Resolute,
I’ve ran certain amounts of distances for certain amounts of times. I think it’s winter, at least, I’m seeing bare trees in person for the first time, I think. I imagine they are oak trees, the namesake of where I live, but I’ve never really known any trees besides palm and Christmas ones. I realized, gasping cold, dry air that makes my throat feel like a dentist left that saliva sucker thing in while on a phone call, having a fight with a loved one, they were different once before.
Breathing hasn’t been easy ever since I moved to California. In the South, when you’re outside, you work for air. Taking a breath feels more akin to drinking honey. But it was a good, deep breath. When I breathe here, it’s like I’m running in space; my neck and chest flex, but it feels like nothing’s happening.
The trees here are dead right now. Or sleeping, I never quite understood that. The trees are dead when before, they had leaves and maybe blossoms, but I can’t quite remember what they looked like. When I lived in the city, I’m in The Town, now, I sat on a friend’s couch, I can’t remember the color, and she told me how, since moving from a place with seasons to the bay, she had a hard time remembering events. The constant change and punctuations of the seasons acted as markers to remember things, and living in a place that generally has the same season year-round makes memory a little fuzzier. I’ve never lived in a place with such seasons, and I worry that I’ve forgotten something.
As I run past these dead, I think, oaks, I realize that they were different once before, and in a couple months, will be alive or awake again. That if I keep running this path, I will see something grow and die, or wake up and go to sleep. Change and grow, adding on whatever the years throw at it. It didn’t occur to me, until then, that I haven’t ever really watched anything grow and change like this.
The first time I ran, I just, well, ran. I thought that’s what you did: run. I guess I ran like I was chasing something.
But you don’t just run when you mean to, well, run. I learned later that you stretched beforehand and paced yourself and only ran certain amounts of distances for certain amounts of times.
I ran like I thought was expected of me. Flawless. Perfect. Beautifully. I would just run, smile to all the other runners as I passed by, morning sun glinting off my obviously knock-off sunglasses, but we’re all trying, right? Why wouldn’t I be able to just run?
I couldn’t move my legs for the next month. I cried as I dragged my body across the room, around my new apartment, hoping my new roommate didn’t think something happened to me. Except something did happen to me, I happened to me. I thought about the selfie I took just before I ran, how I wanted people to admire me. And instead I rubbed my body in Tiger Balm always somehow getting it in places I would rather it not go.
It’s the strangest feeling, for me, that my body would not move the way I wanted it to. Going to get groceries was a life event. I imagine this comes off as spoiled whining to many.
What I mean is, I realized I had been doing this to my mind all along. My body was telling me that I’ve been acting this way all along, and I’ve been dragging my emotions around, clawing and crying. I haven’t been watching things grow. I don’t know how to grow.
During this month in which I mostly cried on my new green IKEA rug (reading through this again during editing, I realized I misremembered this, I didn’t have my new green IKEA rug yet, all I had was a desk a bed and bookshelf that still leans over slightly because I haven’t asked if I’m allowed to secure it to the wall with a fastener yet) I came to terms with how little I allowed myself to grow these past three years.
There’s no such thing as growing as a public figure for advocacy. There’s perfect. There’s saint. There’s martyr. There have been times, recently, where I came to the sudden awareness that I can’t feel or really think for a good minute or so. I forget where I am and what I’m supposed to be doing, and become frightened. I’m supposed to know what to do, and what to feel. I think, for a long time, my mind has been dragging itself on the floor in pain, crying, and I just didn’t allow myself to recognize it.
What is an acceptable way for someone advocating for social justice to mess up? In what way could I stumble, and everyone would help me up, brush off my fast fashion clothes I painfully chose and assembled together to look above that? I don’t know if I ever allowed myself to be a ‘rising’ critic, a ‘rising’ artist, just the critic, the artist. Everyone was watching me.
I’ve stopped playing video games. They all want me to be perfect. Become perfect. But only perfect for them.
I don’t think it’s safe out here, for anyone who isn’t allowed to grow.
I run better now, at least, I run admitting to myself I have to grow into running. I have to stop sometimes, and my glasses are mostly there so others don’t see me cry. But now, it’s funny, when stretching, I remembered how to stretch from all the dance classes I took when I was younger. It was like, at one point, I did understand how to find where my body was at, and grow from there. And along the way, somehow, I had forgotten.
I’m scared I will be forgotten. That, maybe, I haven’t accomplished that much.
I eat salads for lunch. Mostly arugula these past few months, because it’s winter, and I squeeze citrus juice on it to make sure I feel alive eating it. During lunch, I have to check social media and search for my name, to make sure I’m not hacked, not being hacked, or about to be hacked. It feels like this is my legacy, the woman who was harassed, and now spends her days worrying her friends will be in danger. One of these times I found a tumblr that catalogued quotes and easter eggs in Kentucky Route Zero. My first game and name was mentioned in it, filed in an old cataloguing system. I was under Generosity and Loneliness. I cried, for two reasons. The first was I played this game multiple times, and if I ever saw this, I’ve forgotten. And the second, is, here is something permanent, of me, as if the game said, it wouldn’t forget me.
So, I’ve been running. I can see my breath now as I exhale, as if someone’s trying to show me that I’m alive, I am breathing, and I will be okay.
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