The Crow
Erin Kiernan
ISSUE NO. 2 • ARE WE THERE YET?
I admit I’m decently averse to travel. It took a great deal of thought and preparation for me to go to school in New York, which is only two and a half hours from my house. Now, with graduation looming, geography is constantly on my mind. I should go somewhere cool, but I don’t want to. But I should. I feel like the crow in my story. And the young woman.
Her favorite bird was the crow. There was one she liked to think of as her friend living in one of the high trees outside the church. He came out infrequently, only on the days during which he felt needed. He could sense the cool overcast days before they happened (because his small bones would ache) and knew he must show the world his face. He thought of himself as a Halloween decoration of sorts.
His eyesight was sharp, his brain quick, and on those spooky days he would rise at eight thirty and fly the couple dozen yards from his nest to the church bell tower. Perched on the tower, he waited 29 and three quarter minutes to begin his flight back across the church lawn to the nest. And every half hour until sundown, he flew back and forth between the bell tower and nest, pairing each flight with a string of caws, diverging from his straight path only to occasionally scoop up hovering insects. When perched on the tree, he could see the clock on the bell tower. When perched on the tower, he could hear the hourly chime. Thus, his flights were never late. He was a punctual crow.
On overcast Sundays, he saw her, a young woman with red hair, as she walked into the church for the eleven o’clock mass. She was always right on time, right on the hour, so she would catch him for his eleven o’clock flight. She would look up at him lovingly, a look he was not familiar with. No one looks at crows, let alone looks at them lovingly.
He felt important and handsome when she looked at him, so on overcast Sundays he would spread his wings wider and caw a bit louder and look down at her in return. He thought he loved her, so he started to come out more frequently—not just on overcast days, but on sunny days too—with the hope that she’d be there and look at him.
Every Sunday for four years she saw him and he saw her. Just a simple shared glance, but it was enough for the crow.
One Sunday in late May, he did not see her during his flight. It was five past eleven, and still nothing. No sign of the red haired young woman. At ten past, he became very anxious, so he did something he hadn’t done since he was a fledgling: he alighted on the ground. Because it was May and so very lovely outside, the church door was ajar. He crept inside to look for her. He walked up and down the aisles, glancing at every pew, sharing blank looks with churchgoers. His black beady eyes met with empty white eyes devoid of love or any feeling at all.
He flew up to the loft and perched on the organ, staring at the organist. The organist blinked twice, cowered, and played his fugue. The choir didn’t even see the crow.
The crow flew to the altar and landed on the lectern. He watched the congregation. The congregation looked down. So the crow hopped to the floor and walked down the middle aisle to the door.
He flew to the top of the bell tower and looked around. He could see the whole campus, but he saw no red.
The crow thought perhaps the young woman was sick. So the next Sunday, he resumed his regular flight pattern, hoping he would see her. He didn’t. He didn’t the next Sunday either. Or, the following Sunday.
Without her loving look, the crow saw no reason to fly. He began to spend days at a time in his cramped little nest, only creeping out for a morsel of food—perhaps a drowsy caterpillar on a nearby branch. At night the crow would whimper for the young woman and small tears would dimple his oily feathers.
Months went by and the crow aged rapidly. His feathers began to fall out and lost their sheen. He was thin and could hardly tiptoe out of his nest, let alone fly. He hated his life and the bitter world that ignored him day after day.
One day, he gathered his strength and stood up in his nest. His bones cracked and feathers fell as he opened his tiny beak to call out to the young woman, wherever she was. But his lungs were weak, his throat shriveled, and out came a caw of death, of pain, stagnation. Shrill, dry sobs, over and over, into a void.
But finally someone heard him. The sacristan rushed out of the church and looked up at the nest. The crow keeled over with exhaustion and fell to the ground. Satisfied, the sacristan walked back inside.
The crow thought he was dead and he was rather disappointed in the afterlife. Cold, hard, lonely, like the Earth. But what could he do? He lay there overnight.
In the morning, he saw the young woman standing over him with a man.
“You,” he croaked.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m back. We’re visiting.”
“Why did you leave me? Have you left the church?”
“No,” she laughed. “I graduated.”
“I waited for you for years.”
“A year,” she said.
“Still.”
“You should have followed me.”
“What?”
“Why do you think you have wings? So you can fly across the same patch of lawn half hour after half hour?”
To Africa
Malcolm Slaughter
ISSUE NO. 2 • ARE WE THERE YET?
To Africa,
People still think you’re a country. I was entertaining some Facebook posts against my better judgement and not only did someone call you a country, they didn’t believe me when I corrected them. That same person also told me that Egypt was not a part of Africa. Apparently, Egyptians are “too pretty” to belong to you.
To Africa,
When I was younger but old enough to understand, I didn’t want to visit you. CNN made you look like a place that would inflict me with terminal diseases the second my lungs inhaled your air. Mainstream media didn’t focus on the rare, continent specific and generated maladies that you and Africans, “created”. Instead, they convinced me that I’d be privy to, and surrounded by, and even a target of, gunfire from impromptu coup d’etat’s that have been raging since King Leopold and The Crown left the continent. Why would I want to visit you, only to die?
To Africa,
When I was about 12, I began to tell people that I was mixed with Native American. In Social Studies class, we looked at a map of Indian reservations and there used to be a huge Native American population and settlement in New Jersey. I had long braids at the time, my mom was lightskin, and my hair was fairly “combable” so, it only made sense that I was Native American and Black, so that’s what I said when people asked, “what's your nationality”. Cherokee to be exact. The prize of being mixed with anything non-African and being “light skin” far outweighed the scrutiny of being an “African booty scratcher”. That title was reserved for the Nigerians, Ghanaians, Kenyans, Sudanese, and Ugandans, to name a few. But, if someone was from Egypt, Ethiopia, Morocco, or Camp Verde, people celebrated. Everyone would complement them on their complexion, their features and ask them about Islam, having long straight hair, pyramids, and King Tut; and I did too. As long as I didn’t get grouped with the dark Africans, and I befriended the light skin Africans, I knew I’d be more successful in my social life. And judging by the consistent portrayals of a distal, dark, barbaric, otherworldly and uncivilized Africa, it became necessary that I distance myself as far away as I can from you, the motherland, if I wanted to be successful in life.
To Africa,
One day I was watching the world cup, at an Irish pub, in Germany, during my first, and only, contract with the US Army, and I was vehemently rooting for Cameroon. They were playing against a European country and although they didn’t have a chance to win, I was ten toes down. I even found myself locating similarities in the players and myself. I thought about how I would look if I were born in Africa. And how my kids would look if my wife was from Africa too. My phone vibrated and it was some picture mail from Nassim, she was from Camp Verde, and she is easily the prettiest girl I’ve ever dated. I smiled and tapped my friend at the bar with me and said, “those East African women are the best, I’m telling you”. I promised Nassim I’d come visit Africa any time with her, all she had to do was say the word.
To Africa,
By the time I accepted you completely, and rid myself of most stereotypes that curtailed our relationship, I then realized that I can barely afford a fuckin ticket. How could a continent alleged to be so destitute charge me 1700 round trip? I’m not saying it's your fault, but damn.
To Africa,
I’m not Native American, by the way, I’m African-American. If there wasn’t so much conspiracy around Ancestry.com and 123andMe then I might’ve packaged some of my DNA off to find out where exactly in Africa my ancestors were stolen from. (Apparently the government is using our DNA samples and conducting their own research aside from finding out our origins, so, I’ll pass).
To Africa,
I’m sorry for all of these excuses. I’ll be there soon enough.
cut calls
Asad Hussain Jung
ISSUE NO. 2 • ARE WE THERE YET?
I wrote this piece thinking about a land that I had to leave, a land I fell in love with, and a land that is indifferent to my existence in it.
Stagger, beads stroll down my face,
I am taken away from a land lost.
Who steals me from this land but my home?
She calls to me in an icy tone, suctions me towards,
I grab onto whatever I can hold,
though my grip has no reciprocation.
Held for so many days, so many warm nights,
like a newborn I am shoved into a world without choice.
Who calls upon me? I ask but receive no answer.
Warm winds whisper passive farewells,
they are wiser than I,
who clutches ghost hands that tickle,
who shouts at old sages that are stone.
Sitting in my home
The place that they tell me
I am from
I wait for a warm breeze
A soft tap of a drum
The pluck of a string
I hear these sounds
I am pulled
Only to look and see
That it is my own hand gripped around my wrist
And my own voice that whistles tunes
In Defense of Travel Envy
Jen Willis
ISSUE NO. 2 • ARE WE THERE YET?
In thinking about my complicated feelings about traveling, I found that a lot of it has to do with New York City and money. So, I wrote this piece for my fellow poor people who also get infuriated when other people go on vacation. That’s it.
Before I had wanderlust, I had travel envy.
Travel envy is exactly what it sounds like -- you see other people’s photos or videos of their travels, and you get really jealous. That was me before I had traveled anywhere outside of the US and Canada that no one else in my family had already touched. That was me even while I was studying abroad, and is still me now that I’ve already had that experience and I’m back at home. Travel envy is inescapable to me, because, you know, people are poor and not everyone can afford to travel.
I remember being in high school, coming back from spring break pastier than ever, to find that many of my classmates had gotten tanned, even sunburnt. I was infuriated. I deserved a vacation back then. I worked hard. My high school was one of the best in the state, and it took me almost my entire four years to get adjusted to it because I came from a nearly failing middle school in an underserved community. In my freshman year, I looked around at my classmates and realized I couldn’t write a proper essay. It really hurt me. I spent the next four years trying to prove myself in a school where most of the other students had been given the tools to succeed: basic reading comprehension, basic writing skills, and basic verbal communication. The Manhattan kids were the ones who had an easier time, and they were also the ones coming back from spring break tanned and refreshed. I’m not sure if any pressure would have been relieved by taking any crazy international vacations, but it certainly would have at least been nice. But my family couldn’t afford vacations back then, and I still can’t really afford them now. I can’t really blame my parents for that.
Being poor is exhausting. Being poor in New York City is exhausting. Being in NYC is exhausting in general, but there’s something about spending $130 a month on a failing public transportation system in a place where $15 an hour isn’t a living wage that is especially soul draining. I don’t care how glamorous Manhattan has to look; people in outer boroughs depend on the subway to get them to work on time, and more often than not, the MTA fails. Try saving for vacation when you have to spend extra money on other ways to get to work because the trains you already pay $130 a month for are totally useless. One day, I was feeling adventurous, and took an express bus to work. I paid my $6.50, and ended up being 40 minutes late because of traffic. Looking at someone’s vacation in Jamaica would piss you off if you saw it on a delayed train that was making you late for work for the fifth time that month; that’s all I’m saying.
So yeah, as a commuting student also working at the same time, I had (and still have) really bad travel envy. Life sucks. I run from classes I struggle in to a thankless job in a harsh city, and then back to my home, where I still live with my parents. All this to still be in debt, living paycheck to paycheck. Anyone else would be pissed off all the time too.
Poor people are allowed to feel angry at their situations. If a white girl posts another picture with cornrows in Jamaica captioned “ya mon,” I am absolutely entitled to lose my shit. As toxic as it is to compare yourself to others, poor people do it all the time. Because not only are we constantly stressing about what we’re going without, on top of it all, the world is telling us it’s our fault.
My first vacation outside the US and Canada was to Aruba, whose relatively inexpensive flights and hotel are still gaining interest on my credit cards. I had to take out my own private student loan to study abroad. Anyone with any financial sense would tell me that those were bad decisions, but they have already been made, so here we are. That’s the thing; poor people can’t even fully enjoy a vacation because they’d feel like the money could be better spent in another way. Even while I was studying abroad, I was torn. I had travel envy because my classmates could afford to go places every weekend, meanwhile I barely scraped by on my summer savings that I tried to make last for the entire semester. I was already mad at myself for taking out the extra loan in the first place, but was also mad I didn’t take out an extra couple thousand to make the trip feel worthwhile. Each financial decision is a struggle between your present feelings and your future burden. Sometimes, the need for instant gratification wins out, but it’s not like you won’t be struggling in the future anyway. It’s always a lose-lose situation.
So yeah, I’m mad to see someone going on vacation with what feels like every three seconds. My previous vacations don’t change that, because I’m still struggling now and I will have to pay off those debts later, and I feel like shit about it. Vacations that put you in debt aren’t any fun, but for some, there isn’t really any other way to do it. And just because some people can afford to just put their travel-envious feelings aside and feel good about their lives doesn’t mean everyone else has the luxury of doing so.
I don’t have a magic remedy to end feelings of travel envy. If I did, I wouldn’t be writing this. Wanderlust and travel envy can be easy to succumb to if you find you’re not enjoying your life. There’s no easy answer to this problem. You can either try very hard to save up for a vacation, and sacrifice some immediate well-being; you could take out a loan and sacrifice well-being down the road, if you can afford a loan at all; or you could not travel in the first place and just live life in FOMO. All we can definitely do is take care of ourselves and find small moments of joy. Be mad, please, be mad as much as you need to. Anger gives us power to create change. But remember to take a step back and appreciate any good moments, however few and far between, because you do deserve to feel good.
I Went to Europe and All I Got Was Depressed
Gabby Gillespie
ISSUE NO. 2 • Are we there yet?
This is what I didn’t say in all my instagrams from when I studied abroad.
Content Warning: This piece heavily discusses depression and suicide
Do not go to Europe because you think it will cure your depression.
I do not think any continent has the power to cure severe depression. I have only tried Europe and North America. Australia seems promising, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up.
I had been in a deep depression for about a year and a half when I packed my bags for old London town. I had asked about study abroad options on all my college tours and planned to go first semester junior year with all my friends since we were freshman. Even though I could feel myself getting worse, I had never let something like a pesky crumbling mental state make excuses for me to sit out.
I nodded along in agreement as family friends told me how much fun I would have. I needed to believe them. Pictures of Europe had decorated my walls and screensavers since middle school, put there not for a burgeoning wanderlust or any desire for cultural enrichment but because Europe is the classic cocoon where you escape anything that troubles you and grow into an impenetrable fortress of confidence and mystique (See: Eat Pray Love, Sabrina, Eurotrip). I fully bought into those Audrey Hepburn Tumblr posts and would think without any irony as self-loathing ate me alive that one day I would go there and leave my issues in the trash can at security.
The cobblestone streets and sunny canals on my Pinterest board did not match up with the landscape of my mind where all the gutters overflowed and citizens choked on smog. I slept three hours a night and five hours during normal daylight hours, laying in bed much of the time besides. I made myself physically nauseous from worrying. I was paranoid constantly and could not trust a single person not to betray me at any moment. For about twenty months now, I thought in an iambic pentameter of suicidal ideation, with all my regular thoughts being followed by a stressed little “kill yourself” each time. It was the backbeat to all my melodies, showing up even without any summons or triggers. It followed me home every night, taunting, calling my name and telling me to turn around and finally embrace it.
I needed to go to a hospital.
Instead I went to Heathrow.
///
I struggle mostly with passive suicidal ideation where you can think about taking a long walk off a short building all day long but do not have concrete plans or are seeking the means to act on these thoughts. “Volitional moderators” is a term for the factors that turn suicidal thoughts into suicidal behavior. I thought the verb “to kill” over and over, but in only a few moments was I volitionally moderated enough to go “so kill”.
This distinction may seem confusing to those who do not experience suicidal depression. I just said I was constantly thinking about killing myself, so wouldn’t that mean I was always close to doing so? I guess. Yet still in my mind during all those stressed syllables, I could see a veil keeping me from what I could do. I knew when the veil was up and when it was slipping.
I know the veil was actually falling in these moments because I could see what was on the other side, and I felt the panic you get when you know something is coming to kill you- heartbeat quickening, blood rushing, mouth dry, and the clearness of mind adrenaline brings. My broken brain features a piss-poor memory, but I remember these moments crisply even though the action was only happening in my mind, these seconds before some sort of self-preservation kicked in or I got interrupted and the veil fixed itself. So when I say I really almost killed myself then, please believe me. If you said a bear chased you, I would offer the same courtesy. I learned pretty good manners in England.
I remember the four spots I came closest, and now I offer you them so if you are studying abroad or there on a trip, you can take pictures and post them and pretend to not be severely depressed too.
Here is the tourist’s guide to where to almost off yourself (that’s a British term):
1. The High Street Kensington tube stop, London, UK
I passed through this stop on the Circle line almost every day that semester. High Street Kensington is close to the palace so you will see a blend of tourist spots and upscale housing. This was also the stop closest to my school’s campus which has since been demolished and turned into condominiums. The stop itself features a Pret a Manger, a Ben’s Cookies, a stationary store, and a dark restaurant that they will let you pee even if you are not a customer (thanks, guys!).
It was late, and I was waiting for my train after my 6:30 Introduction to Theater class ended. Unlike the average college student abroad, classes were something I looked forward to, as it was a social situation that I could simply show up to without the agonizing of planning and possible rejection. Everyone else in the class walked home together while I alone had to reach my dorm via tube. I thought of my friends walking together, their bond continuing to strengthen after mine had been amputated.
I feel like I missed out on a lot of socializing as a kid so now I create these simple inorganic rules to understand how other people do it. I create values in my head based on minutes clocked together and allocate points to different kinds of interactions- small talk, one point, intimate confessions, five- like I’m playing the Sims. It seemed like everyone else around me was unlocking level after level while my bar wouldn’t move. Those little failures to connect were annoying in the moment but would all pile up when I found myself alone. If I had someone to ride with that night, I wouldn’t be thinking like I was.
I was listening to a cover of “Horse with No Name”, one of the slow, monotone songs that I would retreat into on these rides as they were perfect to disassociate to, a new symptom of my illness that left me somewhat dazed almost all the time.
I was not dissociating right now though. I was filled with dread. I had nowhere to go that I wanted to be. No one else was on the platform, I thought opportunistically, There were no witnesses to feel guilty about. I imagined the smack of body to train, sort of feeling like a belly flop into the community pool but with no pain after the hit. I thought about Mario and Luigi and perfectly timing a jump to the approach of a moving object. I almost laughed at the idea of the beeps that played when the plumber stepped on a poison mushroom going off as I jumped.
The train approached. I thought about the commuters being home late because of my interference, commuters with kids and lovers and better reasons to be on time than I had to be alive, who would resent me for my interruption even while they pitied me. My feet stayed rooted to the concrete platform until I stepped between the sliding doors.
2. North Bridge, Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
When you get off the train from London to Edinburgh, you ascend the stairs to the top of North Bridge, which connects High Street and Prince Street. It is a beautiful spot. You can see Arthur’s Seat, a peak of the gorgeous Scottish highlands. From that vantage, you can enjoy the highs and lows of the hilly ancient city. You can also look down through the train station’s glass ceiling, which resembles a mammoth greenhouse. I crossed the bridge at night, leaned over the edge, and imagined my body landing on that glass, the splat that was me shocking the travelers inside the station.
I had booked my solo trip to Scotland the night before, buying an expensive train ticket, a cheap hostel bunk, and a cheaper bus ticket in an impulsive fifteen minutes. My mom saw the charge and called me, beseeching me not to travel alone, but I refused. It was over the extended break from school in which I had over a week of no plans besides watching reality TV in my musty apartment, dreading a roommate discovered me on the couch, unmoved. I was sick of seeing Instagrams pour in from friends in Italy and Iceland, enjoying plans I had been too afraid of rejection to request inclusion on. I needed to salvage this time with something to share when classes resumed, the silence while listening to others’ joy unbearable.
A group of my friends had already seen Scotland without me, and I knew I would be making sad comparisons the whole time as I saw it alone, but it was the closest place I could go to on a Friday and make it back by Monday. I weighed my desperation against that and showed up for my early train.
Travelling alone is often touted as a wonderful, life-changing experience. A chance to escape it all and really get to know yourself. You’re free to set your own plans and do what YOU want to do. You’ll talk to people you never would have if you had friends with you. Your confidence will sky-rocket and forever will self-assurance follow you.
Studying abroad leaves you alone whether you want it or not. You will be alone waiting at airport gates, riding trains, riding the tube. Alone walking through art museums, laughing at short films in darks screenings, standing on balconies and staring at skylines, watching outdoor plays, finding small joys in being part of the world as a solo observer. You’ll be alone eating meals you put off for too long, drinking coffee in crowded shops and dreading people negotiating seating and outlets. Alone ordering take-out that feels extravagant for just one person. Walking home alone because you thought living separately from your friends would be a good idea, because you were fairly confident they would have refused you if you asked to live with them, because you did not think you could bear that so you avoid asking the question altogether.
Most of time being alone did not make me feel liberated. I felt I had no say in my state. Attempts to remedy it were short-lived and could never fill the hungry hole I was. I saw my friends rarely enough that when reunited, huge gaps had been carved of their lives that I would never know. It felt like they had all crossed a threshold together and the moment after the fusion, it became unattainable for newcomers. I was lonely with others and with myself and no cultural experience made that go away. I had spent enough time in my head to go far past the point of healthy reflection, a point of constant circling back to flaws and miseries with no one around to take me back to reality.
I had been having a nice enough time in Scotland at first, a little high off my impulsiveness and determined to not let my mother’s worries manifest. I enjoyed a pleasant train ride where I read Macbeth. I went to the coffee shop where JK Rowling wrote and enjoyed an Irish Coffee.
But then the sky got darker. I hadn’t eaten a substantial meal that day, and the effort to secure food is mammoth for the sick like me. I put pressure on myself to find a delectable meal every time, treating a boring meal as some sort of failure to constantly live life to the fullest in this one little way. As I was away, I also needed a place to eat said meal and I was afraid of a judgmental look because I was eating alone or that I would be turned away because of the state of my travelling clothes which limited the restaurants I allowed myself to seek service in.
I finally became ravenous and went to the meal I would eat almost every day abroad after all my spiraling, unsatisfying but attainable and one that came with a place where you could eat alone and be accepted- an egg salad sandwich from Pret a Manger. Pret’s are EVERYWHERE in Europe, and I thank them for being a depressed girl’s refuge time after time. I had one of my lamest moments ever in that Edinburgh Pret as I sat at the community table, watched a new episode of my favorite show on my phone, and sobbed. I wept right into my egg salad on whole wheat with watercress. A pair of young parents and their baby in a stroller stared at me as my mayo-scented hiccups broke through the loud fast-casual eatery. I guess they would not be one of the amazing people I met in transit.
I used to be more melancholic than anything with a few occasional outbursts, but during this time, my depression created these big, public sobbings. I was a crybaby. A loud fat crybaby with big fat baby tears and big gulping gasps, weeping over how I deserved no place in human existence. I Chris-Crocker-ed it in my bed, on the tube, on the sidewalk, and in hotel bathrooms with people just on the other side of the door.
I put on my headphones and walked to my hostel. But before that, I stopped on the bridge and dizzied myself by leaning over the edge and staring down at the station below.
I was lost in my patterns. Of doing very little then making one impulsive decision in pursuit of happiness, of starving myself and then being unhappy with the taste of what I finally ate, of thinking about killing myself passively and then finding myself here, one jump away from action.
I stepped back suddenly as if my inhibitions in the slam of the door on their way out. It was too cold to debate so I just left. I got some Indian food and a glass of cheap wine. I read on my phone in my hostel bunk and fell asleep before midnight. I had thought about going out alone, even packed an outfit, but I thought about returning to that bridge with alcohol in me and again feared a falling veil.
3. St. James Park tube station, London, UK
You may have noticed by now I have a thing for trains. A lot of positives to suicide by train. No one would have to find my body, it would be found upon deliverance. It’s also quick, no post-moment to regret it and hope for reversal. And I live in New York City so convenience cannot be understated.
My ideation used to prefer stabbing. I remember watching the end of Romeo and Juliet in the eighth grade and observing how cleanly Juliet went through herself with Romeo’s happy dagger. That age is when I first started having suicidal thoughts, and I would run my hands over the hilt of my mother’s kitchen knives. I was afraid of cutting myself when chopping vegetables, but when I was the proverbial onion, I was not so bothered. Stabbing is messy and requires quite a lot of strength, especially if self-inflicting. It isn’t quite so easy as an approaching D train or tube, in this case.
I find myself at Saint James Park because I have just left my parents’ hotel, named for another saint. St. Ermin’s Hotel was a secret spy base for M16 during World War II. I had stayed on the daybed in my parents’ room for almost every night that week. I sort of felt like a spy, going undercover with my family of happy tourists while keeping my state secret of personal misery. My dad, slightly amnesiac, kept asking me to list all my trips taken so far, and I smiled as I recounted museums and historical sights, hiding my feeling of inadequacy with how few I had been on, as I found it hard to find anyone to go on them with, two having been cancelled by friends already both for the reason I assumed of hating me. I talked lovingly of the National Theatre, which I spent many hours alone at, sitting on my computer and trying to write or do homework or really just avoid my insufferable roommate.
I had five roommates. Three were from China and were very nice and mostly kept to themselves. One I had chosen, a girl who’d become one of my best friends over the course of last year. I wanted to room with her because I wanted to grow closer to her and because she was outside my main friend group that I often felt periphery to. The last roommate was an acquaintance of hers who had begged her to room with us.
As someone who constantly feels completely unlovable, I try to be nice to everyone I meet. As someone who often felt friendless and bullied growing up, I try to understand that the person most people dislike often has a lot to offer. And of course, as a ~~Feminist~~, I never want to tear down another woman, recognizing the societal factors that make us compete with each other.
All that being said: this girl was a cunt.
She had a face like a puckered lemon and a personality like a palate cleanser. Have you ever met a person with so little self-awareness they sort of become a marvel? Had everyone they met just smiled and nodded their whole life or was the bubble they existed in so opaque they just missed any sort of negative reinforcement?
She was undoubtedly self-absorbed. She spun the strangest details into brags- she had eaten vegetables for dinner, her friend from home dated a millionaire, her mom was very generous to their housekeeper. She was extremely proud of not wanting to go out on a Saturday, of eating healthy food made at home, of spending a day doing homework. Her jokes were undetectable because of her monotone, and if you didn’t laugh, she would spin that into a brag too- she had this dry sense of humor not many people understood. She monologued in her bland vocal fry without interruption even as another person tried to add something, even if that addition was that you had heard this story from her before.
Boring would have been fine. I can get along with boring. But this girl had a mean streak that came out the moment you stopped listening and nodding with brag after brag. She would disengage the moment you shared something individual, even if your own point contrasted with nothing but the experience of her hearing the sound of her own voice. The only two people I have seen tolerate her after a long period of time were the sort of people pleasers who were so nice they were in complete denial about people’s flaws. My other roommate was one of these people, and she asked me to avoid any sort of conflict.
But she’d tear me up with upturned nose and WASP-y derision. She had a narrow worldview that would have made maximum sense in a Cathy comic. She fretted about her body, said she appreciated how her friends pointed out her weight gain, and talked to me with the assumption all women were similarly preoccupied. She told me a lewd joke a male acquaintance made about her boobs. I said if my friend said that to me we wouldn’t be friends anymore. She literally said “boys will be boys.” On one of our first nights in London, we were at a bar, and a few guys were surrounding her. I went over to ask if she was okay, as women do. The next morning she rebuked me as a buzzkill. At first I stood my ground, but she would prick and prick, and I crumbled.
I look back and pity her, knowing it takes a very sad person to feel safe in such a small box. But at the time, all I felt was pissed off.
A part of me that still liked myself knew she was someone I should be flattered to be an enemy of, but that’s not comforting while she’s eating next to me, when she is currently picking apart the food I eat and the flannels I wear. I would hear her saying my name from another room with the derision she gave everything and want to come out kicking, but then I would think about her untouched arrogance, how she would bring this up for weeks, how I’d eventually assuage. So I stayed in my room and hated myself more for my weakness. I became quiet around her, fortressing myself with loud headphones (although she still talked when I had those on, unable to leave a silence).
I thought I was a fairly docile depressed person, partial to staring out of windows and weepy nights in, but anger arrived that autumn. I snapped over the trivial. I made a mistake and wanted to punch a wall. I, an out-of-shape girl from the suburbs, fantasized about getting to physically fight someone, tired of all my tyrannies being stuck inside my head.
As a fun bonus, this girl also had a casual homophobia I had not encountered much in college and was sort of shocked by to see still out living in this expressively liberal woman. Fitting in with her general Cathy comic tendencies, her sensibility was about ten years out of date, claiming herself tolerant but saying she wanted a gay best friend to dress her and take her out, but that lesbians were “weird,” giggling like a child at the idea of a woman dating a woman. She laughed as she told a story that sounded to me as about a friend earnestly trying to come out to her, but she framed as a joke (To be fair, her jokes were terrible--so might not be able to give her flack for this one).
I had heard all this and mostly ignored it. I was just starting to express my own queerness and did not need to hear her say “weird” with that little-girl disapproval about something I was actually sensitive about (Ironically, she once bragged that she had an amazing gaydar. Guess I was a blip). But then as a fun anecdote, she shared that she and her friends used to make out at high school parties because boys asked them to, a story that most people would be embarrassed about or at least disgusted by the misogyny of, but she thought was really cool of her. I was surprised she said this and she asked snobbily hadn’t I ever done that?
I saw red. The anger said, “Self-pity, take a walk. I’ll get this one.” My words were calm but my face was red and eyes hot with tears. I said how nice it must have been to kiss a girl as a teen and not watch your friends suddenly ignore you, to not worry every hug and compliment would be seen as a come-on, to not hide your crushes because if you shared, you would end up completely alone. I stood and screamed and tried to break this bubble because I was big now and this wasn’t supposed to be a problem anymore. I didn’t want to be afraid again, especially not of people in my house, in my school. Because my current mental nightmare began with meeting a girl like her who when asked what I was worth, everything she did said nothing.
I went to my room and cried and my other roommate came in, upset with me for pushing the issue. She said now the other girl thought I hated her and I answered that I did.
I was rotting. If eating a cheesy meal or watching a stupid movie with a bottle of wine made me feel better for a microsecond, I did it. It’s not like I didn’t want to be better. I held my self-loathing and my self-worth on opposing scales but I really was trying for the second to win, even when standing on platforms and bridges.
But this girl made one side of the scale tip further and further, and I am looking at my photo album and watching the light drain from my eyes. I hid out in cafes and libraries as late as I could before the tube stopped running and I had to go home. Of course, I have an illness. I was depressed long before she was ever my flatmate. She didn’t know she was dealing with a suicidal person. But she did know I was trying to be her friend once. She did know someone had said her words hurt and thought that hurt was silly. She knew it was raining and still pissed on my leg and I don’t need to forgive her.
I can’t forgive smiling to my mom and telling her all her worrying was for naught, lying and saying I was doing just fine over here on my own. I can’t forgive sobbing the moment my family’s black cab was out of sight because I wanted more than anything to be with them so at least when I woke up from a depression nap, someone who wanted my victory was there. I stood on that platform feeling more alone than I ever had. This time the volition wasn’t about a declaration or a retribution. I just wanted to not be in pain, to not have to walk back into that flat.
I got on the train though. It would make my mom sad if I didn’t.
4. Hyde Park Corner Tube Stop
I have confided my friends how lonely I am and the invites start springing up. Maybe they wanted to make an effort all along and just needed a direction. Maybe it wasn’t about me.
We are on a dinner cruise and I take a picture with the people I’ve now known for two and a half years and I feel grateful to have shared life with them. We dance, and I am looking for the people I met when I had no one to talk to and am grateful for them too. My roommate talks to my friends and doesn’t acknowledge me. We roll our eyes as she walks away.
My friends are so sad to be leaving, and I disguise my immense relief in jokes. In the same way, I thought anywhere was better before I came to London, I am thinking the same thing as I leave it. I feel pricks of jealousy as they share stories and the in-jokes go over my head, but I am a bit hopeful again that I’ll be there for the next memory.
After the cruise, a few of us decide to go over to a winter carnival. My friends and I admire the lights and walk through the vendors, playing with their handmade toys. It’s a good night.
I walk to the train station. My friends offer to let me sleep on their couch so I don’t have to walk home alone but I want to be tough so I begin a long journey back.
I walk through the crowded station and think about how this will be one of my last times alone on a tube platform. The laces on my boots hit my leg with each step.
I had a good night. I could have been having good nights all along. I could have asked for help sooner. I wasted my parents’ money and worries. I wasted an opportunity I can never get back.
I had one good night but the hole is still there. It’s still going to be there at home. I might feel like this forever and that is the most terrifying thing I have ever thought. I just keep thinking I don’t wanna don’t wanna don’t wanna. I can see through the veil and the void on that side matches the void on mine. Hopping through the veil at least means I have say in where I am though.
It’s coming. It’s coming. It’s coming.
It’s just one more day.
I pick the void I’m in.
//////
The first time I told someone I wanted to kill myself was in a therapist’s office almost a year after I left for London. I didn’t realize I had never told anyone until I did. It’s literally something that is always on my mind. It was a secret I didn’t know I was keeping.
I still stood too close to the edges of platforms after I came back. But I also told people I was unhappy without joke or allusion. When I got angry, I hit a bag instead of myself. I made trying new things into my pattern. I worked all day and slept eight hours all at night.
But I still think like that. I know this comes and goes and I’m afraid for its return. We’ve run into each other enough in the last few months. Even when I was doing all the right things, it found me. My life is about to undergo a big change and I won’t be able to write off one bad semester and start over again.
I still haven’t told most of my friends what I almost did, but I told a couple. They had no suspicions at all. Suicides don’t tell people because they want no interference if they ever act. I give people the power to kill me but not the power to save me.
I’m a competent suicidal, who successfully hid behind jokes and Instagrams and good grades for years. I broke alone. I have lots of friends but still thought the the burden of my life would be a relieving absence to them. I gave them even less credit than I gave myself.
I wish I had been stronger. I wish I could get that time back. I wish I hadn’t spent all that money to cry in cafes. I want to know what those months would have been like if I didn’t second-guess love, but I never will. I can only have the scratched future.
Do not go to another country because you think it will cure your depression. No marble statue or Gothic cathedral is going to fix you. But if you are in another country and find yourself alone in train stations often enough to drop your veil, just get on the train. At least then you can go somewhere else.