Orange Juice Is All I Have Left
Well, therapy worked so now I’m a bad writer.
To be honest, I always knew that it was a bad idea. I’ve always had the quiet suspicion that happy people, at the end of the day, have nothing interesting to say. “What a lovely Bordeaux! What a day at the office.” Boring, non-consequential things that make for boring, non-consequential stories.
But now, a year and a half into bi-weekly sessions with a divorcée named Martha, I’m one in the same.
I used to feel things. Extremes. I would see a stranger walking with a book and write pages and pages, detailing imaginary conversations of our unbridled, cosmically-ordained love. I would hear a coworker say something rude and write them into villains, excommunicating them from my life, letting them die at the hands of a hero with the same name as mine.
Now I hold my breath and count to ten.
I’ve decided to ruin my life.
It’s been months since I’ve written anything, and maybe years since I’ve written anything good. Now, I’m not positive that therapy is the root of all my problems. But, I do remember who I was before I started. Sure, I was insecure, anxious, paranoid, scared, and suicidal — but I wrote.
I had good reasons to.
And at this point, Emilia wants to move in together and settle down, so this is my last chance. What have I got to lose? Well — I guess a healthy life now — but it’s not worth it. It’s not worth it to die a nameless, boring, non-contributing member of society. So it’s time to undo everything that I’ve worked for.
I am going to keep journaling though. Who knows, maybe people will end up reading this.
I think I’m going to break up with Emilia.
Don’t get me wrong, I love her. She is one of the kindest, funniest, most supportive girlfriends I’ve ever had. But, I’m an artist. Van Gogh wouldn’t have cut off his ear if he had a support group.
When did I decide to give up? When did I decide to abandon everything I wanted as a child — as an adult, even?
I’m going to do it tonight.
I sat Emilia down at the kitchen counter, I looked her in the eye, and I said, “I think we should break up”. She asked why, and I said it was because I was scared of commitment, and she said that I loved commitment and pointed to the 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle on the coffee table.
I told her that I was cheating on her, and she said that I didn’t have the stomach to cheat on her. I told her that I wasn’t happy with the relationship, and she asked me what was really going on.
Eventually, I told her the truth. Then I made my voice sound deeper and said that we were over. She replied, “no we’re not” and I said, “yes we are” and she replied, “no we’re not and that’s final.”
We sat there in the kitchen for a while.
Later we went out for sushi.
I told my therapist I felt defeated after failing to break up with my girlfriend. She didn’t understand and I didn’t want to explain myself so we didn’t dwell on it.
I asked Martha if creativity required sadness, and she said that that was a stereotype for artists. Then I asked if optimistic people saw the world as accurately as pessimistic people, and she said certainly.
Then I asked that in terms of perception, how can you really be sure if one person’s judgment is better than another’s, adding that decades and decades of tortured writers provided evidence that stacked against her favor, not to mention that self-hatred and dissatisfaction form the basic human essence of conflict necessary in storytelling.
She told me to take up meditation.
I’ve learned that it’s best to ask direct questions, so I asked: “What are some techniques to induce stress and anxiety?” She asked me to clarify the question so I asked, “What’s the psychological opposite of counting to ten?”
She asked why I wanted to bring stress into my life and I explained that it was vital to my career, and she said that as a licensed professional she wasn’t allowed to purposefully worsen the mental state of a client. I tried to Tom Sawyer my way through the situation by arguing that it would make me happier to be more stressed, but Martha didn’t believe me and scheduled me in for an extra session that week.
I got promoted. I’m no longer an accountant for WriteQuick notebooks, I’m now a member of the quality control team. We do routine inspections of boxes of notebooks, and if we notice anything abnormal, if one notebook is different than all the other brightly colored notebooks, we throw the whole box into an incinerator.
Maybe I’ll try writing later.
Kyle awoke with a jolt. His nightmares had increased in severity. Maybe he was going insane. Maybe he was finally succumbing to his demons. He, of course, turned to his girlfriend, next to him and bed, and was reassured that everything was okay.
No.
Kyle tossed and turned, alone on his bed, totally alone in the world. He had no support, no support group whatsoever, and prepared himself to face the demonic hellscape of the outside world. He put on his jacket and stepped outside. All his life he had been a martyr, a suffering soul, nobly defending his art against the ordinary people around him. Today was the day he was going to face —
Today was the day he was going to face —
He always struggled with —
His problems included —
A problem is —
God damn it.
I’ve always believed in writing what you know. And at this point, my options are writing about a writer who can’t write because he’s happy, or writing about a writer who’s writing about a writer who can’t write because he’s happy. And no one wants to read that.
Emilia and I found a nice apartment just outside of San Francisco. Meanwhile, and not to be a bummer or anything, but my life has been constantly improving.
My job lets me travel to different factories along the coast, Emilia told that me that I was the first person she had ever loved and I told her she was the same and we held each other and cried on the couch, and I won an iPad at a raffle.
I don’t know what else to do. I haven’t been talking about it to anyone. Late at night I’ll wake up, sweating, and stare at the ceiling, thinking about the masses and masses of people who never made it as writers. How no one visits their graves. How no one ever thinks about them. How most of them probably gave up and settled into an office, just like me.
Yesterday I took a walk along Fort Point. I looked up at the Golden Gate Bridge, and there was a faint outline of someone, against the railing, leaning out. I looked around but I was alone, and I shouted but there was no way they could hear me.
So I stood and watched.
They jumped.
Immediately after I saw a thin, black line connecting the person to the bridge. The woman’s long hair became visible in the wind, bouncing up and down, her arms outstretched. Other people appeared on the bridge, cheering and taking photos with their phones. Fifty feet below the bridge she swung for a moment, like a baby in a cradle, before being slowly reeled back up. The next person took some time in applying the harness, but jumped shortly after.
I watched as six more people took turns jumping off the bridge. After each one was the same routine: photos, cheering and laughing, and the jumper being slowly reeled back up to safety.
I came home and went to get some orange juice. It was expired, but I poured myself a glass anyway. Parts of it looked dark. It smelled vaguely sour.
I thought about how my days were spent thinking about my death, how forgettable it was going to be, and how my nights were spent starting at the ceiling, thinking about the fact that I’m still unpublished. I raised the glass, and drank.
I drank because Sylvia Plath went through electroshock therapy, because Jesus Christ had nails driven through his palms.
Emilia found me an hour later, vomiting in the bathroom. She said that I was hyperventilating, that I was shaking and crying, only stopping to occasionally vomit again. I grabbed her arm and asked her what was wrong with me, and she said that I was having a panic attack.
I let go of her arm, held myself up on the toilet seat, and I looked at her.
I started laughing.
She asked what was wrong, and I said “nothing” and gave in. I kept laughing, still crying and vomiting, and my shoulders felt lighter.
Emilia says I apparently compared myself to Dostoyevsky and passed out 15 minutes later.
Emilia and I moved in together. The new apartment looks nice.
The manuscript’s going well.
When we were decorating I put my bottle of Prozac on top of the fireplace mantel. In the center.
