I Am Somewhere Else

I’ve always had a fairly healthy imagination, I think, but at the height of the pandemic and the stay-at-home orders, I began going somewhere else in my mind. And the habit has not let up with the viral stats. It seems to have settled in, taken root. I don’t even have to close my eyes to leave, barely have to flick a switch in my brain. I feel it pulling when I so badly want to stay present, to listen to every detail about Harry’s pet dragon-tyrannosaurus-unicorn on the way to preschool dropoff in the morning. But I can feel myself slipping. I have created a dangerous and seductive exit. I know that it is selfish, that the people I love deserve my full engagement, especially in the little, in-between moments when slipping away feels so natural, so good. But then I defend it: is it simply survival? I have convinced myself that escaping has saved me from losing my mind, maybe for good, more than once. When the ugliness of the world opens up and we are able to peer into it, the deep rotting chasm, are we expected to take it all in and walk away unshaken, untouched by that sinister side of our collective truth? I think, with eyes wide open, we have to cope in order to survive. The answer may be as simple as that. But I still feel guilty.

The mornings are the most difficult. The haze of sleep still hangs around my eyes and ears and I was dreaming only hours ago, maybe minutes ago. Alone in the dark dreaming. In the early mornings, with my two small sons at full decibel whirling around my feet, it feels like my real life is the thing doing the interrupting. Coffee helps at first. But then, when I sit down to really drink it and it gets silent for a moment - because Harry is getting dressed and Charlie has teetered after him - images of things that have never happened begin to form in my mind and I usually, still weak and tired, let myself go there. The boys don’t notice (I think). I answer all of their questions (I think) and almost always engage in the constant, morphing conversation of my toddlers. But I know it makes a difference, that being present is one of the things that makes all the difference.

There are, however, some surprisingly positive consequences to checking out. Contrary to my self-analyzing worry, those imaginary places and things do not dull the sheen of real life. Instead, it seems that my voyage into escapism has added to the feeling that life is so beautiful, so full, that I might pass out. That my chest might burst open, finally, in an act of great relief. Also, if creativity is escapism, then I’d think escapism would be considered a healthy thing. But I know that not all forms of coping are healthy. Is this one? Is it too slippery a slope? Or do I look at the beauty it has brought to my life and embrace it? I want it to be the latter. I feel more like myself when I’m able to deep dive into my imagination. I find solace there. I can rest in my mind, sometimes, and it feels like a gentle gift. Of course, things begin to blur when you spend time in your own imagination - not so much events but feelings. Feeling that you have experienced things you haven’t, the lingering breath of it. What was there and what is here? And if so much of what we see (or think we see) is determined by our own unique brain activity, what's the real difference anyway?

I started working on a writing project last summer. That’s when it got bad - or good. That’s when I started taking mental leave. Creating a story, a different, vivid world, with people and places and energy, made me realize that I could do just that: create my own world. And I could go there whenever I wanted and no one would know. It’s not that literal; there isn’t one story line or a set of make-believe characters. My mind is not some sort of WestWorld. Rather, it’s a vast blank canvas and a warehouse full of materials and a brain full of ideas. It has been a life-changing discovery. The truth of it is that I have always felt like something was missing or like I was waiting for something. (This narrative does not feel unique.) I can viscerally remember the feeling as a little girl - the constant gnawing at life to get to the truth that would fill the hole. When I was a child, I assumed that hole would be filled by achievements or milestones: graduating high school, moving away from home, graduating college, getting married, having babies. None of those things even shot a glance at the hole. Many of them, if not all of them, do and have fulfilled me in real and precious ways - especially the ones involving relationships - but none of them added a single drop to the drained ocean inside of myself. The hole that I knew was the origin of my restlessness.

Now that hole, that hollow, gnawing feeling, is gone. Instead, a vibrant, universe-sized ocean sloshes around inside of me and I feel filled. But I am less here. There is always a trade-off. Every goddamn truth seems to be a paradox when you get to the bottom of it. Also, I should note that there are some arguably negative and strange side-effects to having something exciting sloshing around inside of you all the time. It’s exhilarating but also exhausting. That constant buzz. I’ve settled into it now, but I remember around the time that it set in; it’s coming up on a year ago. I remember telling some close friends that I felt “a little fucked up all the time lately.” I know there were other things happening in my life and the world at the time that deserve a finger-point, but what largely sticks out to me is that I had just started working on the writing project. I had just started to allow myself to swim further in, and it made me feel totally unstable in this really exciting way. The vibration is more manageable now. I think my mind has adapted to the choppy seas. But sometimes I still feel like I’m reeling. And so, as we all do - maybe all we EVER do - I search for balance.

Sometimes I try to use music as a calibrator, to bring me back or balance out my insides. But music, too, has become a sort of No Man’s Land. It’s another exit - but one I tell myself is less elsewhere than the black hole in my head. Unfortunately, real life often feels like it’s interrupting music as well. I like to listen to all of the lyrics, all of the notes. So I am often talking myself down from my frustration with interrupted songs. I interrupt my own thoughts along the lines of: ”It was just getting to my favorite line…” with “A snack for your hungry two-year-old is more important than an uninterrupted forty-seventh listen of this particular song.” It is a constant struggle, but one worth enduring. And I defend this stance by pointing out that I can turn music down, force the sound away, in order to tune back into real life. And I do. (The more I type “real life” the more it feels like it needs quotations around it.) So that seems safer - I can physically turn that exit off. Definitely safer.

I told a friend about this newfound escapism of mine and she asked me a question I (naively) didn’t expect. “What do you imagine? Where do you go? Like, give me an example.” I clammed up like a third grader unexpectedly called on to work out a math problem on the blackboard. A third grader who knows the answer, can show her work, has fine penmanship, but quakes at the idea of executing any of this in front of the class. I was a pretty timid kid. I blushed easily. But I’m not a timid thirty-three year old. I can count all of the times I’ve blushed in the last ten years on one hand. Maybe even the last fifteen years. But when my dear, intelligent, curious friend asked me what I see in my mind, I felt red hot blood vessels lightning up my cheeks. I stammered and stalled and made excuses. I, of course, could think of at least ten examples instantly but the thought of sharing them with someone else - even someone as safe as she - brought back all of my grade school nerves. How had I not considered the possibility of such a natural question? And that even thinking about answering it would be paralyzing? I contacted my friend the next day to apologize or justify why I shut like a steel trap, why I had made nonsense excuses a la “I just can’t explain it with words.” Of course I could have explained it with words. I love words. Picking the right words is liking picking a perfect bouquet of white daisies. I was dishonest in my response and I felt like I needed to right it. She was full of grace and understanding: “That makes sense. That’s about as personal as it gets.” And then, like a child who needs someone else to explain their actions to them, I understood. Those thoughts and images are - literally - as personal as it gets. And they are the only things that feel like they are mine alone. Maybe it’s because I am a stay-at-home parent, a role that can make a person feel like nothing is their’s - not time, not the food on their plate, not even their choices. But these inner-thoughts and fantasies - they are mine, and selfishly, I want to keep them.

So what does it mean? Why does it matter? Maybe we can say this: not all forms of coping are helpful or healthy; escapes that feel harmless can become harmful; without giving ourselves a break from the truth every once in a while, we will explode or die or both. So, what does the universe expect of us, that all-seeing eye that doesn’t actually care? From what I can gather, I think it’s okay to be somewhere else sometimes. So we don’t explode or die or both. And I, personally, can say this: escaping is the only thing that has ever made me feel like I actually exist. I’m not sure what that says about me, but I’m willing to live with it. Because it’s the truth that fills me.