Tipping Point

Prompt: You know what? I quit

Title: Tipping Point

I looked at each section of the room as if I had just opened my eyes for the first time. The stack of old books piled without color-coding, directionality, or bookend support. The bookshelves were crammed with curiosities that found a place to display themselves at the altar, but were made to scoot over instead. A picnic basket, a lemon-shaped watering can with matching salt and pepper shakers, a yellow Dollar-Tree sign that said Sweet Summertime with a yellow lemon traced in pink glitter, and myriad other tchotchkes that struggled to hold a color-palette meant to please the eye that didn’t know where to look. There was last night's paper plate with dried up veggies I had forced myself to eat, an aquamarine rolling cart that was meant to organize art supplies yet somehow mingled paint and canvas with glue, duct tape, staplers and one yellow ice tray that made it to the top of the attempt to organize the chaos.

I turned my head to find the nostalgia that was meant to comfort me, and then opened the china cabinet filled with more than place settings. There was a 1940’s camera next to my mother’s coffee-cup set she bought from me when I sold Carico door-to-door for less than a month. There were the pretentious black martini glasses from the 80’s yuppie onslaught that I feigned to be a part of in the 90’s. Wine glasses would have been more appropriate, less pretentious than a pour of gin and vermouth, less dry, until I discovered cabernet a decade later. I topped off my newest vintage before it neared the bottom of my red Solo cup.

I felt all of it rise up and close in around me, demanding my attention. Attention was something more precious than time or money at this point. I had let all ideas lead me anywhere and everywhere but here. Even as I sat down to journal the sudden wave of emotions, I looked up at the blue highlighted computer message telling me I had used 70% storage. Manage storage. I ignored it. I had more ideas coming from all directions. My fingers, out of shape, tried to keep up. I dusted off more keys as the sooty film rose and circled my nostrils. I noticed the specs of light from the window, and imagined them as waves of possibilities dancing around for my perusal, waiting to collapse on the page, but I got caught up in the dance. My last glance before committing myself again to the page was of a clear blue bucket filled with every type of cleaning product, including Castile soap-oil from Spain, the aroma that reminded me of my Lita’s orange grove in Torrelavega where I used to play “La Goma” with my cousins every other summer.

From the pain of scrambled nostalgia, I redirected my gaze to my newest impulse-buy of five pure-white starfish nestled in a loose-knit ecru net tied at the top with a rope that matched the white book titled Color of White, so cool. I had bought it in an attempt to capture previous moments on the beach which I hadn’t been able to afford since I had cut up my credit-cards last month to open my eyes to yet another mess. I glanced back at the bucket of cleaning products taunting me. I stopped writing, considered them for a few seconds longer, then went back to the page filling up like a bathtub about to spill a wave of bubbles onto the dirty tile floor. I ignored it. Tell me, I asked the page. Do me a favor and tell me why? It answers.

Not just fear. Terror. Terror that none of this is real. You need to make it real. Who are you without it, a 63 year-old scared little girl looking for a corner to hide in? Feel it. Feel it all now within the avalanche of items, clusters, stackings, bin-packing products, corner-filling emotions pushed into every crevice that offered the next last space. The tears cascaded over jagged-edges of tied-up emotions that looked for an escape. Instead it found more places to hide. I followed them. I refused to let them hide from me. I pursued them, more fell from their tower. I stayed with them until they encircled me, overpowered me, released me in waves of contractions that seemed to take over my body. I no longer had a choice. They were in control. I surrendered. I took a deep breath. Held it. Held it…released it. There it was, the tiny empty space in the sunlight, now expanding, allowing me to breathe in real oxygen just before the stale particles reminded me of where I was. I opened my eyes. I saw it all, every fear disguised in every purchase, once such a find. Now, just a reminder of all I could hide behind. Even the pounds, piled onto my 5’3’’ frame, revealed themselves at the end of the hallway in my barely visible mirror. I looked at myself, naked and afraid, but didn’t look away. It was all there. The story. A long trail of past and future without a present.

I stayed there for a few more moments and took it all in, and wondered, what in the world I would do now? Who was I even? Enough of this! I would never have enough of any of this if I continued to look back or forward for answers. Now, in this tiny moment, I had it all. In this space, uncluttered briefly in my full presence. I had arrived. Here. Will I go back? Will I fall back and hide in distraction?

Suddenly, I realized that I had confessed it all on the page, revealed to the light for everyone to see instead of the safety of a dark confessional with a priest ordained to absolve without question or judgment. The page could see me. I was instantly aware that I felt naked, alone, cold and scared. I knew I would have to go back and read it all again, let it sink in, but I felt my stomach churn and pour out all the fears in words without their usual place to hide. I could delete them all. I could pretend it never happened and go sit in the new corner and close my eyes, pretend none of this had happened. I frantically hit the “delete” button to backtrack, when I heard a strange noise. I jumped up to see if a rat had scampered across the pile of clothes on the bedroom floor to go back to its lair through the tiny hole in the plaster behind the mirror. Instead, I saw a flashing green light and the sound of a tiny conveyor-belt churning out paper from the mouth of my printer. I pulled it out, expecting it to be blank, probably just an energy surge. I saw it all as if a dream-like teleprompter were mimicking back my own words after they had witnessed me spill over. I couldn’t ignore it. I had pressed the wrong key, or maybe the right one? Because, now I looked at each section of the page as if I had opened my eyes for the first time.

I went back to my computer and hit send.