You Exist Too Much

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You Exist Too Much Page 15

by Zaina Arafat


  13

  I EVENTUALLY STOPPED GOING TO THE TWELVE STEP meetings. They had gotten redundant—same people, same obsessions, same neglectful spouses and reckless children—and had reached the point of diminishing returns. Instead I found a coffee shop that I liked near the clubhouse, and after the van would turn the corner and everyone had gone inside, I would linger behind. One day Greg lingered, too. He spotted me heading off in the opposite direction and called out, “Hey, lady, where ya goin’?”

  I looked around to make sure no one was within earshot before telling him. “Can I play hooky with you?” he asked.

  I was surprised to not cringe at the thought of Greg accompanying me to the coffee shop, or anywhere really. Throughout four weeks in a place where near-strangers were encouraged to describe their life experiences in excruciating detail, I frequently needed breathing room. These offshoot outings had become almost sacred, a time to connect with thoughts that risked being drowned out by the voices of others. But that day, I didn’t mind surrendering my solitary hour. As I got closer to the end of my twenty-eight days, the prospect of being alone seemed somewhat terrifying. And though a few weeks earlier Greg would’ve been the last person I would have wanted to spend extra time with, I’d actually started to crave his company. I was beginning to think he got me better than anyone, and that the understanding went both ways. There was something about his perpetual inability to escape his self-destructiveness that made him both vulnerable and tender. I almost felt love for him, or at the very least, kinship.

  We sat down in a window seat near the front. Greg pulled his laptop out of his bag. “What!” I said. “How come they let you keep that?”

  “They didn’t,” he said, “I just chose not to hand it over when they asked if I’d brought a computer. It’s pretty easy to get around most rules, you know, and half the time you don’t even have to lie!”

  We sat across from each other, Greg staring at his computer screen and me at a blank page in my journal, struggling to conjure up any thoughts or feelings that needed expressing. The more time I spent in treatment, the less I needed to process in that space. My thoughts felt much less fragmented. In truth, I was nervous about leaving. I’d come to enjoy knowing what I’d be doing every day, and having no choice in the matter. In fact, not having to choose was one of the best parts about being at the Ledge; the only decisions I made involved which salad dressing I was in the mood for, or what T-shirt to wear. Being limited was surprisingly nice. I took comfort in unambiguous priorities, in having no choice in the matter; certainty by default.

  “You want to use my laptop?” Greg asked. “Check your email or something?”

  “No,” I said without hesitation. “No, thanks.”

  I’d checked my voice mail a few days earlier, from the client phone. I had a message from my mother, which I was too scared to listen to. I’d spoken to Karim when I first arrived, who informed me that she knew I was off somewhere doing some “American-style self-help” thing, but as for where, why, and for what exactly, she had no idea. I hadn’t checked my email yet, and I was happy to ignore what was waiting in my inbox.

  “You sure?” Greg asked. “It’ll probably be your last chance until you leave.”

  “I’m sure. How about you—any exciting emails?”

  “Jill wants me to meet her in Miami. After I’m done here.”

  “Your intern?” He nodded.

  I took a big sip of iced tea, so big that my throat ached. “Are you going to?”

  He looked down at his computer, avoiding eye contact. “I don’t know.”

  “But what about your wife? And your daughter?”

  He made a joke about how it might be awkward to bring them along. I didn’t laugh. “They’ll still be around after Miami,” he said, reaching for my hand and squeezing it. “Don’t worry, darling!”

  I pulled my hand away. I immediately felt like punching him. What was all of this for, then, all the time we spent talking about his family, listening to him cry about how much he loved them, how much he regretted everything he’d put them through? How much he wanted to change for them. “Look, I’m not strong like you,” he told me. “I just can’t help myself. You said it yourself: I’m a fucking pussy.”

  “Yup.” I shut my journal and looked him in the eye. “I guess you really are.”

  •

  My fourth Friday in treatment was my last day with Charlotte. I wasn’t flying home until Sunday but she didn’t work weekends. I watched the clock hands move forward, wishing they would just stop, but soon it was four thirty. In half an hour I would never see her again, a prospect that saddened me deeply despite the confirmed asymmetry of my feelings. We’d been working with just Richard ever since the midafternoon break, and I was scared that she had left without saying goodbye. I couldn’t stand to sit in group anymore, so I asked Richard, “Is Charlotte still here?”

  He tilted his head in the direction of their office. “She’s doing some paperwork.”

  “Can I go back there?” I asked. I knew he could see the panic on my face, maybe he even recognized it. Maybe he looked forward to spending time with her each day and understood my fear of never seeing her again. How was everyone not in love with her?

  He nodded. “Go for it.”

  I jumped up, ran out of the room, and burst into her office. She was sitting at her desk, wearing faded jeans and a heather-gray T-shirt, her hair tied back in a long, thick braid. She turned to face me. “Oh, hey!” she said casually, ignoring my dramatic entrance.

  “Can I talk to you?”

  “Sure,” she said. She pulled a chair out from the empty desk behind her. As I sat down, I stole a glance at the postcards taped beside her bookshelves. There was one of a cat doing yoga, another of her standing beside a horse, a kid on each side. “What’s up?” she asked.

  “Sunday’s my last day,” I told her, hurt that she didn’t already know. “And I’m just, sad, because—” I covered my face with my hands. I couldn’t stand for her to see me cry again. “I like having you in my life.”

  She touched the top of my head, which made me shiver. “Hold on,” she said, “do you think that after you leave, I’ll no longer be in your life?”

  I sniffled. “Isn’t that how it works?”

  “Well, maybe at other treatment centers,” she said, “but I like to keep in touch with my clients.”

  And just like that, my stash of hope was replenished. I didn’t have to lose her. I started to breathe normally again. “Do you use Facebook?” she asked, and I nodded. She then took out a pad of Post-its. “Here’s how to find me,” she said, writing out her full name, the letters bubbly and distinct. She peeled off the note and handed it to me. “I’m leaving the ball in your court.”

  •

  On my last Sunday in group, I read aloud my goodbye letter to love addiction. “What will I find to replace you?” I asked rhetorically. “Hopefully the real thing. And if I don’t let you go, there won’t be any room for that.” Molly and Alex both asked for a copy of my letter, and I couldn’t help but feel flattered. I gave the farewell speech that I’d been eager to deliver ever since I’d decided to incorporate the Proust quote from the poster in the basement. “It’s true,” I preached to the group from the front of the room, “the real voyage of discovery is about having new eyes. And I leave here today with a brand-new pair.”

  They flocked to my outstretched arms in the form of hugs and applause. “You set the bar for recovery,” Richard told me. “Call anytime, we’re always here for you.” He patted me on the back as I leaned into the crook of his elbow.

  As the shuttle bus carried me away from the Ledge and toward the Nashville airport, emails started popping up on my liberated cell phone. It took forty-five minutes for them all to appear. I checked my voice mail; I had three new messages, all from my mother. I hesitated before pressing play. My heart flapped like a bucketed fish as I listened to each of them. In her last voice mail her pleading turned angry. “You owe me a phone
call,” she rasped. “You owe me.” She pronounced owe as “awe.” You awe me.

  “I owe you nothing,” I said out loud, then tucked the phone away in the front pocket of my backpack. The driver looked up at me in the rearview mirror. My throat tickled from the quiver in my voice.

  At the airport my flight was delayed, meaning I would miss my connection through Detroit. I was still in the mind-set of the Recently Converted, and I told myself it was just my Higher Power at work. I breezed over to the check-in counter. “Anything you guys can do?”

  Somehow they managed to get me on a direct flight to New York. “Just give us a minute to get your bags off the delayed flight and onto this one!”

  I landed at JFK and took the A train back to my apartment. I’d asked the subletter to leave the keys with the bartender at the restaurant below my building, and I stopped in to grab them before heading upstairs. I climbed the five flights two steps at a time and arrived at my doorstep. I gathered up the takeout menus and flyers that had been left there. I opened the door, flipped on the lights, and immediately felt the sting of Anna’s absence. It was everywhere: in the missing fridge magnets, the half-full closets, the photo book she’d made of us, still sitting on the coffee table. Over my twenty-eight days, I’d managed to stop thinking about her, along with most everything else on the outside. But now I wondered what she’d been doing, where she was living. Was she already seeing someone? Just the thought made me ache.

  As the sting subsided, anxiety came rushing in. I had two weeks to sell my furniture and pack up all my stuff before the lease ran out. I took stock of everything I needed to sell—a bed, a couch, coffee table, bookshelf, desk and chair—then plopped down on the couch and realized I was hungry. I decided to order takeout and reached for the stack of menus, fumbling through them before choosing an Indian restaurant. I looked at my phone; I’d have to wait another fifteen minutes before it opened. At exactly five o’clock I called and placed an order. I then unzipped my suitcase and attempted to unpack until the food arrived. After scarfing down chicken tikka masala, I passed out.

  When I woke up the next morning, the room felt excruciatingly still. I felt no urgency to get up, no need to rush to catch the coffee before it was taken away. I could hear the sound of the neighbor’s TV, the hum of my refrigerator, the din of collective conversation from passersby outside the bedroom window, the occasional word detectable. The living room walls blared with blankness, something I hadn’t noticed before. Had Anna taken artwork with her? Had there been any up to begin with? She did leave the ticking cat clock, which felt intentional.

  I eventually dragged myself to the kitchen and brewed a pot of coffee. I tried to re-create the same structure I’d had at the Ledge, but it felt different, doing so alone. I was no longer used to solitude. After breakfast I puttered around the apartment, brewed a second pot of coffee, alphabetized the books on the shelf, then rearranged them by genre, and then again by height. As I wandered aimlessly from room to room, I kept thinking about my mother. I was surprised, hurt, and relieved that she hadn’t tried to get in touch, and I debated calling her myself. Had she thought of me at all? Did she worry about where I was or what I’d been doing since the last time I’d last seen her? I picked up my phone and scrolled to her number in my contacts—she was no longer in my recent call history. Her info was saved under “Laila Abu Sa’ab” rather than “Mom,” which I hadn’t noticed until then. I stared at her name for several minutes before deciding against calling. Instead, I scrubbed the inside of the oven and the kitchen counters, then sorted the desktop files on my computer. At noon, when I knew everyone back at the Ledge was milling around after morning group and waiting for the cafeteria doors to open for lunch, I called the reception. Nancy answered on the third ring. “Well, hey you!” she said, chipper as ever. “Didn’t expect to hear from you so soon!”

  “I think I need to come back,” I told her. “Can you ask Richard to call me please, as soon as possible?”

  She promised to pass along the message, but by five thirty Richard still hadn’t called. To distract myself I went to Walgreens and bought cards for everyone who was still at the Ledge. I spent all evening writing out personalized messages to each person, following upon specific issues they’d raised in group. I wanted them to know I’d been listening, that I actually cared. I mailed off the cards the next morning. Over the next week I received just one response, from Nina, who told me her twenty-eight days were almost up. She asked if I’d made it to the Midwest yet, and if I could send my new address. I packed her letter in one of my boxes and never wrote her back. I eventually received a few more letters, a yellow forwarding label with my new address affixed to the bottom of the envelopes. But by the time they arrived I no longer needed them.

  •

  I waited until I got to the Midwest, exactly two weeks after leaving the Ledge, before adding Charlotte as a Facebook friend. The night before, I’d paid my new neighbor twenty bucks for her Wi-Fi password. So far, the internet was all that existed in my apartment besides my laptop, two suitcases, and a sleeping bag.

  Charlotte accepted the request five minutes later, and with her acceptance came a wall post: “Peace and love to you!” I clicked on her page and could see that she’d written the same thing to about twelve other former clients, including Molly.

  The corners of my eyes burned in shame and disappointment. What had I expected? And more important, why was I still hopeful?

  I sat on the floor of my apartment feeling more alone than ever. I was completely single for the first time in years, with no relationship or obsession to cling to. I missed my mother more than ever. At the Ledge, detaching from her had kept her ironically close, especially when I summoned her into the group room. Now that I was out, on my own, I found myself experiencing excruciating withdrawal, which I guess spoke to our codependency. At least once a day I stared at her name on my phone and debated calling. I wanted to talk to her desperately that night, but still I resisted, perhaps out of some instinct whispering in my ear, telling me it wasn’t yet safe. Around midnight, I unrolled my sleeping bag and lay down on top of it. I felt a surge of despair well up inside me as I closed my eyes and willed sleep to come. In truth I was exhausted. I didn’t know if I had the energy to start over again. To break in new streets, to familiarize myself with the supermarket aisles, to make friends. Maybe I wouldn’t this time. Maybe I would remain a stranger.

  The next morning, I woke up bathed in sunlight as rays poured in through the large uncurtained windows. The despair had faded, and in its place was a feeling of excitement. Possibility. I opened my laptop and glanced at Charlotte’s profile picture one more time. I then took a deep breath. “Remember,” I said aloud, and it echoed through the empty chamber of yet another new home. “You have to make room for the real thing.”

  WHENEVER WE WOULD VISIT AMMAN, MY MOTHER would take Karim and me to Nablus for at least ten days. I dreaded these trips to our Palestinian hometown; a trip within the trip that required yet another day of packing into a smaller suitcase, with a new set of considerations and increasingly conservative clothing as I got older. If there wasn’t a lot to do in Amman, there was even less going on in Nablus. My days there were longer and less varied. Some afternoons, we would visit the old souk that courses through the center of town, women scooping up handfuls of cardamom and letting the spice sift through their fingers. I’d stand against a stone wall while a man carved up knafeh that steamed atop a large gold saucer of a tray, strands of cheese hanging down from the spatula as he plated slices and passed them around.

  Other days, I never left my great-grandparents’ high-ceilinged house, which was a relic of Ottoman decadence, with Rococo paintings and wall-to-wall Oriental rugs, the couches fluffed up and decorated with tiny pillows. The glass-topped coffee table held framed pictures of my great-grandfather with Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat, King Hussein. I would explore the house’s numerous underutilized spaces, and once spent a full day trying to open a heavy wooden door t
hat turned out to be the front door. It hadn’t been used since 1948, the year they stopped hosting parties, the year of the Nakba, when nearly a million Palestinians were exiled from their land. My great-grandparents had been heavily involved in the Arab Revolt in the late 1930s against British colonial rule and the Haganah. They assembled their own bands of men, ones with less-advanced weaponry but equal ferocity. When paramilitary troops came to remove my great-grandparents and their twelve children from their home, they refused to leave. “My father cried so much when the soldiers came,” Teta would tell me again and again, “but he wouldn’t leave his house.” Instead, the soldiers moved in and lived alongside the entire family, including my grandmother and her siblings. “They slept in the garden,” Teta would say.

  Teta had been attending Schmidt’s Girls College in Jerusalem, and had just returned home to her parents’ house after being expelled for hiding in the nuns’ private quarters. She claimed that she wanted to see what the nuns looked like underneath their habits.

  “How did the soldiers treat you?” I would ask her.

  “Some of them were okay. They’d give us candy. They’d even let us touch their guns.”

  During our visit to Nablus at the height of the intifada, the Israeli military imposed a twenty-four-hour curfew. We had no choice but to remain indoors. Still, I would sometimes sneak outside and wander beyond the gates of my great-grandparents’ house to play in the neighbors’ yard. One of my early memories in Nablus is of gunshots. I was six years old, sitting on the neighbor’s swing set, when I heard the rapid-fire popping sounds. I jumped off the swing and began to run. Though I was only next door, in the moment I didn’t know how to find my way back home. Seemingly out of nowhere a woman dressed in white appeared. I ran directly into her outstretched arms, crashing into her bosom. She held me tight. A dry breeze blew, a chicken clucked by. The woman held me, and pressed my head tightly against the whiteness of her gown.

 

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