In Which a New Apartment Leads to Musing on Splintered Selves
I love my new apartment, but I still don't sleep much. I had this feeling that moving, having space for my energy to expand and breathe, would somehow stop the raging insomnia that hit me in my middle twenties and won't let up.
That feeling was dead wrong.
It's the worst, wasted wakefulness. I'm too dull to be productive, yet too alert to rest. I end up doing things like obsessively checking craigslist for lofts, even though we have our loft already, because I like to look at pictures of other people's homes. Not because it's titillating, like spying, but because I like to get ideas for ours. And, you know... because it's titillating.
I Google. I Google map places I used to live, and I Google girls I had crushes on in high school. I find a phone number for a tall brunette I haven't seen in eleven years. I find the saucy blonde I relentlessly (and fruitlessly) pursued on Facebook.
I've made a lot of decisions in the last year. Important ones, not just what color to dye my hair or whether I should take the train in or work at home. Who to love, who to spend my time with, who to trust, who to give up on. Where to live.
In some ways I am mourning the loss of that suite in Bed-Stuy. My new apartment suits me much better; it's much bigger, more conveniently located, has more personality, better food delivery options. But I spent four years in that yellow and orange brownstone, and I wonder if when I decided to move out, the timeline diverged and there became two Beths. This Beth lives in a factory loft in Bushwick; that Beth stayed in the house in Bed-Stuy.
I like the idea, so it expands until there are Beths all over the place. One stayed in Pittsburgh and had a simpler life. One went to LA and drives aggressively on the 405. One stayed in Provincetown, where she waits tables and paints.
Half a dozen different women are in love with half a dozen different Beths. This Beth pretends to understand French when she's with her classically educated ballerina. That Beth rides the Cyclone at Coney Island with an older woman. Another Beth travels the country in a van, selling merch and re-stringing guitars for a girl who couldn't care less. Still another Beth never knew the love of the road; she is painfully thin and pretend zen, on the 20th floor of a building in Battery Park.
If you got them all together, there would be a stadium full of Beths. Every choice splinters off another one, like a Twilight-Zone version of the sorcerer's apprentice's battle with the broom. Some of them believed in the possibility of life and some didn't. Some of them stayed fat and some got thin. Some of them are artists and some of them are mothers. Some went glam, some went grunge, some went all the way and some stayed home. Put them in the same space and they chatter at each other with nervous abandon, because the one thing they have in common is they all hate silence.
Then the world gets still and dark, and there is only one of me. I live in a loft in Bushwick, where the windows do not open and I roast. I love a woman who writes beautiful music. She loves me enough that she finds my crazy schemes and gross sense of humor charming. We have cats and sometimes we argue. I'm twenty pounds heavier than I'd like to be, but I'm more stable than I've been in months, so I'm okay with the trade off. I don't drink anymore. I get frustrated at my own exhaustion. I make excuses so I don't have to make things. I imagine that every way but this one is easy.
But when the world gets still and dark, I can see where those other Beths' lives went. And when everything goes very quiet, they can see me. And they're envious.
Love,
Beth
That feeling was dead wrong.
It's the worst, wasted wakefulness. I'm too dull to be productive, yet too alert to rest. I end up doing things like obsessively checking craigslist for lofts, even though we have our loft already, because I like to look at pictures of other people's homes. Not because it's titillating, like spying, but because I like to get ideas for ours. And, you know... because it's titillating.
I Google. I Google map places I used to live, and I Google girls I had crushes on in high school. I find a phone number for a tall brunette I haven't seen in eleven years. I find the saucy blonde I relentlessly (and fruitlessly) pursued on Facebook.
I've made a lot of decisions in the last year. Important ones, not just what color to dye my hair or whether I should take the train in or work at home. Who to love, who to spend my time with, who to trust, who to give up on. Where to live.
In some ways I am mourning the loss of that suite in Bed-Stuy. My new apartment suits me much better; it's much bigger, more conveniently located, has more personality, better food delivery options. But I spent four years in that yellow and orange brownstone, and I wonder if when I decided to move out, the timeline diverged and there became two Beths. This Beth lives in a factory loft in Bushwick; that Beth stayed in the house in Bed-Stuy.
I like the idea, so it expands until there are Beths all over the place. One stayed in Pittsburgh and had a simpler life. One went to LA and drives aggressively on the 405. One stayed in Provincetown, where she waits tables and paints.
Half a dozen different women are in love with half a dozen different Beths. This Beth pretends to understand French when she's with her classically educated ballerina. That Beth rides the Cyclone at Coney Island with an older woman. Another Beth travels the country in a van, selling merch and re-stringing guitars for a girl who couldn't care less. Still another Beth never knew the love of the road; she is painfully thin and pretend zen, on the 20th floor of a building in Battery Park.
If you got them all together, there would be a stadium full of Beths. Every choice splinters off another one, like a Twilight-Zone version of the sorcerer's apprentice's battle with the broom. Some of them believed in the possibility of life and some didn't. Some of them stayed fat and some got thin. Some of them are artists and some of them are mothers. Some went glam, some went grunge, some went all the way and some stayed home. Put them in the same space and they chatter at each other with nervous abandon, because the one thing they have in common is they all hate silence.
Then the world gets still and dark, and there is only one of me. I live in a loft in Bushwick, where the windows do not open and I roast. I love a woman who writes beautiful music. She loves me enough that she finds my crazy schemes and gross sense of humor charming. We have cats and sometimes we argue. I'm twenty pounds heavier than I'd like to be, but I'm more stable than I've been in months, so I'm okay with the trade off. I don't drink anymore. I get frustrated at my own exhaustion. I make excuses so I don't have to make things. I imagine that every way but this one is easy.
But when the world gets still and dark, I can see where those other Beths' lives went. And when everything goes very quiet, they can see me. And they're envious.
Love,
Beth