He’s invisible, yet your parents insist he exists. He’s everywhere. In the kitchen, the backyard, the bedroom, at the grocery store, and even at grandma’s house. He is not like any other invisible creature your parents tell you about. He doesn’t bring you presents. He doesn’t give you chocolate. He’s not scary like the monsters that live under your bed, yet he frazzles anyone who talks about him.
He has shackled our lives from the day of conception, and I sometimes wonder if it would be best that death brings nothingness than a promise of foreverness up in a cloud by another creature I’ve never seen, but many insist of their existence too. There’s a limit on how long you can stay inside the womb. Cries emerge when your diaper is uncomfortably wet or your stomach grumbles. Your parents encourage speech and walking as soon as you figure out how to move on all fours, and so, the shackles begin to tighten as they push you towards each next step of life.
When my parents decided to move out in the middle of the woods of nowhere, he rarely seemed to be around. Snow covered the ground, the trees, and the new home. The sky was constantly white while we were awake. My sisters and I would get bundled up in our snow suits, gloves, hats, and boots and make our way into the wilderness to make angles, men and women, balls, and forts. Eventually, our cheeks and noses would turn rosy pink with the twinge of ice when touched, and our winter wear was no longer dry. We would go back inside and sit by the fire while watching PBS on a twenty-four-inch tube TV in the main living room. We had to go to sleep when the sky darkened.
Once the snow melted and the greenery surrounded us, the weather didn’t contradict whether we could be outside or not. The sun rose high above our heads, blinding and warm. Our road had become dirt. Beetles, blue salamanders, orange-belly snakes, and a variety of rodents wriggled across the road and up the surrounding trees that screened the heat from our bodies. I caught every single frog by the dock while balancing on a small log that could only hold my weight. He definitely wasn’t around in the summer.
August sucks. Back to school instead of enjoying the earth I walked. He loved to creep back into our lives when I had to go to school. Sunup, high noon, sundown. Although my world was beautiful as the leaves changed colors and the wind brushed my hair, I knew I wouldn’t be able to be outside as much as I wanted much longer. Imprisoned by cinder blocks with windows that show you what you’re missing is depressing.
When my school finally got a computer lab, they made us play the Oregan Trail and taught us how to use a floppy disc. Shortly after, a lot of people, including the school staff, were freaking out about him when we were supposed to switch from 1999 to 2000. They acted like the world was going to end because they didn’t put enough numbers in the computer database, or something stupid like that. Nothing happened. The world did not end. Can you guess what my emoji face was if emoji’s had existed back then?
As I got older and older, he engulfed my life and at the same time I could never get enough of him. He controls everything. I get up when he tells me to. I go to work when he tells me to. If I don’t pay attention to him when he tells me to go to work, I’ll be lucky if I can pay my bills. When I started college, my life revolved around him even more than before. If I don’t leave the house early enough, I could be late for class due to trying to find a parking spot. If I don’t drink enough caffeine, I might not get my homework done by his deadline. If I watch TV instead of using him to study, I might lose my GPA and can kiss my scholarships goodbye. I’d love to say that someday I’ll be free from his constraints, but he’s never been on my side, or anyone else’s for that matter.
Women will always feel him inside their body more than any man could, and he attacks women earlier than he does men. He bellows louder when she begins to reach her thirties. He begins to gnaw at her uterus and muck with her mind, yet she feels desperate for more of him. Watching everyone partner up, create more life, and succeed in everything she craves only makes the anxiety and depression proliferate. She may excuse all the faults and red flags suitors present to reach the same goal line her society has set before her and her comrades. She may accept defeat and focus on her career, obtain more cats, or increase her sweatsuit wardrobe. Whatever she decides, nothing can prepare her for what he does to her next.
At first, you become offended any and every time a man doesn’t realize he has said or done something based on your gender. Then, you either sleep, too, much, or you can never get enough sleep. It begins to feel like the world is against you. Nothing you do is right, and everything that goes wrong is a personal attack on you. Waking up in a pool of sweat is one of the most disgusting feelings. You walk into the kitchen for something, but can’t remember what, so you walk into the bedroom, then the living room, then the bathroom, but you still can’t remember. How many times have you forgotten to put body wash on the grocery list. Oh, wait, it’s already there. Covers on, covers off, covers on, covers off. You are losing your god damn mind. You joke about seeing Alzheimer’s disease in your future, so Google and Pinterest start sending you ads about perimenopause.
He laughs at his own practical joke on you because it’s just the beginning and most doctors are unacquainted with his infliction and how to help. After reading a couple books about the female brain and anatomy based around age, and other traumas women endure, you begin to feel less anxious and depressed. You finally realize there is a reason for all the chaos. You even feel less hate and despair towards the extra lump of ‘protection’ around your abdomen that has forced you to give up on wearing jeans. You try to overcome this new journey he has inconvenienced you with by taking a plethora of supplements and melatonin. You change your diet. You exercise more and try to think before you act. Sometimes it works, but I fear the emotions get the best of us most of the time. He laughs again when the supplements quit working because our bodies have gone further down the wormhole.
Forgive me for skipping to death for the next chapter of my life has yet to be written. I don’t foresee any reason for him to abandon me just yet. However, I feel I am racing him to accomplish everything on my bucket list, wishing he would slow down. Was there any point for existing? What happens when his grasp becomes too tight to pick up children? To walk up the stairs? Or hear a knock at the door? What happens when he asks if you are ready? Can you say no? Or are you relieved that you don’t have to race him anymore and choose to accept his leave?
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