Guest writer: Serra Sewitch-Posey
Something is happening to me. Or more than that it’s like, parts of myself that have always been there are starting to expand and overwhelm other parts of me. It feels a bit alarming, like I’m mutating in ways I can’t control. And it also feels so personal, so unique to my own experience, and yet I have a strong feeling that this is normal for someone of my age at this time in my life. And normal for someone living in this society at this point in history.
Ok, I’ll get to the point. The point is, I’ve always been sort of half and half introvert/extrovert. I like hanging out with friends, I like parties, I like conversations and social events in general but then of course I need to recharge by having time by myself. Up until now it has felt pretty balanced. I don’t know if it’s my job or what, but my tolerance for social interaction has been getting lower and lower. I’ve been hitting my limit a lot quicker, and needing more time to recharge afterwards.
On Monday I had some kind of emotional breakdown. I woke up feeling really slow and sluggish, thinking maybe I was slightly hungover from the two cocktails I’d had the night before. I had forgotten to set my alarm, which never happens, but luckily I was woken up by Benny’s alarm. I went through the usual morning routine- fed the cats, made coffee, got Mina out of bed, had breakfast, took a shower, etc. I took Mina to school and then drove to work. It was a medium busy day, I did seven haircuts, then picked up Mina at her friends house. It had been a weird weather day- hot and sunny in the first part of the day, then cloudy and threatening to rain in the evening. I felt a similar thing happening inside of me, a building up of pressure needing release.
At home she played some video games and I poured myself a glass of wine and sat on the couch to check my phone. There was an email from the principal of Mina’s school informing us of a lockdown that had occurred that day after school when a previous student who had been expelled entered the school wearing tactical gear and carrying what turned out to be a fake gun. He had been immediately escorted out of the school and police were called. The boy, who was 13, was taken to a juvenile detention center.
My first reaction when reading this email was actually relief and reassurance that the school officials and police had responded quickly, that the situation was under control, that the boy had not been shot, that the principal was communicating the situation to parents. It seemed that the boy had acted without any real destructive intent because he had entered the school after school hours, and I learned later that he had just been looking for some friends who were in the after school program. Kids and parents who know him said he’s not dangerous and didn’t mean to appear threatening.
But the more I thought about what happened, the more upset I felt. The fact that this scenario didn’t end badly was only partly reassuring. Judging from the texts I was getting from other parents, the emails from the school, and comments on Facebook, all of us were freaked out about this and unfortunately, we have every reason to be. Almost every day there is some kind of mass shooting somewhere in the country, and I, for one, don’t want to be foolish enough to believe “that kind of thing couldn’t happen here.” Because it happens in Portland too. Usually the shootings here involve just one or two people, but they often seem random and often in the middle of the day. Gun violence is just in our everyday consciousness now. As someone who has always been crowd averse, I’m even more so now. I’m jumpy in grocery stores, I avoid parades and large events. I’m aware of people on the street, if they seem dangerous. I am paranoid in a way I’ve never been before.
When Benny got home, he asked me about my day. I tried to explain how I was feeling, and as it came out I broke down crying. I told him how my job feels so hard sometimes, the constant interaction combined with trying to execute a good haircut while also performing in a way, trying to portray myself as someone friendly and competent. How hard it is to fake it when I’m not feeling social, when I really just want to tuck myself away, be unseen. We talked about what had happened at Mina’s school and how terrible it is that we have to be vigilant against violence at school, that we can’t just drop her off and know that she’s safe.
What’s at the heart of all this is an urge, and I don’t think I’m alone in this, to escape. To break away from society, to run away to somewhere isolated and manageable, to cleanse myself of the madness of humanity. And if I can’t go hide in the woods at least I have this beautiful house now. I just want to stay in my house, make art in my art room, write on the front porch. I want to dig around in my garden, pet my cats, walk through the neighborhood. This compulsion to disassociate worries me a bit because in general I think it’s good to be involved, to be a part of society. Becoming a hermit, I think, is the coward’s way out. It’s a shrinking away, a giving up. Plus, I don’t know how to make money in a way that doesn’t involve other people. I still like my job for the most part, and I don’t want to walk away while I’m still relatively new at it, while I’m still building my skills.
I don’t know. I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t believe in making decisions out of fear. I don’t want to deny the benefits of being part of a human community because I’m sensitive and overwhelmed and scared. I don’t want to close off.
But I do know that whenever I bring my focus closer, make my world smaller, put a little fence around myself and my awareness, I feel better. Yesterday I took the day off of work, let Mina stay home from school. While she played video games I took a long bath and started The Song of Achilles. I did the dishes, vacuumed the carpets. I helped Mina organize her crowded dresser top, then we went through all her clothes and filled a bag to take to Goodwill. We ate tuna melts for lunch, then ran some errands- went to Goodwill, stopped by the eyeglasses repair shop to fix my glasses, and explored the art store next it where we bought little wooden mushrooms to paint and a small set of acrylic paints, a package of sushi shaped erasers, and I got a charcoal pencil to sketch with. After getting home we walked to Burgerville and got some burgers, walked home and ate them on a blanket in the front yard. We painted the mushrooms on the blanket, then Mina got the idea to create a little diorama with them using grass, moss, rocks and twigs and little caterpillar and snail figurines. When Benny got home he ate his burger, then mowed the lawn while I watered the garden. We all watched an episode of Queer Eye and then went to bed.
I marveled at how vastly different I felt than the day before; I felt at ease, happy, satisfied. It felt like the kind of day that’s value is in its ordinariness. The kind of day that could be easily forgotten but somehow, I don’t think it will be- partly because I’m writing about it now, and partly because of how different it was from the previous day. The challenges, the frustration, the anxiety of the Monday made Tuesday so much sweeter.
So, here I am. A human at her laptop- a human who would so much rather be a jellyfish or a sea slug. A human who feels overstimulated by being around people but has a job where she is right up next to people with their hands on them, making sounds with her mouth that she hopes will communicate accurately the complex connections in her brain. A human who feels happiest when logical thought falls away and makes room for sensation and space. A witchy artist trying to navigate the labyrinth of capitalism. A poet in line at the DMV. Just gotta keep breathing, keep creating, keep being.