It’s been hard for me to pull it together to write recently. I feel like I have marbles in my head. I keep talking in watery sentences that don’t make any sense. I’m in a perpetual state of exhaustion and I’m not sure if I should chalk it up to clinical depression or just a disruption in my quarter life crisis.
The week before I moved was hard. I wanted to spend as much time with the people that I loved in L.A. as I could, but in the back of my mind, I sort of wanted to just be a recluse in my apartment so I couldn’t get any more attached and I couldn’t make any more memories.
I sold a bunch of my stuff on Craigslist and met some interesting people. A guy named Chris with tattoo sleeves came to look at my dresser. He owned a Harley dealership. He was from Missouri. He opened the drawers to my dresser and said, “Wow. These are roomy. I could fit a body in here.” Hearing that from a Harley-dealing, tatted, bald-headed man who was in my apartment alone with me didn’t provide a lot of solace.
I met a massage therapist who bought my bed. She asked to be my friend on Facebook later. What a cool lady. She was the epitome of attractive L.A. The idealist, the warm-hearted, the person connected to the industry but not brainwashed by it. She told me that after she gives Colin Ferrell massages, he rubs her feet. She hugged me when she left.
A lady named Sharon bought my bookshelf. She was my favorite. She was about five feet tall and 200 pounds and she had two knee replacement surgeries. She was a professional caterer for celebrities. She told me that one of her celebrity clients bought her a new Mercedes. She auctioned it off and gave the money to St. Jude. She told me that her husband does stand up comedy and that I should keep doing it. I told her that I don’t feel funny these days.
I had an Indian guy buy my mirror and when I told him that I was moving back to Memphis, he said, “Oh yes, isn’t that where Elvis’ palace is?” Hahhahahaha. Elvis’ palace.
My last night in L.A., I spent with my best friend out there. It was hard to leave. I cried a lot.
I have a lingering feeling of defeat that I tried to counsel myself into anticipating, but let’s face it, you can’t counsel yourself. Hell, I don’t even think a counselor could counsel me right now. I didn’t really have a coping strategy for the depression, just a basic “brace yourself” plan for the transition.
The trip home was a disaster in a lot of ways. Things kept going wrong. I tried so hard to be prepared for my family to help me move, but I kept having these massive sobbing meltdowns, so I never quite finished packing. Currently, I keep opening cardboard boxes full of shampoo, panties, and light bulbs. My OCD had me packing everything, wrapped in bubble wrap and paper, and putting organized labels on the boxes. My family had a different strategy for packing. I appreciated the help, but I think the mounding disorganization made me feel even more lost, like I had (have) absolutely no control of my life, and things would just continue to spiral downward, and I’d get sucked down with it. Sucked down into unlabeled boxes full of mismatched items.
I know I did the right thing by moving home, but I sure do feel hopeless right now. I feel like my life got really generic all of a sudden and I have no goals. It’s a hard time for me. I know that a lot of people read my blog to be entertained, but I don’t have it in me to be entertaining right now. I just need to write a little bit here so I don’t feel like I’m keeping it all trapped inside of me. I don’t want to be one of those nuts that goes on a shooting spree or something because they never actually vent. I’m definitely not a candidate for insanity in that capacity, so don’t worry.
Some weird things have happened recently. Last week my boyfriend took me to a victory party for a local elected official. That was pretty wild. I was surrounded by baby boomers in boat shoes and golf shirts and my glass was never empty because everyone was so attentive. I grew up around extremist political activists, so I sort of despise the whole political scene in general. And here I am at the elected official’s house, toasting glasses with Memphis royalty. Oh, Rachel. Your life is so unpredictable.
My dad has been on my case about my hair looking too much like that of a stripper (I have always had a fondness for bunny blonde), so he offered to pay to have my hair done at a salon. I decided I might as well take advantage of the opportunity, and I called the best guy in Memphis, who used to cut my hair when I was little.
I showed up at his salon and it was obvious that he didn’t recognize me. We shot the bull a little while and then I told him who I was. I’m pretty sure we’re best friends now. He said, “I can’t believe that sweet little brown haired girl grew up to be a glamour kitten!”
My hair man talked to me about his story. He told me about his struggles and his life and where he came from. It made me feel connected for the first time since I had moved home (which had only been a few days, so don’t think I’m as dramatic as I sound). We talked about the pseudo Christian subculture that we grew up around and how incredibly weird it was/is. It felt good to talk to somebody who was real. Most people aren’t real. Most people don’t even know they’re fake. Most people aren’t very smart.
I told him about where I am in life and how I just feel like I’m floundering around, waiting for my death sentence. I keep thinking that coming back to Memphis is like a return to the elephant graveyard, like I’m here to accept my fate and die amongst the elephant bones. He put it so plainly.
“Honey, sounds like you have Vocational ADD.”
Maybe I’ll write a book called Vocational ADD.
I get so into certain things. I get so interested in ideas and plans and I go after them a thousand percent, then one day, I wake up bored as all get out and feel trapped and disgusted. Maybe that’s why I have some commitment issues. You can’t pull that crap when you get married.
Right about the time that I’m really feeling happy at my hair man’s place, the most OBNOXIOUS PERSON IN THE WORLD walks in.
I knew this girl because she grew up with my younger sister. She always has that Little Orphan Annie/Pollyanna look on her face. All dewy eyed and smiley, like Howdy Doody. She NEVER shut up. Not once. She ran her mouth nonstop. She is also the best friend of the girl that was “the other woman” of my ex, who he subsequently married. I always wind up seeing these people that I wish I’d just never see again. There are so many parts of my life I wish I could just forget about. I did for a while. In L.A. I didn’t think about all of this crap as much. Then I moved home to see that everyone is exactly the same and all of the b.s. I left behind is still alive and well and thriving and waiting for me to remember and confront. I don’t have the energy to confront it.
Anyway, old Howdy Doody Ratchet Mouth finally left, and I was able to enjoy the rest of my hair experience while listening to things like this:
“My daughter just turned 10, so I took her and some of her friends to Graceland for her birthday party.”
“The first fight my boyfriend and I ever had was over bar-b-que. I said Central was better, he said Corky’s was better. I didn’t talk to him for a week.”
The meaningless chit-chat at the salon made me remember things about Memphis that I do love, even though I currently feel like my life is over.
My boyfriend and I went down to his friend’s lake house on Saturday. Memphis is the only place on earth that you can spend the morning getting your hair done and the afternoon in a golf cart in the woods, rushing down steep hills and catching spider webs and bugs in your teeth. It felt good to get out of town for the day. I saw a bunch of wild turkeys and a deer and a bunch of bass jumping out of the water. I always sort of hated that stuff. All of those variations of brown always disgusted me. But on Saturday, it was peaceful, and I needed to remember the peace that comes with nature. Made me think of Dolly Parton.
“Sittin' on the front porch on a summer afternoon
In a straightback chair on two legs, leans against the wall
Watch the kids a' playin' with June bugs on a string
And chase the glowin' fireflies when evenin' shadows fall
In my Tennessee mountain home
Life is as peaceful as a baby's sigh
In my Tennessee mountain home
Crickets sing in the fields near by
Honeysuckle vine clings to the fence along the lane
Their fragrance makes the summer wind so sweet
And on a distant hilltop, an eagle spreads its wings
An' a songbird on a fence post sings a melody”
Saturday night we went to Oxford. If there’s one place on this earth that I loathe with all of my heart, it’s Oxford. I hate politics and Oxford and preps and Greeks and Ole Miss, and all of a sudden, God started dying laughing at me, and plopped me right into the middle of an Oxford, preppy, political, Ole Miss dynasty. So I had dinner in Oxford and actually had a good time. A guy walked by the plate glass window of the restaurant in a seersucker suit. I kid you not.
On Sunday, I’m pretty sure I attended a cult service at a local church. I am currently shopping around for a church. I feel like it might be the only thing that could perhaps provide me with a little bit of stability, since the rest of my life feels like a total disaster right now.
I sat in a stiff wooden pew amongst a 100% white crowd of Frozen Chosens. Everybody was wearing a suit or a dressed-up J.Crew sweater set. It was incredibly depressing. The pastor was draped with black robes. There was organ music and a star-warbling fat lady singing a bunch of warbly soprano words that were completely indistinguishable. I saw some girls that I knew from childhood who married their husbands when they were like 20 years old. They still have their natural hair color. Put a bullet in my head if I ever succumb to my natural hair color. They sat there in their pressed dresses and sweater sets stiffly and blankly, like slaves.
I wore metallic shoes.
Living in L.A. made me sort of forget about some things. I mean, I didn’t really forget them, but I lost touch with them so they weren’t in the front of my mind anymore. I forgot about the crippling effects of legalism and group-think and blind conformity, because I was out doing my own thing where nobody gave a crap if you went to church or where you went to church or who you were dating. Nobody cared, because everyone in L.A. is so driven by their own motives for success that they really don’t care about you unless they can use you for their own merit.
Here, in Memphis, there’s a lot of emphasis on where you go to church, who your parents are, what your last name is, where you get your hair done, what kind of clothes you wear on Sunday, which “legacy” you are, what area of town you live in, blaaaaaa bla blaaaaa. I mean, I guess that is everywhere- it’s in L.A., too, but there’s just so much emphasis on these pristine cultural norms that it sort of makes me want to jump in my car, move to another city, and escape again. I’ve done that twice though, and it doesn’t seem to work. I always wind up back in this town, like a dog returning to its vomit.
I was approached yesterday to do volunteer work for a Christian counseling center. I don’t know how I feel about that. I always swore up and down that if I ever had to work in any form of “ministry,” I’d off myself. But maybe that’s where I need to be. I think the whole ministry has a crying need for people who are real and who have struggles and who feel lost and can admit to their own humanity. “The ministry” doesn’t need any more cultural Christian zombies, walking around in their stupid sweater sets with their mousy hair and spouses they’ve been married to since high school.
Anyway, I digress.
I really want to write a book, but I have no direction. Can you write a book with no direction? I guess that Don Miller guy does it all the time. Maybe I can just type a little bit every day, documenting my caustic tirades, and throw it all together and see if some schmuck will publish it.
I think I am going to continue organizing my iTunes files. I have 30 boxes to unpack, but the thought of opening another unlabeled box really stresses me out, so I guess I’ll go back to my Rolling Stones files.
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