I felt the snow wouldn't hurt me. After all, the snow here was nothing like DC's slate-gray sleet: big, fluffy picturesque flakes, like the paper snow they made for movies. Strange, I felt an urge to stick my tongue out and catch one. Though I was no Californian. I grew up sledding, testing the thickness of ice on ponds, misjudging, and trawling back into my house with wet clothes. Still, my senses muted as they were, I let myself make the mundane into mystical, if only to entertain.
I put my head down and kept moving. The wind whistled in my ears, a singular tone. I thought even if there was someone with me, I wouldn't have managed to speak. I was too winded and my voice was too weak. I avoided all eyes and arms and felt bad. Something inside of me had crawled away and rolled all up. I always hated my soft belly.
The fog on my glasses. The squat storefronts. The sparse slants of light from the old street lamps. Felt like I'd been walking through a snowglobe in Target, a fake little town. But I saw real people, too. I smelled their smoke. Residents, who belonged here. The suitcase I dragged through the heavy snowfall scored two deep lines along the mass of footprints. I felt sorry. Sorry for intruding.
I checked my phone a couple times on the train, and again, seeing that the last bus back to campus would be arriving soon. Five pm, and after that, nothing til morning. I could've waited. I was going to, but in the chamber of the station I thought I saw someone I knew, and I felt ashamed, the same feeling of dread of those recurring naked in public nightmares. The cruelest part about those dreams was that none of the characters ever reacted. They only watched with their impassive faces, eyes dark and depthless, and let me run around their lives. When I bumped into them at doorways, they stopped long enough to say, sorry.
I'd rather be forgotten than ignored. I pulled on my gloves and entered the snow. The walk back was two and some miles but sloped uphill. That was fine, I'd made it through worse, and my blood had always run hot. During the height of my obsession with my body, I'd once trekked over three miles to go to a classmate's party. It was bright and sweaty late May, and he was rich, lived in a nice house that looked like it could be on Architectural Digest or a real estate magazine you'd pass by in the supermarket. Well, I could've guessed that, but at the time, I still didn't know it. I trudged through Rock Creek Park with my shirt off, bare skin and binder chafing against my backpack, a proper hike. I listened to Long Seasons by the Fishmans three times. Halfway through the third time, maps told me I was near, but I didn't see anything resembling houses yet. Then, in that last half mile, they revealed themselves to me: gleaming glass paneling, big blue pools with water so clear and clean it might've been safe to drink, long driveways and dark (dark) wood. Before long I reached my destination. I knew it was the one because I heard the music from the backyard. Songs I couldn't sing along to. I couldn't make myself move. If someone walked out right now, and saw me standing all alone like that, they could've called the cops on me and have been right to. I sweated. The Fishmans were no longer with me. I didn't know if my friends, my two friends in the whole city, were inside. I was at their mercy.
Eventually, a boy I at least recognized climbed out of an Uber and began heading towards the backyard. He was coming back from an internship at the Capitol and wore those same starched suits. He knew he was supposed to be here. He probably knew every damn thing that was going to happen in his life for the next sixty years. I followed him, and I remember the look he gave me then, like he was startled. Disgusted. But he said nothing and let me pass him by.
The party itself was unmemorable. But I'll never forget how much I wanted it, back then, for my body to be exhausted and punished, and to be near people, to be loved. They were really similar things.
In January, I remembered my motivations, and considered the ways in which I really hadn't changed. I loosened my grip on my suitcase to take off my gloves and switch hands. I was starting to sweat again, so I felt the snow wouldn't hurt me. After all, the snow here was nothing like DC's slate-gray sleet: big, fluffy picturesque flakes, like the paper snow they made for movies. Strange, I felt an urge to stick my tongue out and catch one. Though I was no Californian. I grew up sledding, testing the thickness of ice on ponds, misjudging, and trawling back into my house with wet clothes. Still, my senses muted as they were, I let myself make the mundane into mystical, if only to entertain.
I put my head down and kept moving. The wind whistled in my ears, a singular tone. I thought even if there was someone with me, I wouldn't have managed to speak. I was too winded and my voice was too weak. I avoided all eyes and arms and felt bad. Something inside of me had crawled away and rolled all up. I always hated my soft belly.
The fog on my glasses. The squat storefronts. The sparse slants of light from the old street lamps. Felt like I'd been walking through a snowglobe in Target, a fake little town. But I saw real people, too. I smelled their smoke. Residents, who belonged here. The suitcase I dragged through the heavy snowfall scored two deep lines along the mass of footprints. I felt sorry. Sorry for intruding.
