Her Success Story

 I was never sure what to do with the twinge of self-hate I used to get when I heard about her plans. I have never been able to unwrap myself from the feeling that I was the limp twin, the stupider twin, the one that could have been eaten, unnecessarily born. (But we hadn’t even shared a womb.)

When the feeling became especially bothersome I would try to be bad. When I was a teenager I just smoked out my window, or I skipped class, or took an attempt at self-harm.

I was never good at any of it though. I could never truly commit. I always got caught smoking and I never cut that deep. I was an amateur, never crazy obsessed with anything, always giving up before reaching proficiency, and even after college, I wonder, what did I even try to learn? 

At my adult age I don’t know how to be bad without destroying my life for good. I have these junkie-like traits without the drug to really take me out. It’s like living in a frozen state, like when you were younger and the hairdresser would always put the cape on you too tight and you never could muster up the courage to say, “Mam you’re choking me out.” You would just smile and sit uncomfortably still watching your precious hair float to the ground. Mustering up the courage to sit there, teeth clenched, gritting through life. 

In attempted maturity, after her newest success story, I shut my computer and remember a high school mantra, “move a muscle, change a thought.” In bitterness, I rise to my feet, you are learning how to stop yourself before saying something friendship-ruining. 

I looked around the apartment, taking in the things that were now very me. I listed them in my head, “ the bookshelves we had mounted, the red kettle, the burn-to-the- touch exposed pipes, the very very long hallway.” People had come and gone, but I had stayed much longer than I had intended to, and it seemed the oddities of the apartment became the oddities of me as well. 

When I was more of a slut I was in many rooms and would always judge my own against them. 

I wondered why I always thought my designs were always so much worse, when I’d literally seen rooms with no walls, no ceilings, and barely a door. I had walked pigstys, laid out a tablecloth and called it “our home.” 

I leave in two days up North to visit Dad for the holidays. The house is a mess, and I can’t put one foot in front of the other before wanting to collapse, everyone’s is having successes  

Why Am I So Goddamn Irresponsible? What Gives Me The Right To Want Goodness?

I quickly come up with a list to get my mind off itself. Clean the house, Neighbors mail, and Brush hair, and come up with some explanation on what I do most days, who I’m dating, and what my opinions are.

I’ll draft some opinions today, and clean the house tomorrow.