THE INVENTION OF LATER RUINED MY LIFE

“i can do that” is an incredibly psychedelic thing to say in america. it is entire worlds away from saying “i like to do that.” i have tripped out on the emptiness of my body for two full decades. i have always been an “i can do that” girl and never, ever an “i like to do that” girl.

“i can do that” starts in the home. it starts with getting up on saturday mornings to help dad chop wood. it starts with mowing the grass after school. in the home, if you are lucky, there is enough space to be an entire body. you develop a personality, a taste for certain foods, you know what you like. you dream. not everyone is so lucky and may god bless them with peace somewhere. if there is not enough space for you in the home, “i can do that” becomes the role you assume. i was too young to totally empty my personhood, already so the personality portion of my being was left blank. it was necessary to fulfill a role. when there’s no love and peace and space to be a whole and complete body, you tighten up. i was, and am, a regular daughter. i don’t ask for anything. i don’t call. i speak when spoken to. i don’t talk about the past. this role is so i don’t start chucking kitchen wares at my parents head. it also keeps me from crying.

“i can do that” is really, really good when you need a job and you need it bad. my job history is that of someone who has always needed one and is completely capable of doing anything asked. “i can do that” is the bootstraps mantra. relevant experience? my entire life, shordie. nothing i can’t do, haven’t done. it also totally messes with your sense of self, if you are trying to have one.

i can’t find my way into this subject any other way. time, body, civility, employment, freedom. these things are part of one deal to me. i will try to get you in here, but we have to start at this point:

when i was 19 years old, i was very tired. it is, likely, the most tired i have ever been in my life. i was dying in the desert. all the shit that could happen to a young woman, list it like groceries: assault, abuse, poverty, eating disorder, isolation, self harm, drugs.

my mom was this distant voice. we talked on the phone. i remember the blister of the moment so well. i was in my canvas mary jane doc martens, teal cotton shorts and a white off the shoulder blouse, no bra. i was in downtown prescott. she told me, “you do not have time to go to treatment. get your shit together.” when we hung up, i went shopping. sometimes my card declined while buying pastel lace underwear or voluspa tinned candles. sometimes it didn’t and i’d get a dress or two. my fridge had already been unplugged. i never bought groceries, anyway. i paid $600 a month for a 350sq ft studio, anything left over in my paycheck was whatever. cigarettes, art supplies.

(doctor’s were an option, because you could get a medication that allows everything to continue as normal or a list of tricks to calm your body down when it’s scared. i went once or twice but they felt just as dangerous as rawdogging. you just listen to acronyms: OCD BPD PTSD PMDD. SMD how about. i knew it was wrong. self identification is hitler’s legacy and i’m not fucking w it).

a 19 year old with no time. do you know of any 19 year olds with no time? i can only think of young men being shipped to vietnam, or something? (but, apparently, the average soldier in ww2 was 26). a 19 year old with a terminal illness, or someone living in a country under occupation. i was neither.

what does no time mean? time is the white man’s invention, this is a fact. man, has it done a number on the community. later is the reason for leftovers, promise rings, vows of celibacy, higher education, meal prep, tupperware, heaven, wine, marinades, background checks, morality, sunscreen. wine is fine, throw the rest of that shit out tho. later is killing my fucking family. nothing is ever fun because the fun is always coming later. some people are capable of vision boarding a goal and then committing to it. these people know later intimately just as much as the present. some months there’s wine, some month’s there’s water because a nice new car or a pair of shoes are on the way. and then there’s months where it’s all wine because it’s all good. god bless these people, for time has not run them ragged. some people are capable of committing to the suffering of now but their now is always tied up in later, which is always here but never coming because suffering gives way to fantasy and fantasy is much safer than actually feeling any real pleasure ever. fantasy is just images and images are needed to fatigue and cripple a people. believing that suffering, by its virtue, relieves you later, is a time-based psyop. it gets a lot of people down bad.

there are no shoulds in this life, i believe that. but my life would have been monumentally different if anyone entrusted with caring for me had just let me get some fucking help, decided a college degree wasn’t that important (i already nixed the high school diploma, let’s just collapse the whole thing, yea?) and decided being of sound body and mind was important. i have had so many jobs, been to school so many times, been certified in so many things, a textbook knowledge of everything i do and everywhere i go. it is a beautiful special thing about me. it is also a contributor to the visible wear and tear on my body. i have never in my whole life acted on what i feel, because, really, i never feel. i have gamified my life. acting out the part to be in different programs, to be in different jobs. i have been going “i can do that” since i got on this planet. this beautiful, beautiful planet. the only thing there is no time for is not-loving, abandonment. there is no time for that. i was born to be loved. the foolishness of being 13 and trying to skip my track meet because a boy asked me to hang out with him. who cares? later is never arriving to hurt you and later is not going to get you for not competing in a track meet. let your daughter be loved. let me be loved, even if it is brief and 13.

(i have a coworker who celebrated her 36th birthday yesterday. she is the assistant city manager of the city i work for. we’ve shot guns together. she looks younger than me. rah rah rah, genetics! whatever. i got the face of someone at least ten years older than i am. when my age was (accidentally) revealed at work, there was shock. i look and act much older. it has always been this way. i have never been my age—i’ve always been all the way over in later. later has always been a part of my body. you can see it on me, how long i have lived under the compress of “no time”).

you must know this is a revelation for me. i am, admittedly, shamefully (not because i am old but because i am young) 27 years old. i have still been living under the constraints of later. well, later, i won’t have this job because i’ll have figured it out! there’s no time to figure it out because i’m always working! stupid and foolish i have been. when i got this job, i spent a lot of time wondering how in the hell i got this job. what am i doing here? i wasn’t searching for my dream job, because there’s never been a dream. i have had no self. i only go places i know how to act within. assume the role. getting sick felt like a death, a transformational death. i was like, allergic to being employed. when i had covid two months ago, i still did half days in the office but this stupid little head cold knocked me on my knees, knocked out my knees and then was like “you stupid little shit” and, wrapped up in my infection’s arms, i was like “yea man. i been dumb as hell.”

i been dumb as hell.