It’s that kind of day when I like to pick at the wounds; text exes and people who I have on mute so I can’t hear the deafening silence on their end; listen to the saddest songs; eat up all the most difficult memories—with relish.
All of your days seem like that, thinks the four people who read this.
It’s so typical of me to talk about myself, I’m sorry.
I tell myself that’s what I do here, that’s what this is for. I lament that I am motivated to write when I am hurting, that I am better at it then. That it hurts to do it. That I like that.
I walked to the park with all the tearjerkers in my ears. I had to get up from my desk; it’s not safe here. So, I walk. It’s my go-to move for trying to shed the shroud of my feelings. But, I queue Adele and Rihanna: poke, poke, poke.
I can’t tell if people are looking directly at me more than usual because I am crying or because my bra could be more supportive. I think of that as I walk and give myself a high-five for being clever through the pain. What follows is, well, you aren’t really a sad sack. That’s just the mood. Just the words on the page. You aren’t the shameful sad-clown cliche—you’re a goddamn riot! You are a fucking delight, and it is real, and it is you.
But so is this.
And so I move. Headphones in, “Stay” playing, feet on pavement.
But the park is as fickle and contradictory as I am. In the sun, in the mood, I see vibrancy and I beam, Kelly Clarkson on the wind. But today… I hold the word “stay” too heavily. Consider it as a tattoo. Chuckle at the melodrama. There is cloud cover and an autumnal chill; a woman makes full eye contact as she unbuttons her pants and squats just over the barrier into the brush, not 100 yards from the free public restroom; a very dirty, seemingly unwell homeless man is bouncing on the ground, clapping and shrieking.
And I am immediately in tears.
I see an appropriately intrepid squirrel for the park, fearlessly close to a woman on a bench. I can practically see its little brain tick tick ticking at the notion of leaping onto her shoulder as she lunches. A razor of a memory jumps out at me from the thicket. And I grab it tight.
I recall reading something, somewhere, sometime that posited we cling to the pain because it’s all we have left. I don’t want to let you go, because I don’t want you gone.
Pick, pick, pick.