So Sad Today

by Melissa Broder

  Eventually, the pain of waiting for texts from the drug-person outweighed the highs. I said my final goodbye. I blocked him on my phone.

  I then went through a period of grieving much deeper than I ever went through in quitting the drug-person before. I cried about deaths that happened fifteen years ago. I cried about having to grow up. (FYI: It’s probably never really about the person you think you’re obsessed with. It’s about old pain.)

  A few weeks ago, I found myself doing really well, better than all of the times I’ve quit him before. When I dreamt of him, the dreams were no longer full of lust and ache. Even in my dreams I knew that we weren’t right for each other. I dreamt that I flew over his apartment building in a helicopter. The building looked beautiful and he called to me to come in through the roof. But I didn’t go. It’s as if even my subconscious version of him was ruined. I felt glad it was ruined. I felt strong and free.

  Then, the drug-person got in touch again, twice. Perhaps he sensed that I had healed and he didn’t want to be forgotten. Perhaps he didn’t want me to feel like I’d been forgotten. No one wants to be forgotten.

  First he commented on one of my FB posts. In the past, whenever he used to do this it would get me high. But this time, when I saw the comment I was like fuck. I felt doom. Should I “like” it? If I didn’t “like” it I would appear cold-hearted. But if I “liked” it, I’d be breaking my rule of no contact and also potentially encouraging him to contact me again. I didn’t “like” it. I felt good.

  A few days later, he sent me a series of messages on FB. I didn’t know what to do, so I decided that I would just ignore the messages and let them sit there forever.

  This essay was supposed to be about not checking the messages. But I am a human being, so obviously that didn’t work out.

  I didn’t check the messages for two days. Then, I went down the rabbit hole of my compulsion into a gorgeous, grammatically hellacious cascade of his drunken messages.

  He said: its incribly hard not to harass you i love you still obsivously

  He said: i still visit your shit to sniff and i love the semlaall… in the romandic way of the beauy adnd the best…

  He said: god i already regret this communication… howefver i must say that i huhhhh… the longer the type the lobgner i realize my mistake… i love u so much… i love ur life… i am crying… you are th e best human.… im sorry im in marrakech… i am very drunk in morroccoan country…

  It was then I realized that he, too, is probably an addict of some sort. Anyone who can meet my level of intensity can’t be totally normal.

  He said: ugh… i have failed u my queen. oh i only mean to communicate that u are the best one and anything else i wish i would be vaporized for… no need to respond please… u are the only 1

  Then he said: Please ignore me, I just want to leave you alone. Really sorry :/

  This essay was supposed to be about how I ignored him. But I am a human being, so obviously that didn’t work out.

  I said: please do not throw words like this at me drunk, because i am a very sensitive human being with real feelings and am not an object (which is hypocritical because i guess i treated you like an object in some ways)

  I said: it is very easy to tell me you love me when it is over and you are thousands of miles away in a foreign country

  I said: could you love me at your front door?

  I said: i don’t think you could.

  I didn’t think he could. And even if he said he could it wouldn’t mean he could. It wouldn’t mean I could. But of course I wanted him to say he could, whether or not either of us could.

  He said: i don’t know what i could do which is probably a bad sign but i do miss you.

  I told him never to contact me again in any form.

  Then there was a moment’s pause as I thought about what I had done. Never again in any form. I wasn’t just flushing one baggie of the drug; I was extinguishing it from my existence.

  I said: lol sorry it had to end like this

  I said: say goodbye to me please lol

  I don’t know why I kept saying lol. I was crying.

  He said: I’m dead now forever you can block me

  He said: I thought I was better than drink idiocy but turns out I’m a piece of shit. oh fuck it shut up myself. bye

  It was the least satisfying ending ever. Now I want to contact him and be like, Just one more thing! I want to give it the perfect ending. But there will never be a perfect ending. The perfect ending is a romantic ending and thus is not an ending. The perfect ending will only feed the compulsion. So I am keeping the imperfect ending and pretending it is perfect.

  But now I am sick again. I have holes in my brain where I want to hide from life. The holes are filled with voices that tell me we were nirvana, over and over. The voices seem like truth to me, because I am an addict and I want being high to be the truth. I don’t know if I will ever fill the holes. But I am trying really hard not to enter them again.

  Hello 911, I Can’t Stop Time

  I CAN’T STOP TIME AND Los Angeles knows this. Los Angeles wants me frozen.

  My spirit doesn’t want me frozen. My spirit is the kind of spirit that doesn’t want me to hurt myself for physical beauty, but my spirit is not an interventionist spirit unless I get quiet enough to listen to it. To be honest, I don’t really want to listen to my spirt. My spirit got me into this mess of becoming human in the first place. I don’t want to be human. I don’t want to age or die. What I want is to be impervious to all of that. And if I can’t defeat time and death, then let me at least be impervious to what other people think of me. I want to be beyond reproach. Let me at least try.

  The dermatologist who will relieve me of what other people think looks like a fetus. Two months ago, when I first moved to LA, I checked in with this dermatologist, because I needed a chinzit point person. Chinzits have always been a struggle and it’s best to be prepared. After re-upping some antibiotics for my chinzits, the fetus pointed out all of the sun damage on my face, particularly three lines across my forehead. He said that he could “fix those right up” with Botox.

  Truth be told, the lines had bothered me for a few years but I’d never considered Botox. I didn’t know anyone (or didn’t think I knew anyone) who used Botox. When the fetus presented me with the Botox option I was like, No fucking way. I did think it was funny, however, that within one week of living in LA I was already recommended Botox.

  What has changed in the two months between his recommendation and now? What made me choose to inject botulinum toxin into my face today was two months of sitting with the lines, knowing that there was a solution if I wanted it. The solution made the lines more visible. It kept speaking to me. It said: Why suffer? It said: Fool them. It said: Fool yourself. I almost felt as though I were being “bad” or “foolish” or “wrong” for not doing all I could to stay young-looking. I don’t think this is just the American beauty industry talking. I think this is me and my fear of judgment, time, and death. Actually, maybe it is just the American beauty industry talking. Fine, then. It’s loud as fuck.

  The fetus takes all kinds of pictures of my face with his iPhone, asking me to smile and look grim and look sad. When we both discover that I can’t properly frown, he says, That’s probably a good thing. I don’t tell him that the reason why I can’t frown in front of another person is because I am overly concerned with what others think of me, and this hyperconcern has likely conditioned my face to only appear happy. It’s a Pavlovian smile. Fool them, fool yourself. Same reason I’m getting Botox.

  I tell the fetus not to make me look like Joan Rivers. I tell him to keep it natural. I ask him a thousand questions about the dangers of Botox and if there is any recovery time. My fear regarding my face dates back to the time I ate a box of grape candies at my grandmom’s house and she spent the night scrubbing my purple tongue with a washcloth. She said she was afraid that I would have to walk down the aisle at my wedding one day with a purple tongue. Like t
he purple was permanent and not ephemeral.

  The fetus says we’re only going to do “baby Botox,” just a few little squirts for the three lines. He says that there is no recovery time, but he recommends not lying down or putting my head down for three hours after the treatment. He says that in 1% of cases, someone will walk away with a “droopy eyebrow” that sags into their eyes. I know I will be the 1%. But I go ahead with it anyway.

  The treatment itself takes only five minutes and is just a few needle pricks in my forehead. It’s no big deal, and, looking at my face, you can’t tell that I’ve had anything done. But upon standing up to exit and pay, I get a wave of anxiety so intense that I feel like I’m going to faint into his candy dish. A voice in my head says, You’re fucked. It’s not the voice of my god. It’s my voice.

  I hear the “you’re fucked” voice a lot, with or without Botox. In fact, it’s the “you’re fucked” voice that compels me to get Botox. Only now I think I’ve fucked myself because of the Botox.

  Once outside the fetus’s office I immediately google “Botox death” on my phone. I text the one person I know who has admitted to having Botox and she texts me back CHILL OUT. I text my friend who grew up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, but she has never had it. I feel like I have entered a new world. I am now one of “those people,” the Botoxed, and can never again cross back over the threshold of the non-Botoxed. I ride my bike down the beach path and am convinced that people are staring at me. The sun sets over the Pacific and I have Botox. I stop into a store and begin “testing” my forehead in the mirror, scrunching my face and raising my eyebrows. I look insane, but my forehead appears normal. It still moves. The Botox takes three days to two weeks to really work anyway, so I won’t know if I’m going to become a statue for a while. I google some more and discover that Jennifer Aniston doesn’t do Botox. I am worse than Jennifer Aniston. I am worse than a lot of people.

  Over the course of the next few days I feel like I have been poisoned, just a little. I have flu-like symptoms. My forehead feels like there is a plate on it. I kind of didn’t realize that the word toxin actually means “toxin.” Like, I kind of didn’t think about that. I keep googling “Botox death” looking for new results. I also google “Botox flu,” “Botox soulless,” “plastic surgery disaster,” “what’s wrong with me,” “why,” and “how to love yourself.”

  As has been said, I am not a human being trying to be spiritual. I am a spiritual being having a human experience. I get it. I know that it’s in there. I know that I probably contain innate coping mechanisms to deal with, and even celebrate, the ways that nature transforms my body as I age. I should probably be in some goddess circle, not the dermatologist’s office. I should be processing, with a bunch of long-pubed witches, my transition from maidenhood to whatever it is that comes before crone. MILF? Pre-MILF? But I don’t trust my spirit to take care of me once I leave the goddess circle. I don’t trust that when I encounter another circle, a circle of superficial maidens, I won’t compare myself to them and hurt.

  The first time I remember my spirit trying to tell me it would take care of me was the first time I tried psychedelics. I ate shrooms, but instead of eating them with honey, I ate them with these diet kind of Doritos made with a chemical called Olestra that makes you shit out everything. Right before I took the shrooms, I bleached my brown hair bright blond and burned my scalp. I also went to the tanning salon a hundred times. Beauty and truth are fucking confusing.

  I took the shrooms in a shitty park in Massachusetts, which looked to me like Elysium. When I started tripping I was like, Why can’t people just be kind to one another? But what I really think I meant was, Why can’t I be kind to myself?

  I knew that I was seeing truth, though later I could not tell you exactly what that truth was. What was the truth? I think the truth was my own innocence. I saw the trees of the park and that their roots were actually inverse branches and that they did not hate me. They wanted me to be deep. I swore to never hurt myself again. My spirit smiled.

  But how I hurt myself so many times after that. And if that first shroom trip was a replication of the kind of psychic shift that occurs when we are dying—a few moments when we can see ourselves from the perspective of our spirit—then on my deathbed I am going to regret the ways I have hurt myself. I will regret the frivolity of chasing beauty and seeking validation, the kinds of things I have done to provide an illusion of safety on this planet, behaviors that perhaps wasted my one and only life.

  If I wanted to make room for life I would probably let go of these behaviors right now. There is still time. But life is scary. Maybe I just don’t want to make room for life.

  One week after Botox the physical results are pretty good. The flu, headaches, and platelike feeling are gone. No droopy eyebrow. The three lines on my forehead have basically disappeared and I can still move all parts of my face. I feel like I’m tricking the world. When I see women who have forehead lines, I wonder if they “just don’t know” about Botox. Then I think that maybe they do know and are actively choosing not to poison themselves. Why aren’t they poisoning themselves? What’s the difference between them and me—that I am game for the poison and they are not going for the poison?

  The Botox will only last for three months, and I think I will probably poison myself again in the future. In fact, I know I will. Once I incorporate an element into my beauty routine, the element stays forever. I begin to rely on it to feel okay, the way my spirit wants me to rely on itself to feel okay. But it’s a lot easier to rely on a tangible fix than it is to rely on a nebulous spirit, a quiet voice, deep inside yourself. I am wired to reach for shiny things. Physically, the Botox has shaved off a few years. I’m definitely fooling something. Spiritually, however, the Botox has had no positive effects. I still feel fucked a lot. I’m not whole. I’m human.

  Google Hangout with My Higher Self

  Me: yo

  Me: r u there?

  Me: i feel empty and worthless :(

  Higher self: i kno

  Higher self: u only come 2 me when u feel shitty

  Higher self: u don’t rly love me

  Higher self: jk

  Me: i feel like i’m not ok

  Me: i feel like i’m not good

  Higher self: gurl u r good

  Higher self: u contain -------> infinite goodness

  Me: idk

  Me: i feel like plants, babies, trees, the ocean, animals, and the moon don’t like me

  Me: like they r talking shit or something

  Me: like they can see through me and kno that i am fundamentally fucked

  Higher self: ok u need 2 chill the fuck out. u need 2 sit still. u r already in the light and u don’t even see it. u need 2 start sexting the light bb. send nudes 2 the light

  Me: but i feel like my darkness makes me cool

  Me: what if i fall in love w the light and then other ppl judge me? what if i get left alone w the light?

  Higher self: being left alone w the light is the shit tho

  Me: what if i get addicted to the light?

  Higher self: guuuuuurl

  Higher self: u have already gotten addicted 2 so much shit

  Higher self: how much shit have u already gotten addicted 2 on earth?

  Me: omg so much shit

  Higher self: shld we go thru the list?

  Me: lol no

  Higher self: so maybe getting addicted 2 the light will be good addiction

  Higher self: i think u will love the light! i think u have been looking for it everywhere

  Me: ok. and then what happens?

  Higher self: rehab!!!

  Higher self: jk

  Higher self: i think u cld find some freedom in it

  Me: i hate freedom

  Me: i’m scared of it

  Me: i’m scared that i will disappear

  Me: like, how will i know who i am if i am not measuring myself against something outside me or whatev? it will all feel so bottomless and infinite. i
’m ttly scared of the infinite.

  Higher self: yeah the infinite is a freakshow

  Higher self: u r a bad bitch who is scared of the infinite

  Me: i’m a bad bitch who is scared of being alive

  Me: i’m also a bad bitch who is scared of dying

  Me: i feel like yoga teachers are always like “focus on the breath” but when you’re dying you don’t even have your breath so if you spent your whole life focusing on your breath you’re kind of fucked

  Me: i think what i’m most scared of is suffocating

  Me: one time when i was young i was chewing a big piece of watermelon gum and the gum formed a lot of spit in my mouth and i accidentally inhaled the spit and couldn’t breathe and was def choking because i couldn’t cough or speak and was PETRIFIED but somehow i managed to get my air back, but like then i went to go see the movie Home Alone and the whole time at the movie theater i kept “testing” to see if i could breathe

  Higher self: i kno, i wuz there

  Me: why didn’t u help me?

  Higher self: cld u breathe?

  Me: yeah

  Me: but in the dark movie theater i wondered if i was in hell

  Me: and every day since then i feel like i have just been testing to see if i can still breathe

  Higher self: but u r still breathing, bitch

  Me: yeah, but one day, the breathing really is going to stop and that is what I am scared of

  Me: like, i think i am most scared of the panic i will feel when i can’t breathe

  Me: those moments right b4 death

  Higher self: cool, i think u shld spend the rest of yr life worrying abt it

  Me: :(

  Higher self: actually i’m serious

  Higher self: i think u don’t think abt death enuff

  Higher self: i think u think abt death but u don’t fully *know* that u r going 2 die

  Higher self: because there is no way that someone who knows they r going to die wld obsess abt the bullshit that u do