She lay on her bed with her laptop open, thinking about her most recent conversation with Sylvia. Sun flooded the windows and she felt guilty for not being outside. The comforter was fluffy and white, which allowed her to imagine herself at some kind of culturally enriching hotel. Usually in this fantasy it was somehow France in 1925 and she would stroll out onto the balcony of her vintage hotel room to smoke a cigarette and gaze moodily at the passerbys. That was before smoking was bad for you right? Or maybe it’s never bad for you in Paris, since it’s good for your artistic look. Was she too old to start smoking now?
Before she started taking the medication, she would actually feel a slight panic about these thoughts. As she approached her thirtieth birthday, the quickening tempo of the seasons was a brand new vessel for anxiety. She could hardly associate an emotion or a smell with the past few years. In her memory they were just a frenzy of activity, but logically she knew a lot of important things had happened. A house, A marriage, the birth of a nephew, the impending death of a Grandmother.
She remembered being eighteen, looking at colleges and realizing that she was now in a phase of life for which she had no plan. No mental image of herself as an adult the way she had always imagined being a teenager like her older brother. And as their paths diverged, she had no ideal vision for which to strive. In her early twenties, depressed and unhopeful about her ‘career’ (what did that even mean?), she wouldn’t have allowed herself to even hope for her current life, since she had no idea how to work towards it. She felt like a dying fish gasping for breath on the dry sand while people just walked by and dove into the cool water.
Now in her bed, at four pm on a Wednesday afternoon in not-1920’s Paris, she felt sedated. She was sleepy all the time since the medication. She was sleeping through the night, too. That was new. She wasn’t making lists at 4 AM of to-dos for the day (practical) or the year (existential). She wasn’t running upstairs to drink water and check on the gas stove, in case she’d left a burner on and was about to asphyxiate. When her husband was out of town, she didn’t wake at every tiny noise, thinking that someone was in the room and that if she had only turned the bed to face the door, (which she had recently learned on one of her favorite interior design podcasts is the correct Feng Shui), she would see him before he killed her in her sleep.
Over the past few months, her brain had gradually started to gear down, making the days feel long and generous. Her house, which had previously been a black hole of effort and stress, was now a sanctuary of delight. How did she get here? Who had manifested this little cabin, artfully stuffed with the prints, plants, and pillows that she most loved? Of course, she had done it, but in her newfound state of calm that previous person seemed mysterious, as if they didn’t share a memory. The effort to build this place up seemed monumental, and she felt her eyelids grow heavy when she tried to recall laying the flooring, putting up the paneling boards.
With so much new space in her brain, previously filled by volcanoes of worry from which lava flowed into every hour of her day, she felt a newfound desire to intake. She started practicing Spanish every morning, she did Yoga videos that she found on Youtube , and was satisfied to see her abs start to poke out below her ribs. She lounged on her free Craigslist floral couch, clutching $2 throw pillows purchased at ‘Dirt Cheap’, and allowed herself to live inside of Netflix shows.
Gradually, a happiness grew around her body like an embryo, and she found herself reveling in it. Invisible to the passerby, her new bubble was perfectly tangible to her, and she defended it ferociously when anyone attempted to cut through the rubbery surface with Presidential updates or futile discussions about the terminal state of the music industry.
At one point before the medication, she had been so afraid of flying that she had unwittingly grabbed the shoulder of the unfortunate and slightly stale smelling passenger beside her every time the the toilet flushed. She had been flying to visit her sister in Israel, and was convinced that a terrorist was going to take down the plane. When she finally landed she spent four days in an anxiety and jet lag fueled insomnia and couldn’t decide if she was going to swim home or live the rest of her life abroad. Now, inside her embryo, she bounced through airport security, thinking of drinking hot tea and enjoying a paperback en route to her next gig. She rolled cheerfully out of bed in the mornings, looking forward to answering a few emails while eating a power bar. Yesterday, after taking a 10 mg dose, just as she did every morning now, she greeted Sylvia at her front door.
Sylvia was a friend from California, and the two were starting a new duo project. They sat in her sunny front room, on metal chairs which had been carefully spray-painted black to look more modern (she had found them on the side of the road) . Her house plants, a large cactus and an unidentified fern that grew out of moss, sighed happily around them. She felt a rare sense of joy and fulfillment as she realized that this was her job today.
The air in the small room felt humid with promise as they reworked a song that she had written almost a year ago, before the medication. Sylvia strummed confidently on her acoustic, occasionally looking up at her encouragingly, while she played a worn white electric. She had borrowed the guitar specifically for the session. It had a smallish body and felt good in her hands, like she was really in control.
As her mouth formed the words and found the old melody of the song, she only vaguely recognized the emotions that had borne them. Like an old friend she had grown apart from, the lyrics had a comforting familiarity, but simultaneously made her feel trapped, counting down the hours until she could leave.
When they felt they had successfully kneaded the song into submission, the two were giddy.
It’s so great working with you, she said.
You TWO giggled Sylvia. I love this song, it’s my favorite.
I wrote it about my sister, she said. I’m obsessed with her.
Oh my GOD said Sylvia. I have one of those, is she younger?
Yep. She said. Early twenties are rough, nobody warns you about them, do they?
My sister’s been going through that, said Sylvia. She’s so different to me though. I think her friend group, too. They all hit rough patches and just go straight to medication.
Oh ya, I said, disapprovingly shaking my head. Medication.
Later I went into the bathroom and moved my prescription pill bottles behind some Asprin so that they wouldn’t be visible.
That evening over cups of boxed wine leftover from a party, Sylvia asked how I had been doing.
Really great, I said. I’ve really been getting into yoga. I feel like a new person.