It's never about the lunch.
This was not meant to become a public journal. Here we are.
I have been listening to Os Tincoãs on repeat this week.
Their self-titled album from 1973 has been playing in the shop, in my flat, in my headphones while I’m walking the dog. I don’t fully understand it, musically or linguistically, but I don’t really think I need to. There’s something about it, hard to pinpoint exactly but it sorta feels like it’s reaching directly into my rib cage and telling everything that’s rattling around in there to calm the fuck down. Which is helpful, because my brain has not quite caught up to the fact that my life is no longer on fire.
Things are, objectively, better. I am safer. I am happier. I have made good decisions and built some stability. And yet, somewhere just off to the side of everything, there is still this low, constant noise. It’s not even proper panic anymore, just a sort of background screaming. That’s normal, right? It turns out that regulating your emotions when you’re not in a constant state of fight or flight is difficult as fuck. No one tells you that bit. People sort of imply that once you fix the external things, the internal stuff will quietly fall into line behind it. Well... It does not.
But, I’ve been writing this week, which should be easier now that everything else is quieter. And it kinda is, like, I can sit down at my computer. I can open the document. I can spend time in the document without immediately exploding head-first like that guy in Scanners.But it also kinda absolutely isn’t because my brain is still acting like I’m under threat. Any tips for this are welcome, lol help lol.
Anyway, I’ve been coping the way I always cope, which is by assembling a small, ridiculous collection of things to smooth my brain.
This week’s rotation includes:
Os Tincoãs, obviously.
Lawn Mowing Simulator, still going strong and still very serious.
Obsessively researching how to build a cyberdeck and convincing myself I have enough gay audacity to rig a mini computer into a lunchbox. I almost bought a soldering iron. I wish I was joking.
Editing my manuscript
I am aware that one of these things is not like the others, but at the moment they all seem to serve roughly the same purpose, which is to get my brain to sit down and chill for five minutes at a time.
Which brings me, unfortunately, to earlier this week.
On Tuesday and Wednesday I was, by all accounts, absolutely smashing it. I cleaned out my car. I took it to be washed. I took my dog for a big run at the park. I did ALL my grocery shopping on a FULL STOMACH (so no silly purchases). I packed a lunch for work, which I never fucking do. I made dinner for my family. I went for drinks with a friend. I attended a co-writing Zoom. I was, briefly, the kind of person who has their life together. I was thrilled and proud and fuck cloud 9, bitch I was on cloud 10!
And then I went to work today and forgot to bring the packed lunch with me. Which should not have trigged a full blown meltdown. And yet, here we are.
I sat there, tired, and hungry, having a completely disproportionate emotional response (see: crying) to the fact that I had left a Tupperware container in my fridge, and all I could think was: why can I do all of that, and still miss the one simple thing that actually mattered in that moment? It’s not even about the lunch. Because, honestly babe, It’s never about the lunch. It’s the fact that there’s always a lunch. There’s always “getting it almost right and still, somehow, getting it wrong”.
Is there a reason for this? Historically, no. But, this week, despite my burst of productivity, some complicated things from a previous version of my life have drifted back into view, and I think that’s a fear I live with constantly. Things I thought were settled, or at least contained, have reminded me that they are still there, just waiting for me to start feeling good and in control again. And instead of dealing with that with the grace and composure I would like to imagine I possess, my body has gone, “NOOoooo, not this as well!”
Which...fair. Me too, bestie. I’ve got a busy May coming up. There are things on the horizon that are good, exciting even, but also require a certain amount of energy and presence that I categorically do not have access to yet. And I think the little Ranger Mickey who is piloting the Mickey™Jaeger (AUS, Mark 5) has clocked the impending Kaiju of responsibilities climbing out of the sea and decided to smack the “self-destruct” button1.
Which is where Os Tincoãs comes back in. Phew.
Because something about this album cuts through all of that nonsense. It definitely doesn’t fix it. But it does make Captain Mickey take five in the break room. And in that small, quiet, head-empty space, I can write a sentence. Maybe two. Which, I’m grateful for.
I think my issue is that I’ve been operating under the assumption that if things are better, I should be better. That there should be a point where I become the kind of person who remembers their packed lunch and writes every day and doesn’t get derailed by things that no longer pose an actual immediate threat. But I’m starting to realise that’s just not how it works.
Anyway.
I’ve been waiting for the version of me who has it all together to show up and take over. The one who remembers her lunch, writes every day, and handles things like a normal, well-adjusted adult. And I just need to come to terms with the fact that she is, like all cool, put-together and sexy people, running fashionably late.
Can you even fucking believe how extended and detailed and unnecessary this Pacific Rim (2013) reference was? Can you even imagine what it’s like to be my friend and suffer through this kind of bullshit in real life? It’s rough, I can assure you.