What Finality Feels Like

“If you are not going to be quiet, I will have no choice but to ask you to leave the library,” I hear through the book shelves. I lean over from the table where I have been staring at a blank document, where with every blink the cursor reminds me of the minutes wasted. Wasted here, wasted there. Wasted on this essay and wasted in this life. It was the young librarian who had just spoken. She has big, dark blue glasses and a coordinated baby blue sweater. The square shaping of her shoulders and her sharp cheekbones come across as a modern attempt to emulate a bust made by Michelangelo. She is quite beautiful. I wonder to myself why the stereotype of librarians is always old white women. In fact, as I look around the library─an old, abandoned school haphazardly turned into a permanent place of housing and lending books─there seems to be no older librarians. Or older people for that matter.  

The librarian had just spoken to a pair of young girls. Or young women, I suppose. I have been trying to refer to teenage girls as young women lately. Something about abandoning the infantilization of teenagers, or maybe it was about destroying the patriarchy? Either way, the young women are giggling now. I remember what it was like to be in on the joke that was youthfulness. At 29, I feel old. At the point of turning 30 and entering a stage of life where I am expected to be established, to be successful. I always found the idea of a lifelong career suffocating, so I never “settled down.” That’s the adult lingo that justifies docility. Docile to what, I am not sure yet. I could be broad and say society. I could be socially conscious and say capitalism. I could be pessimistic and say their loved ones.

I do love my routine though. I impose rules on myself. Every day. Get up at 9:30. Eat one bowl of cereal. Read and drink one black coffee. Get dressed. Leave the house. Stop at a coffee shop and work on writing. If not, get coffee to go and work at the library or the park or at home. This morning while I was drinking my coffee, I got a phone call from my manager.  Stephanie is in her mid thirties and talks to me like my mom. She has two kids and maybe that’s why. Maybe she sees me as another one of her kids, even though I am, as I said, turning 30 soon. 

“So.” It was the first thing she said to me. Expectant. Exciting.

“So….” I said back. I don’t like to play these games. I never have. Why do we spend so much time alluding to what we mean when we could just announce it and be understood?

“I stayed up until 3 in the morning waiting for your manuscript. I did what you wanted. I didn’t bug you so you could be free to write without me looking over your shoulder. But, where is it?”

I fingered the chipped space on the rim of my coffee mug. I was in trouble. “I’m almost done.”

“You need to be done,” she responded. “We’ve already pushed back the deadline with the publishing house two times.”

“Okay.” I said coldly. I never meant to be cold, but when I absently engage in conversation it always comes out that way. 

“Okay. So send it to me by tonight.”

“Okay, I will.”

“Allison.”

“Yes.”

“It’s just a collection of your essays. Essays we already know are popular from the traction on your blog. Don’t overthink it, make the edits or additions you want, but don’t overthink it. This is low risk, relatively speaking in the world of literature. Just get it to me by tonight, okay?”

“Okay. I will not overthink it.”

She sighed, as if my commitment to not overthinking disappointed her. “You know being your manager does not mean that I am supposed to actually manage you right? I shouldn’t have to do this.”

“Yes, I know.” At this moment I thought about how I always seem to make people do things they don’t want to do. 

“All right. Send it by tonight. Bye.”

“Bye,” I said, knowing it went unheard as the phone moved away from her ear to press the hang up button. This book deal is the bane of my existence, I exhaled. Bane of my existence, bane of my existence continued to echo in my mind after that. Repeating so rapidly it felt like I was running. My heart beat rose and my breath quickened. Now my lungs were burning bane of my existence. I couldn’t breathe out. I could breathe in but I couldn’t breathe out. Why couldn’t I breathe out? Can someone die of having too much air in their body? I felt like I was going to die. I was going to die. I couldn’t breathe in then because I can’t breath out. There was no space in my body to breathe. Bane of my existence. Breath. Bane of my existence. Breath. 

Suddenly I was in the bathroom. Like a cut between scenes in movies. Even though I didn’t see the walking from the kitchen to the bathroom, logically I still knew it happened. And that was me in the mirror. With my bangs, my light brown hair with sun made highlights. I looked at myself curiously and exhaled. I always seemed to find my breath in bathrooms. Something of a safe haven. A small world:  the toilet, the shower, the sink. Everything I could ever need. The counter to lean against and the tiled floor to cool my skin.

“Bane of my existence,” I type now onto the blank document. This time there is no echo. It’s simply another phrase that writers and speakers weave in and out of the basket of their stories. Emphasizing the abyss, the tiresomeness of existing. If only I could think how I write. In my writing, I am personable, funny, and charming. “I fell in love with you as I read this” someone commented on an essay I wrote about some feminist beauty trend. That was one of the essays the publisher wanted me to put in the book. I reread it and actually fostered a hatred for myself. Why is feminism always interrelated with beauty? A feminist beauty trend in itself is unfeminist because our definition of beauty is patriarchal, is it not? If I am trying to be beautiful through a feminist lens and if I am trying to be beautiful through a patriarchal lens, does it really make a difference? I am still trying to get people to approve of my womanhood. Rereading all my essays was like this: an act of self hatred. But other people seem to like my writing. Which is why I would like to think how I write. To be how I write.

I highlight what I had just written and delete it. I delete the entire document. I have the manuscript  finished. Minimal edits made, minimal additions added. I honestly just forgot to send it yesterday. My procrastination of commitment turned into just neglect, and apathy. Somehow telling Stephanie it wasn't done seemed less frightening than telling her I didn’t care enough to make sure I turned it in.  I wished I loved my writing the way other authors do. The ones that can’t wait for the readings at bookstores where wealthy middle aged adults and pretentious college students can drink wine and socialize in a way that is reminiscent of middle school dances. The politics of literature can be tiring. Not that I consider myself any type of serious writer. I did it because I wanted to. And now I don’t want to, but somehow I have trapped myself in the world of writing.  

Another burst of giggles from the young women at the table. The one with blonde, long hair is leaning on the shoulder of the other one with dyed red hair. Before them lies stacks of books and some notebooks and binders which I assume to be homework. The blonde haired one picks her head up and leans close to whisper something in the red haired one’s ear. They share a knowing look. They share a loving look. I try to observe them passively, so that my gaze comes off as spacing out and not creepy or disproving. I don’t want to be the old woman who makes them feel like joy is a crime. I look at the books they have collected on the table. One stack holds “Othello,” “The Great Gatsby” and “The Importance of being Earnest.” The other one contains “Giovanni’s Room,” “The Poet X” and a book of Emily Dickinson poems. Suddenly, I am overwhelmed by the injustice of the silence in the room. Why can’t they laugh? I look pointedly at the young librarian as if conveying to her that requiring quietness is the worst war crime someone could possibly commit. 

I look back to the young women to show my solidarity to them. They're whispering to each other, having found a way to manipulate the rules. Looking at each other as if the other one is singing a lovely song that will never be sung again. The language of whispering has always been a beautiful one. The accent of youth has always been a romantic one. I’ve been in love before, but nothing as potent as when I was 20. It’s different when you’re an adult, when work, sex and family are the foundations of the relationship. The future is the driving force. Do we have a future? Can I see myself being married to this person? When you’re young, love is the foundation of love. You love someone because you do. You want to be with them now because why not?

I open Instagram and search for Carla Lewis. I click on her profile, she’s in a garden, smiling with a big sun hat on in her profile picture. She looks older. When was the last time I saw her? A wedding of someone from college? A mutual friend's dinner party? She doesn’t have many photos on her profile. I scroll down to the very first one and see a younger version of Carla. She looks more like the person I loved in it. She has makeup on, the kind of smudged black eyeliner that every college girl wears at some point in her life; she wears the tilted knowing look of a person who is just drunk enough to forget about life but sober enough to pose for a picture. I wonder if we had met already when this picture was taken. 

I met her when I was 20, she had just transferred to my college. I drank Carla up like honey. She was love. Everything about her was intoxicating. Her skin; her kiss; her smile; the way that she would look over her computer at me with eyes that saw straight to my soul. At 20, she was my first relationship. It’s one of the greatest tragedies of the world: that young people are not being allowed to fall into love. Family rules, academics and stunted social skills all restrict the development of young relationships. At the time, I felt inferior romantically. She had dated, been in relationships and had had casual hook ups.  I had not. But it didn’t matter. When we were together, everything felt like a first. 

There’s a memory, or maybe it’s a collage of memories that have synthesized into one image, that I think about often. It’s the kind of moment that one thinks of when asked “What is love?” But I can never qualify the moment, the feeling, the image into words. It’s something that only I will ever be able to feel. I revel in this ability to hoard it. 

She is sitting on the bed in my dorm room. The sun is slowly setting, the lighting making it look like a film photo. Her back is against the headboard and a book lies open in her lap, probably some textbook for her history class. I sit at the desk that is attached at the foot of the bed. She looks beautiful. My eyes envelop everything about her. I can tell she is bored, yet concentrated. She senses my stare and looks up smiling. We make eye contact and the world shrinks to the 12 by 19 cement dorm room. I wonder why I would ever want to leave this moment, why I would ever turn back to my computer. I would fail all my classes, drop out of school if it meant I could live in her eyes for just a second more. I get up and lie down next to her. She closes her book and eases down onto her back, facing me. My heart is racing but I barely notice it, like I’ve built up a tolerance to her effect on me. If life ever changes from this I want to die right now, I think to myself. She leans into me and I into her. Her kiss is a coming home. Her touch is the sun. We lie there and the sun sinks down in the sky. We talk about something but I can’t remember. She mindlessly brushes my hair out of my face and I absently kiss her shoulder as she is talking. We fall asleep, legs and limbs intertwined; resembling the arteries of a heart. 

I don’t know why that memory sticks with me. Maybe because it’s what I desire. To be seen, to be loved. Something about domesticity in partnership is attractive to me. But when the world expands bigger than the dorm room, bigger than the two people, partnership becomes a prison. The future is a fickle thing and it never seems to happen.

“The library will be closing in 30 minutes” I overhear on the loudspeaker. I check the time, 5:30. I quickly close the tab of Carla’s profile. I can feel the library come alive with the activities of saying goodnight. People packing up, books being reshelved, backpacks being thrown on shoulders. I look at the young women again to see them packing up. They walk past me.

“Do you want to come over for dinner, again?”

“Okay yeah, I just have to let my mom know.”

“Speaking of, my dad wants to invite your family over for dinner .”

“Oh god.”

“I guess she wants us all to bond or something because we’re dating.”

“Sorry in advance because my parents are so embarrassing.”

They leave the library. 

I turn back to my computer and open the finished manuscript. The title glares at me, advertising it’s finality. My name stares back at me, a distorted representation of myself like the trick mirrors at a county fair. I scroll through it quickly, not reading any of the words but instead marveling at the blur of the black font. Lines and lines of phrases and sentences that will be attached to my name forever. I get to the last page and keep scrolling, trying to make the transcript longer. Willing the document to miraculously keep going forever so that I will die leaning over my computer, having kept scrolling to my last breath and never turning in my manuscript. 5:45, I see displayed in the top corner of my computer in my peripheral vision. 

I quickly, recklessly attach the file to an email to Stephanie. I send it without a subject, with no greeting or goodbye. I send it and it’s done. Like a Shakespearean tragedy, the ending is not very satisfying. But then again, like a Shakespearean tragedy, the process was not very exhilarating either. For a moment, I sit there stunned. Sucking in the moment that should feel historical but only feels like another step in my routine. I close my computer and put it in my bag. Looking one more time at the librarian, I get up and walk out of the library. The sun warms my face in welcome as the door closes behind me. The wind whispers everything I have missed in the day. I think to myself, so this is what finality feels like.