Asking for a friend
Memes are all euphemisms.
Very strong CW: Suicide
I.
“Asking for a friend” is a funny conceit for a joke because the euphemistic friend is usually that person we also call “our own worst enemy.” Asking for my own worst enemy because I fucking hate myself.
There, fixed it.
She did not just…
That part.
If I had balls, I’d write poetry in Internet until someone pushed me off a cliff.
Because I could have been happy studying the memories of my culture but instead I have to worry about the white guy getting a degree in it. Because I could have enjoyed an adolescence full of pubescent curiosity but I had to worry about the guy who wants to witness me enjoying my adolescence of pubescent curiosity. Because I support artists at my day job but doing that makes me feel like I will never be an artist.
That part.
I had an essay for a catalog killed and am not sure why. Possibly because they could have been happy advertising an exhibition but instead had to worry about me saying how much more we can be.
II.
I’m realizing that a lot of famous women who committed suicide were in what I’d call prime perimenopausal years. Here: I wrote these names and ages down in my work notebook between meetings because I accidentally clicked on a weight loss ad in my phone and freaked the fuck out: Arbus 48, Woolf 59, Sexton 45, Spade 55, McCullers * 50. Plath was 30 so she was genuinely depressed? LOL *cue Smashmouth* “Hey now! You’re an All-Star!”
It’s been four years but I finally got a pelvic exam. My new gynecologist asks if anything is bothering me. I tell her everything as succinctly as possible and she says to me “everything you describe is consistent with perimenopause.”
OK great I figured as much. I’m just curious though…Statistically, what is the longest this can last? She tells me that my perimenopausal symptoms could last a decade. I start sobbing. I am ass naked but for socks I got for free at work, and a Phillies Phanatic shirt, now clutching a labia-colored paper drape and sobbing because I want the symptoms of “aging while female” to end. She is wearing a knit cardigan with pastel daisies embroidered on it. I think she might not be more than 30 years old.
“I’m so sorry…” she says and grimaces. After a couple minutes she breaks the silence with an anecdote about how watching her mother go through it was really hard.
My gynecologist is relating my experience to that of her mother… I snap out of my crying. Wow, I am fucking Mom aged. Like, doctors are comparing me to their Mom. I am ontologically Old Mom Age.
Wow. Wowowowowowowwwwwwww
The gynecologist asks if I have a history of trauma in my family and I literally guffaw so hard my mask pops off my face. “I mean, what am I supposed to tell you? Like, what do people tell you when you ask this question?” I ask. I see a cursor blinking on the computer screen as she readies her fingers on the keyboard on a swivel so she can face me while she inputs data. She has 0/750 characters left to complete this question on my survey. Not unlike a grant application. She leaves it empty and moves on to the next question.
History of depression in your family? I laugh again and tell her “I genuinely don’t know where to start. Three uncles and aunts died of suicide. Many alcoholics in the family. Eating disorders…” I hate the way I sound. The gynecologist is Asian so maybe she understands I’m saying it like I’m saying I have two eyes and no pants on.
When she finally examines my vagina she spreads my labia very gently and as if changing her mind about the profession, interrupts herself: “you know, I don’t need to do a full pelvic exam today, and everything seems healthy from here. Why don’t we schedule you for a check up in a few months.”
I enjoy the confidence that she thinks I will be over this by then.
*McCullers wasn’t technically a suicide but I think metaphorically her death absolutely was.
III.
I told Shatara recently that the experiences of broadening our sexual horizons resemble the intimacy of playing music, execept for the tricky politics of physical intercourse, which ironically is an act I nevvvver want to perform with anyone I play with. The closeness has to do with god. When I think of god, all of it—sex, music, beauty—becomes one beautiful place. A tone. Atone.
IV.
This morning I heard myself get up in one piece and it did not feel bad. Congratulations on writing your very first love letter to yourself, friend.
Goddam. This is so good.