“May you live in interesting times.”
- Chinese curse (allegedly)
As some of you may know, I disappeared to Ottawa for the month of January. If you ask me what I did, I really wouldn’t be able to tell you. I had this weird cold-turned-sinus-infection-turned-cold that I couldn’t be bothered to deal with.
I think my parents were also eager to take care of me, which I couldn’t help but indulge in. It was nice—it made me feel like I haven’t been taken care of in a long time. And I know this is a childish thing to say, but whenever I go back to my parent’s home, I get this strange feeling that I’ve been wronged. For a very, very, very long time, I blamed my parents for my immaturity (shout out to anyone who read porcupine lol).
And I wrote about it. Porcupine started off ridiculous and fictionalized: something that was a very ‘immigrant child forgives parents and rediscovers self’ type narrative. And I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with telling that story, but it wasn’t what I wanted to write. I realized, it wasn’t that I didn’t know what to say, it’s that I didn’t have anything to say.
I wrote the essay anyways, and shared it onto the Internet. The point wasn’t that I had a point, but that I was proud to have written something personal and vulnerable. And honestly, I didn’t think I needed to have a point: I was 19, barely through my second year of University, and was very aware that I knew nothing about the world. But I was hopeful. I thought that maybe, if I take this little step in vulnerability, it didn’t matter that there was no point. It was enough that I put myself out there to be perceived in a way that was honest and real.
Maybe I’m projecting. Maybe this need to feel connected to others is something I’m feeling now, so I reflect it onto everything else I think about.
I’ve always been intrigued by memories. We look back and share past events like we know how and why things happened, as if aging a few years has given us some sort of clarity. But honestly, I feel like I understand the world less now than I did when I was 19.
I’m going to let you all know that this isn’t going to end with me saying something like oh, progress is not linear! I mean, it isn’t, but that’s not anything new or fascinating or revolutionary.
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Gemma thinks its procrastination. In Montreal, she has somehow become my fairy godmother. She magically has every book I need for the classes I’m taking, is always willing to Google questions I have, and got me pills for chronic bronchitis on my birthday. She feels like an older sister.
And I guess that’s what I’m trying to say: I don’t feel like I’ve grown up, nor do I have any interest in it. It’s not a lack of ambition or responsibility, and I definitely wasn’t coddled as a child. I’m literally just not interested.
I don’t have any interest in entry salaries or owning property or raising children. I’ve never paid attention to the ceramics in my friends’ apartments and I don’t really know what Paloma Wool is either. And it’s not that I don’t care to know, I just didn’t realize I was supposed to know. My repertoire is different. Somewhere along the way, all my friends grew up. They didn’t leave me behind, but I guess I just subconsciously chose not to go with them.
I think it originally stemmed from both an intense intrigue and an angry annoyance with domesticity. As a serial Kanata resident, it’s fucking depressing. Living there feels like the rest of your life is inevitable: finding a stable but boring office job (probably government), settling down in the suburbs, raising a nice little nuclear family in a neighbourhood where every driveway is lined up perfectly.
I assimilated, though, when I lived there. I wanted to be popular and well liked. I wanted validation.
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Moving to Montreal was a massive reality check, but it was also escapism. I could’ve gone anywhere—I really just wanted to leave Ottawa.
I could say that this thing with growing up is because I wasn’t ready, but that’s stupid and no one is ever ready to grow up. It just happens. And I kept thinking that, it’ll happen to me eventually. You know, it’s like boobs, some people are just late bloomers. I’d always liked to think about it this way at least, because it was hopeful. I thought, maybe I’m a really late bloomer, but that someday, it’ll all just click.
But I know that’s not how the world works, and I only think that way because I read too much fiction and having slight conspiracy theorist tendencies. I can’t help it. I want everything to be a story; I don’t care who’s involved or whether it’s linear or true. I want to communicate with people and share experiences. Maybe it’s okay that I’m not good at living, because I’m interested in people: how do other people live? what are they like? how do they talk to each other? I want to be omnipresent and all-knowing, like a third person narrator.
So I did what any self-respecting McGill kid does: I took Intro to Russian Literature.
It was Fall 2019 so I don’t remember much, but I remember my prof making a big deal about Anna Karenina’s opening line: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” I don’t remember specifics about the quote’s meaning (something about how happiness is boring, but that boring was not bad), but the lasting impression I got was that the world—in my moment of being alive—was boring.
I couldn’t tell stories if there were no stories to tell! I was the tragic writer, fated to write about nothing forever. If only there were something exciting happening that I could experience then write about! So the universe answered my calls and gave us a global pandemic.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, I may or may not have willed Covid into existence (THIS IS A JOKE). Sure, I’d ask for something to happen, but not this.
In all honesty, I enjoyed quarantine at first. I had previously done a semester of rest and relaxation, where I stayed in my room unless I had a mandatory class or needed to take care of basic needs. I won’t bore you guys with the details of why, but the gist is super Freudian: “the room is the womb, I’m getting ready to exit, I just need some time.” Each time, I think I’m going to emerge as some new person with new wisdom, but the truth is, I’ve done this hibernation three times now. Nothing happens.
But I still loved fiction. So I read My Year of Rest and Relaxation in January, a recommendation from Gemma, and I was convinced Ottessa Moshfegh understood me. I felt validated. She gave me the words I didn’t have, to describe how I was feeling each time I hibernated: I was exhausted. I was tired of doing things. I just wanted to sleep.
I told my roommates that I was going to go back into hibernation in September, after I graduate my diploma program, but I know it won’t do anything. I like to say things that aren’t untrue, but aren’t the truth either. It doesn’t really make a difference either way, because I don’t usually know how I feel about anything. Or, perhaps more accurately, I know how I feel about things, but I don’t want to deal with it.
Like the cold-sinus-infection-cold. I don’t think my procrastination is out of laziness, but pessimism. I live by Murphy’s Law. And I’m often proven right: my sinus is still inflamed after a month of antibiotics, bed rest, hydration, etc.
But how shitty is that?! I don’t want to be like this. I want to be a storyteller, I want to know about the world, I want to connect with other peoples’ experiences. It’s my assertion of self-importance, knowing that someone is allowing me to occupy a bit of space in their lives. None of these things would really matter if I didn’t have anyone to tell, and having people to tell my stories to makes the stories I keep to myself special, at times horrific, but ultimately personal. Plus, stories keeps things interesting. And I figure it’s better to be vain than boring.
So here’s the solution: in 2022, I am going to be a hot girl. A bit self-indulgent, perhaps bitchy, vain at times. But hopefully, a little braver.