fight or flight
I hopped into the vehicle to go with my best friend to Wal-Mart. "Thank you," I said to her, relieved. I was wearing sensible shoes for once.
I'd gotten up on the wrong side of the bed that morning. I'd recognized it almost immediately. "It's something to do with sensory processing," I said to her, alarmed. (Had I eaten? No, I admitted, and I was also probably dehydrated.)
It all started when I tried to prevent unicorn hair (I'm not explaining this) from getting caught in a zipper. Then I said out loud, "What am I doing? The hair is going to get caught in the zipper." Probably often! I apologized for being a control freak.
"You're just detail-oriented," my best friend's aunt said.
Maybe. "Helicopter parenting, not even a child, but the stuffed unicorn," I said, shaking my head.
"Well, it's good that you're aware," she said to me as I headed toward the coffeemaker.
"Yeah," I said, "I'm trying to pay attention to the lessons so I can speedrun them." I don't know if this works.
Was it the full house? I looked at my best friend, who was driving. Probably, I said. I'd been understimulated for at least a week; now I was overstimulated. Nervous system whiplash, maybe.
But then, I explained as we were driving, it was the hair chalk. "Chalk" is a misnomer; it gets everywhere.
I'd been trying to get the dye up off the marble countertop. Someone had said to me—all chill, nothing but chill—that it would come up with "the right cleaner." I pressed my lips together and was going to say nothing. But then I thought, who here takes an active interest in cleaning agents? Not someone who is confident that dye comes out of marble.
In the long silence, I made a choice. Well, you need an abrasive, I said snippily. Marble is porous.
The room became very quiet. After a long pause, he said "...OK."
"It was indignation," I said to my friend. "But also, cleaning marble is urgent. It's time-sensitive. You need a solvent to soak into the limestone and, even then, it's a crapshoot." I sighed. "So I left the room to chill out—by buying cleaning supplies."
She asked me what was really bothering me. I told her. It wasn't the unexpected houseguest; it was the fact that I was being obstructed from getting ready for [thing]. I'd like to cut my hair in the bathroom when no one is around. I'd like to put books on the shelf behind me. I need to do my nails. As the clock counted down, I was turning into a pressure cooker. She asked me if I were actually worried about [thing], or moreso about the eventual outcome of [thing].
"No," I sighed, "it's what I have to do."
I lamented the spotty Internet. I told her about the last email. We agreed I might have to do [thing] in a public library instead.
We walked into Wal-Mart. "Heyyy," I said, pointing out a unicorn Christmas shirt. Then I admired the Santa shirt next to it. "There's the Santa I need," I joked.
"CHILL OUT," the Santa shirt said. Santa was wearing shades. The shirt was tiny, intended for a small child.
My best friend was scanning the unicorn shirt using an app on her phone. I asked her what was up with that.
"The tariffs," she explained. "They aren't doing price tags anymore because the prices keep changing."
I thought about how, if this became standardized, corporations could easily make the same item cost different amounts for different people. Instead I just said "well that's dystopian."
"It's six dollars," my friend said, grabbing the unicorn shirt. "Thanks for noticing it! I never would've seen it!"
"Oh yeah," I said. "Bring me shopping, I'll notice stuff." We walked a few more feet into the store.
"That'll kill a cat," I said, pointing. Now I was half-joking; it was a massive display of poinsettias.
"I didn't know that!" my best friend said.
"Sure," I said, "it's why I haven't had one in years." A poinsettia, I meant. I decided to not elaborate about feline gastrointestinal distress. Earlier in the day I'd already warned about dropping water beads on the floor where the dog will inevitably eat them, a concern my friend had reflexively, fiercely discounted.
We walked into the sanitary napkins aisle. I picked up a pack of Always pads—a brand new design touting real cotton.
"Cotton doesn't matter," I said grimly. "It'll contain dioxin. What matters is that the cotton is unbleached." I put the pads back on the shelf.
"A million ways to die in Wal-Mart," I muttered, "and I'll tell you all of them." My best friend choke-laughed.
"I'm trying to accept that safety is an illusion," I continued. "God grant me the serenity." I fleetingly thought about my survival drive. Oh yeah, this was my sympathetic nervous system acting up. It's amazing how it changes your personality. Maybe the real problem is, the harder you care about specific stuff, the less everyone around you will care, in an act of retaliation.
We stood in the toy section for a long time; my best friend was having great difficulty not putting every toy from her child's wishlist directly into the cart. I laughed. "Wow!" I said. As a kid I'd had to argue for toys like my life depended on it: "It's why I'm obsessed with kids making PowerPoint presentations for their parents." Why do you want this? Is it a 'want' or a 'need'? Prove to me it's a necessity. It's how I'd gotten into reviewing products in the first place, initially as a hobbyist—my parents had insisted I exhaustively argue the value of every little thing.
We went to checkout. The kid working asked how our day had been. "Good!" my best friend told him.
He turned and looked at me. After a very long pause, he said to me "And you?"
I stared at him. "Today I'm overstimulated," I finally said.
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," he said.
"It's fine," I said absently. "Recently I've been understimulated. How are you?" He answered, but I was too startled by the contactless pay options at Wal-Mart to hear him.
I fell asleep for a few hours. I woke up with the uncomfortable thought that A.I. investors are eager to introduce us to a 'post-friend, post-family' world. Like they watched Home Alone, I thought to myself irritably, and didn't understand the moral of the ending—wishing their moms and dads and extended families had just stayed disappeared, maybe, so they can keep jumping on the bed eating an ice cream sundae.
The Jungian interpretation of Home Alone might mean you grow up still seeing yourself as Kevin McAllister, but you actually turn into Harry and Marv, the burglars who love toys and hate kids.
Sighing, I picked up my mug, full of cold coffee, and walked to the kitchen sink to wash it out. I thought about time ticking down, about my friend's question about inevitable outcomes. She is much more afraid than I am. I’ve promised her I’ll leave; I would never deliberately imperil anybody. I have a timeline, and I’m trying to hit all my milestones.
What is a 'best life'? I wondered as I rinsed the mug. How do you define it? Is it a life that is happy and content, or a life that is meaningful? Do the two definitions conflict? How do you negotiate the potential gulf of difference between the two?
I opened the fridge for some water. I stared into it. It's someone else's turn to refill the fridge, I thought to myself a little bitterly, closing it again. I opened social media and saw the news about Thiel and Nvidia. I closed social media.
At midnight, my horoscope updated:
"You are ready to embark on a quest. It will be a lonely lonely adventure."
Don't like that, I thought to myself. Yesterday's horoscope was just "Stay feral." I opened Amazon and bought a better wi-fi extender.
next-day update: I gasped in delight and began praising the kids, to their mom, for having picked up all the water beads off the patio outside. I was headed out to perform the task myself, only to discover the kids had already done it, despite thinking I'm insane. At this Mom protested, stating that the dog has never snuffled up a water bead. ("It really isn't something you have to worry about," she'd said earlier in the day. But I don't know if it's so easy to pick and choose what we're anxious about.)
"I have watched that dog swallow a hair tie," I said skeptically. Then I shook my head, regrouping: "I'm just really touched! 'Let mom's weird friend have her weird thing'. It means a lot to me," I concluded, radiating utter warmth. Mom smiled back.
And that's really what I think this is all about. No, you will not always share the same priorities as your beloveds. But if someone keeps saying to you, "Hey, this matters to me; you don't have to agree with it, I agree I'm neurotic," you can either prioritize your own comfort ahead of the other person's, or not. That is the choice each of us gets to make: whether or not we care enough to extend a little grace, to be slightly inconvenienced, even when an 'ask' doesn't make sense to us personally.
Some people will prioritize their own comfort again and again; some people's uncompromising insistence on their own perfect comfort is total and all-consuming. OTOH some people will choose others' comfort over their own every time, growing to resent the dynamic. Many people choose to do things their own way, without any help and without delegating, because they don't trust others to equally care about the details. But some people can surprise you, if you'd let them.
To be balanced is probably to exist in the murky middle—and that is where constant negotiations and peace treaties occur. It's impossible to prove that every request is 100% rational; in a safe and loving environment, maybe you won't have to plead your case, or prove your own sanity or reasonableness, every single time. Maybe you can trust your community enough to state your own preferences or needs openly. Maybe the fact that something is important to you will be enough.