From the Archives: Existing is a Massive Warehouse Filled with "stuff"
NOTE: THIS SUBSTACK WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON 12/13/2022
Thursday morning I woke up early, took a pilates class and went to brunch with my mom. Typically I take pilates on Wednesday’s but that class was full when I went to sign up forcing me to book the advanced tower class at 9am on Thursday. I stayed up fairly late the night prior, struck with anxiety of the advanced class being too hard. My empty black travel tote was slouched open on the chair across from where I aimlessly scrolled wide awake, a physical reminder that I had yet to pack my things for an upcoming weekend upstate with my family.
8:35am rolled around - as did I before getting dressed and heading down the block to class. Outside the door stood two women around the same age as me who I soon would find out were also taking the class. The Wednesday group is a much older crowd so it was refreshing to know the Thursday class is taken by people my age. Once we entered the studio, the women from outside greeted another advanced tower attendee, I overheard them discussing their plans for tomorrow and based on obvious context clues, gathered one of their friends was having a birthday party. They were talking about what wine to bring. I love wine but haven’t been drinking as much since moving here because my mom always told me it was “weird and unhealthy to drink alone.”
I moved to this town not really knowing much about it or anybody who lives here. I was super frustrated by the NYC housing market in August and thought a change of scenery would be cathartic. In many ways it has been. I haven’t felt too lonely since moving here but this past week my longing for connection was heightened. When I overheard the women having this exchange it made me feel oddly (but also wrongfully bc you don’t know these girls MG!!) left out. The class ended - it wasn’t nearly as difficult as my anxiety told me it would be.
Susan and I spent the later half of the morning scrolling Zillow and devouring poached eggs at brunch. We then decided to check out the antique warehouses in town before heading back to her house further upstate.
The warehouses are a treasure trove, I’m not entirely sure how to put the experience into words. From the outside, it’s a massive string of industrial looking buildings connected together. After entering through a random door in the middle of what could be described as a “huge storage unit” you’re greeted with a massive room that’s filled with furniture, clothes, and honestly anything you can and cannot imagine. Each warehouse is connected naturally creating an endless maze. There’s no proper way to navigate through it and wandering deeper into each room feels like a never-ending stream of deja vu.
Susan trailed off to look at paintings for the kitchen while I stayed behind to file through racks of clothing. You could spend a month there and still not get to everything - it’s lifetimes of “stuff.”
Among the clothing I pulled was a fleece zip up jacket. Underneath the LL Bean label was an iron on sticker from a nursing home downstate. A woman’s name had been crossed off in sharpie and although curious, I couldn’t entirely make out who the jacket previously belonged to. I’ve thrifted countless times before but never imagined the “life” these clothes had before ending up in my closet. In addition to the fleece I also stumbled upon a long red/orange wool coat with beading on the shoulders that belonged to the late wife of Nat King Cole. Unlike the fleece, the wool coat had a tag pinned to it which more explicitly disclosed it’s previous owner - a real selling point if you ask me but it was far too large to justify purchasing.
After hours at the warehouse Susan and I wrapped up our losses - meaning, neither of us bought anything - and made our way further upstate. Later that night I finished some work at a cafe. Friday wasn’t very interesting besides the fact that my mother kept accidentally calling the post office “the airport” and I bought a slew of random items at Marshalls.
Originally, I was supposed to come back to my apartment Saturday but spur of the moment I was convinced to stay an extra day to attend a holiday party hosted by my aunt and uncle.
Social engagements no matter the premise always heighten my awareness that the body I’m in now is not the same body that I was in a few months ago. I never thought it was possible to grieve something you’ve gained - and believe me, I’ve gained so much more than weight - but alas, there I stood crying in the bathroom of a house I barely knew, in a town I didn’t learn to ride a bike in, over a body I still sometimes feel takes up too much space. It was a short lived visit from the ghost of a past self but I’m using it as a reminder for myself. If I want to continue making progress towards excavating the versions of me that feel unworthy of taking up a healthy amount of space, I need to consistently practice trusting the version of me who wholeheartedly believes she is more than deserving. It’s exhausting to beg though, I want recovery to choose me as freely as I have chosen it.
Holiday parties as a single mid-twenty something are difficult. You’re introduced to people you’ve been introduced to 100 times before (the reintroduction is beneficial considering you only see these people once a year) which is generally followed by some sort of “I remember you when you were this..I can’t believe how big you’ve…..this cant be…” comment. Later into the event when you’re standing awkwardly in the kitchen, staring at the bowl of wavy chips that have been out for hours and contemplating if they’re worth annihilating the roof of your mouth for, the cousin in-law twice removed will pop in again and ask, “what you’ve been up to” (pronounced: what’re doing with your life?) I suppose if I had taken a conventional career path this wouldn’t be such a taxing question. I can’t imagine doing something that’s easily explained to distant relatives once a year at a holiday party though so while they may not have expected a 40 minute minimum journey of how I accidentally became a niche micro internet persona, they initiated!
In addition to the ancestral fossil attendees (who by the end of the night are guaranteed to reveal who they voted for in the last presidential election) there’s the cousins you used to play with in the basement - they’re all now married, out of state and/or have kids. While you’ve always known your cousins were older than you - by how many years exactly, you couldn’t recall if your life depended upon it -
it’s now occurring to you that at some point, everyone got up from the children’s table at your grandmother’s house and didn’t return for dessert. You observe them moving on while still sitting there, superglued to the chair, frozen, banging your fists on the table.
Perhaps my pre-party emotional crumble initiated this existential realization but nonetheless I have yet to find a remedy to ease the gut wrenching feelings that accompany the visual recognition that time is continuing on, all around, for everyone.
I arrived back at my apartment Sunday morning. It snowed all day and late into the night. After unpacking the new espresso maker I impulsively purchased and barely know how to use, I made some tea, taped an elementary school friend’s wedding invitation to the fridge - the crisis of finding a plus one for that event will inevitably be mulled out in an upcoming entry - and melted into the couch while simultaneously opening my book. Shortly into the first couple of pages Reux climbed onto my lap which is always convenient seeing as she radiates heat. I read the first 23 pages before struggling to take an instagram story that properly captured the ambiance.
The majority of my days since leaving the city have been spent keeping busy in one way or another. Filling the blatant vacancies with tasks usually insulates the hallways of my mind enough to seize the loud echos of longing. After writing that sentence, I feel the need to remind you this is far from an advice column.
I’ve always been under the impression that keeping myself busy was the answer to furthering myself in all forms - professional, personal, etc. However I am discovering that sometimes forms of keeping ourselves busy, tango with the things that protect us. Safety is comfortable in these cases but also can inhibit us from making new discoveries or furthering progress. The tasks that I’ve been entertaining lately as a way to keep busy are in many ways, familiar tunes at a louder volume, the same choreography at a faster tempo. My lease upstate ends in April and I’ve been dabbling with the idea of potentially spending time overseas. The next couple of months will be very telling if this rhythm is any testament to further progress.
In the moments I feel small, my body feels like an enormous place to inhabit. It’s an overwhelm similar to being alone in my apartment or realizing that we only have a finite time on earth. There is so much empty space to explore and occupy - What do we fill it with? Who will find our jacket in the warehouse? How can we nurture the space and prevent it from rotting?
x
MG