I bought both THe Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up & The Life Changing Magic of Not Giving a Fuck. I am having better success with the latter, because I bought it for my Kindle. I was walking through Kramerbooks and bought the former, therefore it has gotten lost in the shuffle of not tidying up (Did you hear that in John Cleese’s voice?). And for that very reason, I know that Marie Kondo is a genius. A motherfucking certifiable genius. This is because she’s right- outer peace creates inner peace, and with all the bullshit I’ve been dealing with over the past three years, it’s hard to convince myself I deserve either. I don’t deserve nice things, I don’t deserve a house that rises to greet me, I don’t deserve the settling of my soul. God, I’m starting to sound like Maron, because there’s a part of me that doesn’t know where my writing will go without any angst to write about… just like he says about his comedy. I am not going to turn this blog into recipes, or, God forbid, Hints from Heloise.™; What would I do with myself if I could turn away from thinking about all the things I’ve always thought? What would this new me be able to accomplish? I cannot wait, and I am terrified.
Although things are coming together one step at a time. In terms of deserving nice things, I have stopped living paycheck to paycheck, and you cannot imagine how much room it gives me to breathe. In fact, I was able to go to Jiffy Lube a few weeks ago and get all the services I didn’t know if Eggsy’d had in years. Got the fuel lines flushed, the radiator, a drink of super-premium high-mileage oil, the works. Now I need to find a trustworthy mechanic to do her basic maintenance, because I don’t think “trustworthy” and “dealership” go together. I also carry a metric fuck-tonne of cleaning products for her in the cargo area, and on Saturdays after I finish my coffee, I rub down all the vinyl with protectant (important in the summer with old cars because I don’t want the dash to crack), pick up the trash and recycling I’ve let gather over the week, and occasionally Rain-X all the windows… a trick that my grandaddy Alvie taught me when I was a kid and I have never departed from it. In fact, I have been known to Rain-X rent cars. #truestory #gulfcoast #worthit
If I can take such good care of Eggsy, you’d think that would translate to my room, and yet, it doesn’t. I just feel like “dumped girl” all the time, and there is no Dana to pull me out of it. I remember quite fondly breaking down in front of her and finally admitting that my heart was so broken I couldn’t function, and would she please help me? AND SHE DID. As a thank-you, I became so anal Annie about my apartment that you could eat off the floor. I never wanted her to forget how much that broken moment meant to me.
After we were done, we took a six-pack of Smirnoff apple and some Swisher Sweets out to the pool at, probably, 11:00 PM. The security guard came up to us and said we weren’t allowed to be by the pool past 10:00. Being from the South, I knew what to do. This might be a stereotype, but it worked. He was black, and I said, “I’ll trade you a Swisher Sweet if we can stay out here.” He said, “as long as you’re quiet,” and walked on his merry little way, telling the mothership he hadn’t found anything. White people (obviously) like Swisher Sweets just as much as the next person, but at the same time, I went to a majority black university and I’ve never seen any black person EVER turn one down.
Speaking of stereotypes, white Southerners are the only people I know that will rag on black people for eating fried chicken and watermelon while eating the EXACT SAME SHIT. It’s not black, it’s Southern. You know what white Southerners bring to church pot lucks? Fried chicken and watermelon. I should know. I’ve been to a metric fuck tonne of them.
Maryland is an interesting hybrid of Southern and Northern cuisine. I’d love to see John-Michael Kinkaid tear it up here, especially in a restaurant halfway between DC and Baltimore. I doubt it would happen, but at the same time, he’d make a killing with barbecued crab, chicken, steaks, etc. Same with John Fot, although he already has an amazing job, so maybe when he retires…… I’ll let him run the BBQ outside the back of my church as long as the homeless eat free. Think about it, John. 😛
Oh my Good Lord it’s cold in SBUX.
But back to my room. I have no motivation to do anything to help myself, and if I could make myself snap out of it, I would have done it already. I am thinking seriously about hiring a maid, and I don’t care how much it costs. I know I can “tidy up,” but I would love it if the initial deep clean was done by not me.
I have dug myself into too deep a hole, and everything feels overwhelming. I am doing all I can do to get up, dressed, and off to work on time, and at the end of the evening, going to bed on time as well. Everything else is suffering under the weight of “just can’t give a fuck, because I don’t have any fucks to give.” It is not indifference, it’s depression and anxiety. You can’t make motivation out of nothing. You can’t make motivation out of deep-seeded feelings that you don’t deserve nice things.
Argo and Dana are the root cause of all of this, not because of anything they’ve done to me, but what I’ve done to them. I don’t feel good about myself, thus I am comfortable with my room looking like a tornado has ripped through it most of the time. I’m also embarrassed to carry all the trash down, because even though it is bagged and thus, not causing any trouble, there’s just so damn much. I am not a hoarder. I am a hider. I don’t want to go downstairs, because that would require interacting with people. It doesn’t matter that I love them. Anxiety is anxiety.
And as I am sitting here writing, I am realizing how ridiculous I sound, and I will call the maids sometime today. I am sure that it it would be cathartic to do all of this myself, but I’m too far down, paralyzed. Last Saturday was Dana’s birthday, and it weighed me down like an anchor. I didn’t even send her a birthday e-mail, because I couldn’t. She asked for quiet, and I am all about that…. and yet, it doesn’t mean that I don’t take all that hurt inside myself and let it create a thunderstorm. I think I went to bed at 4:00 PM. By that time, body memory was too much, especially after all the memories on Facebook where I sent all my birthday love to her and is now trapped in a way that I’ll remember it every year for the rest of my life.
My Argo memories make me so happy, and my Dana memories rip out my guts and barbecue them.
The secret’s in the sauce.
Stories That Are All True 