Gotta Fight Harder Than That

They say insanity is trying the same thing over and over, expecting different results. I laugh at this- how many of us are actually insane then? Trying the same hair products and expecting your hair to look better this time; dating the same type of person, and expecting a fairytale; leaving the house at the same time every day and wondering why you are always late; refusing to write anything down, but then wondering why you forgot…

We all do it.

Some of us also show up to the bar on the frequent all dressed up, doing our best to smudge the sharp lines of pain and regret that have been seemingly etched onto our sleeves for the whole world to see, like we’re saying, “Hey, I’m suffering. I am indeed suffering more than you, can’t you tell?”. We are blind to the fact that the people around us are floating around in this madness, too.

Jessie was in fact, blind. Metaphorically. She showed up at the local pub on a Saturday, with a sense of excitement and a certain deadness behind her hazel, raccoon-lined eyes- you could tell, she did not belong there. She sure tried though…her dark, dull hair done up with fly a way’s she had attempted to tame; deep, wine red lipstick smudged around the edges and stained her top right canine.

Jessie had not yet found the brands of makeup that prevented the eventual wear of the evening. But let’s be honest- these evenings wore on more than just her appearance- they bore into her being; they burrowed deeper, like a fishing hook that dug into her flesh the more she struggled.

It was eight o'clock on a Sunday morning. Jessie rolled out of bed, hair disheveled, with the smell of last night clinging to her stale outfit. Yummy, stale Prime Times, Jager, and pizza. Ripped jeans, check. Eyeliner smeared halfway down her acne-speckled cheek, check. Mac and cheese with a strange combination of lunch meats spilled halfway down the side of her black sheets, check.

Sunglasses. Where were her sunglasses…

She frantically fumbled around her tangled, twisted sheets (no doubt, she had some crazy dreams last night. Must have fought those zombies off. Monsters of some kind at least…). She relaxed momentarily as the bent frame slid between her fingers.

“Hah! I win,” Jessie muttered compulsively to herself. She often did this alone, and in public, and way too loud. It was great for a stare or a little chuckle from her friends, but she honestly could not help it. She was theatrical. With a scene from Spongebob playing over in her mind, Jessie said to herself, “Water, I NEED it!!”. Thankfully, her grandma was at church by this time and she was spared a confused look.

With grace and poise, she checked the side of the doorway with her shoulder, which went almost unnoticed. It however didn’t stop a “Fuck!” from slipping through her lips. To be honest, she loved that word.

She didn’t dare look in the mirror- not yet. Jessie could handle the guilt of her bad decisions, but not when she had to look herself in the eye. Not before coffee, at least.

She surveyed the simple but pleasant living room (to her resentment, flooded with the light of day) for any sight of the shoes she had worn. What shoes was she wearing? Boots. She wore the cool boots.

Jessie found the first one under the piano bench, then the next one by the front door. Must have tried to write some music last night? Ah, yes, there were garbage scribbles all over some computer paper. That sounds about right.

Jessie had been tamping down the dread of where her car had magically disappeared to the night before. It just ended up in the strangest places and she honestly got some sick kick out of her escapades. However, now, as she was staring at an empty driveway, the fears resurfaced and were blinding her in the face like the headlights she often forgot to use.

No, wait, that was just the sun. The ball of fire that rises to the sky during the daytime, that’s right. Honestly, how did people do anything during the day?

Intolerant to the cherry summer day, Jessie hastily shielded her bloodshot, Christmas eyes with her scratched Aviators. Sure, the glasses weren’t entirely comfortable (they had survived a few encounters with her ass and the car seat), but they saved her from an intensifying headache; that’s all anyone could ever ask for. And sure, there were always other ways to avoid feeling like you’re dying of thirst in the morning- don’t binge drink, right? That felt…unreasonable.

Jessie was, how you say…a precocious consumer of alcohol. She did not discriminate.

Mentally, she unfolded a haphazard blueprint of the trouble she may have caused the night before. Because yes, when she drank, it was as if Jessie’s mind formulated an algorithm to cause turmoil, of which it had about a 98% success rate. What can I say, she always prided herself on being fast and efficient.

Like a teenager amidst hormonal chaos, Jessie scowled at the jogger pumping hard across the dirt road. She knew she was green from the hangover but now, from envy, too. There was a time when that would have been her and she felt a ping of guilt gnawing in her gut- or was it all that beer? A quick hurl on the neighbor's lawn and a wipe of the lips would do it. A horrified old woman had to pick her jaw off the ground. The neighbor's granddaughter had just upchucked on her lawn, afterall.

This was not the true Jessie Lynn.

This was an empty shell of a soul.

If there was one thing Jessie hated about where she lived, it was that fucking dirt road. Just pave it, dude. The neighborhood was literally one-tenth of a mile outside of town. It was literally why Jessie never chose to never clean her car. She also usually spent her money but the time the thought even occurred to her, but I digress.

She had an inkling she had parked around the corner, just around the bend at the end of the street. A quick check of her crackled, dying phone and her conscience bitched slapped her as if to say, “Should have had a v8!”

“Hey…you freaked the fuck out on me…I was driving and you thought I was attacking you. I parked down the street from your house, I’m sorry…I hope your okay.”

I told you, she was theatrical.

Curious; Jessie cocked her head like a confused dog. She shuddered at the incorrect usage of “you’re” and nodded her head, laughing nervously. Okay, at least she knew where she was going, right?

Okay, regroup. Prioritize.

The next checkpoint was to make sure the coast was clear. Had she caused a scene? Did someone call the cops? Would they be looking for the erratic woman who just abandoned her vehicle? Questions filled Jessie’s mind like helium in a balloon.

Her head pulsed and sweat surged down her temples; seriously was not a fan of the sun.

To her relief, Jessie didn’t have to wander far until she discovered her green, granny Oldsmobile parked at an awkward angle near a dumpster- the only difference between her green car and the green Waste Management dumpster was that her car had an engine- a real class act.

“Oh shit,” she muttered as she grabbed the unlocked driver-side door. Jessie chortled as she observed her key etchings around the lock from her attempts to shove the key into the lock in her altered states.

“A true artist,” she mused to herself.

Her keys were laying in the seat…

She said a quick thank you to God no one had towed or stolen granny car and felt the heaviness lift slightly. Almost ironically enough, she scrambled furiously to check that her edibles were stored safely in the glove compartment. You really don’t understand, she needed them, okay?

You would think the next steps would be for Jessie to retreat home, take a bath, eat a loaf of bread, and tend to her wounds, right? I would have thought the same, but as she pulled her car into drive, Jessie found herself just driving. “Landslide” engulfed her mind in soothing music, and she struggled to plug her phone in, turn to Youtube and search for this perfect song- all of this done while still in motion. Talent and grace, I know.

Jessie gasped as she looked up again, realizing her tire drifted to the shoulder of the road. Nothing a quick swerve wouldn’t fix. The pavement halted abruptly as she was thrust onto a dirt road. She squealed sharply onto the next county road and headed west for a couple of miles and then a few miles north.

The flat plains stretched thinly across the horizon as the song of meadowlarks drifted in one ear and out the other. For a moment, Jessie found some peace. She had no idea how she did, but when she did, she swore it saved her life.

During these drives of hers, she would undo her hair, letting it whip her in the face. This was especially pleasurable on colder mornings because they reminded her of playing sports on Saturday mornings as a child. Jessie also believed that blatant, blinding cold was a way to remind herself she was alive; she had that to be grateful for, she just didn’t know why yet.

Why?

 Why did she do this?

Why did she look to others to complete herself?

 She knew that was her job, so why couldn’t she “get it right”?

“I’m sorry mom,” Jessie wept as she passed Quiet Meadows cemetery; you would have thought her face was weighed down by extraordinary gravity during this time of her life- all that energy, robbing her face of the genuine, crooked, charismatic smile.

When she finally pulled back into the driveway, Jessie felt somewhat lighter, still. The weight slammed back down on her chest as she realized she had people to answer to; people she loved dearly but had no idea how to begin to communicate effectively with, let alone explain her insane behavior.

Head down, she stealthily slipped into her dark dungeon of disarray.

There was the mirror- taunting her. Still, she wasn’t ready to face herself.

 “Go wash your face,” a voice urged her. “Go take care of yourself. Don’t just sit there, do something; do anything! Gotta fight harder than that,” The voice shook her out of a trance. She jumped up suddenly, as if she had overslept on the first day of an important job, and snuck into the bathroom.

Jessie cranked the cold faucet all the way to the right and splashed herself awake. The cold water was so deeply refreshing and she wondered if she would be able to stop. The water seemed to wash away the fear that contaminated her soul.

Jessie remembered when she was eight- she had been baptized right there in that house.

“Oh, God…why don’t I do this more often? I deserve to feel this more often,” she thought to herself. And little did she know, as she let this thought take root, that she would begin her fight to enjoy her life.

Invigorated, Jessie lifted her head and without a doubt, saw that familiar spark of the little girl in the pink raincoat who dared to play soccer in the mud barefoot with the boys.

She saw that brave little girl fearlessly playing Fur Elise at a piano recital, the troubled teen who cut two miles off her cross country time in two weeks. She saw the young woman who bore all to her mother on her deathbed.

Jessie saw a survivor. Reminded of her mom, Jessie saw a fighter.

 “Maybe I’m going to be okay. I’m gonna be okay,” she cleared her throat and looked herself directly in the eye. “You are a good person, Jessie Lynn. I believe in you,” she annunciated clearly. She didn’t have to force a smile this time, she fell right into it.

With a trace amount of remaining fear, Jessie tried to walk calmly into the kitchen. She poured herself a glass of water, and like she had been lost in the desert for days, she gorged herself. This time, she drank to soothe herself. This time, she drank to nurture herself. A trickle made its way through the hole in her lip as it usually did, and she found delight in the fact that water did not stain her shirt.

Jessie’s grandma Petunia gingerly tiptoed behind her, so as not to disturb the sleeping beast. “Good morning,” Jessie attempted a friendly greeting. This was out of the ordinary and sweet, little Petunia perked up some with reserved hope.

“Hi, honey,” Petunia replied.

Days, weeks, then months passed, and Jessie stayed home. She could see the growing relief and belief that grew in her grandfather's eyes the more days that passed.

She googled therapists because she knew she needed help, and Google was indeed the “Wizard of Oz” of the modern world. Jessie dissected the innermost workings of the gears that ground against one another and learned how to untangle her mental knots. Help was exactly what she needed and asking for it was proof of her inevitable fortissimo.

She sat down at the piano for the first time in months and the music streamed out of her; the pain was the most efficient conductor for her art. She was electric. There were moments even- where she found peace.

 Jessie began to appreciate her experiences- even the seemingly tragic ones- because it provided such a magnificent, stark contrast like a well-edited photo of the cottonwoods that were tinted with frost during the Colorado winter.

Life was indeed about enjoying the little things.

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It was eight o’clock on a Sunday morning.

Jessie had been up for an hour or so and this had become more regular of a routine.

She reached into the bread bag and pulled out two pieces of white bread- she liked the way it crumbled when you toasted it just right. When it popped up, she grabbed the butter and strawberry jam, mixing a heap of the ingredients together with a spoon in a bowl; her special little concoction.

She couldn’t remember the last time she stopped to enjoy something so simple as mixing butter and jam.

How often are we aware that we are actively choosing to enjoy life?

In fact, she had been enjoying spending time with her family, with other beings. Jessie found herself dancing in the kitchen for no reason at all, belting out “Crazy” by Patsy Cline because it reminded her of the angel that birthed her, and truly beaming at whoever she saw; she wasn’t entirely heartbroken anymore, she felt blessed to have known and to have learned from her mother.

Nights spent alone were so good for her. Space was exactly what she needed. She was healing, she was blossoming, and the light was growing behind her clear, hazel eyes.

More regularly, she pulled the laundry off the couch despite a small voice that said, “But I don’t wanna!”. Even folding and hanging clothes had become rewarding. A pair of old running shorts were next in line to put away, and Jessie had an idea.

“Gotta fight harder than that,” the familiar voice returned, coaxing her.

“Oh fuck. Here we go. I knew I would do this,” she slipped on the shorts, found a sports bra and an old t-shirt, then slipped on her holey tennis shoes that were no longer white, but a minty green from lawn mowing. With a gulp of water and a puff of the inhaler, Jessie’s feet met that dirt road she had once despised so strongly.

The ball that was once perched at the top of a hill was set into motion, and with that, her potential energy became kinetic.

A slow but steady rhythm began to form as the balls of her feet cushioned each impact, her feet gripping uncomfortably in her worn-out shoes, but she didn’t care; Jessie felt powerful. She felt... in control, which was something she had not felt in a very long time. Choking down a small, proud sob, Jessie was grinning ear to ear, as a child would after winning a prize at the fair.

She wound her way through the park nearby, around the baseball field, down Main Street both ways and she felt so alive; and grateful to be alive, at that. The home stretch pulled nearer and nearer, and Jessie coached herself like she had in high school during the last stretch of cross-country races.

“Come on girl, this is what it’s about. This right here, this is what you’re made of. Show me what you got. Gotta fight harder than that!”

She mustered up what she had left in her, scraping the bottom of the jar, and burst down that dirt road toward home, pumping like the jogger she once resented; she paid no mind to the stabbing pain in her side. Jessie poured her heart into that home stretch.

Refusing to stop until both feet hit the driveway, she sprawled out on the lawn falling to her back. Jessie’s diaphragm worked overtime, as her body simultaneously scolded and thanked her. Energy pulsated through her, and a tear slid down the side of her temple, mixing with the sweat she had worked up. She was drenched in sweat- and peace. Peace. She figured out how to find peace.

She realized something.

“I’m gonna be okay,”.

Observing this from the living room window, Jessie’s grandparents saw their once lost granddaughter breathing heavily, smiling to herself on their front lawn. They looked at each other and grandpa Roger said, “I knew she was gonna be okay,".