#9: it's the perfect day

the person we were two hours ago, and a story

a book of poems on an empty bed. 35mm film.

Hello.

Here’s a fictional essay called The Perfect Day. I wrote this when I thought I didn’t have anything to say. And maybe I didn’t, not really. Maybe all I had to talk about was my gripe with the perfect day, how impossible our expectations feel, or how disappointed we can become when something isn’t just so. Or maybe, we’re just feeling a certain way and there’s nothing to be done about it, even though we fight it and fight it until we’ve drained our energy and all that’s left to do is collapse on the floor in a heap.

So, here’s a story about the moments right in front of us. About how we view ourselves. About wanting to control our thoughts and surrounding. About the lengths we’ll go to not disappoint the person we were two hours ago.

I hope you like it.

Love,
Chloe

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The Perfect Day.

The small glass cup sits on the corner of the sink, next to it is a packet of pills, slightly bent up around the edges, and when you move to the other side, you’ll find another glass cup, though this one is slightly taller, tall enough for a toothbrush.

Below you are your feet and your slippers, toes wiggling around like they’re still waking up. You have just gotten out of the shower. Your robe wraps snug around your body as your hair flops weightily to one side, and while you dab your hair with your damp towel, you look in the direction of the mirror, but the steam hides your reflection.

On the outside of the bathroom, the steam rises from where the door doesn’t quite meet the ground. It stays like this for awhile, that is until the door opens and you walk out in your robe and slippers, hair still wet. You look peaceful: a romantic scene enveloped by steam, calm, and the freedom to take such a slow morning.

You let the door swing wide open as you walk toward the closet, running your hands along the edges of your clothes, wondering what will suit you best on this perfect day. You grab the blazer, a white tee, high-waisted jeans, and socks with smiley faces on them. In the mirror, the one facing away from the bathroom, you admire yourself as your bangs fall just so.

It’s Tuesday, which means there’s a meeting at 8am. You hold onto the collar of your blazer and tug, left and right, and then you clasp a necklace with your initials on it around your neck, swish your bangs side to side, and turn your heals purposefully, smiley-faced socks leading you out of the bedroom and into the kitchen.

You stand in the kitchen in your blazer at 7:02am. The kettle reaches the right temperature and the water is poured over freshly ground beans. Outside, it’s cold. The car is covered in frost and the evergreen tree stands tall, hiding the house from the rest of the neighborhood. Birds hop along the fence. And when you turn your head west, the moon sits low in the sky.

As you wait for your coffee, you crack the window, feeling the cool air on your skin and in your nose and through your lungs.

You go to the chair in the corner of the room to read. This is what you always do, but today is different. Today you’re freshly showered and dressed in your favorite blazer and smiley socks. The book that you are reading is written for teens. You don’t mind. It’s fast-paced and thoroughly enjoyable. The coffee goes down slowly. You take your time. You check the clock, it’s 7:37am.

Meanwhile, in the office, your journal sits on the little side table. There is already a pen next to it, and the glow from the outside world melts into the desk and the pictures on the wall. And in the far corner of the room, there is a little yellow couch. You love this couch.

On the desk sits a plant and a tile with flowers on it. One is to look at, one is to set coffee on. Those are the only two things on the desk, anymore would be distracting. Inside the desk is the planner, where all the to do’s live. They are endless and they are loud, but on a day such as this, you aren’t thinking of all the to do’s, but instead, admiring the light and the couch and the wonderful space that you have created.

You stand there a moment longer, hesitating before pulling out the chair that lives at the desk. You sit down and decide to look at your planner, and then you look at the clock again and realize you don’t have time to journal. This is worrisome.

It’s 7:57am. Zoom is pulled up on your screen. You stare at the computer, giving you three whole minutes to worry about how you didn’t journal and what that means for the rest of your day. The meeting starts abruptly.

You look out the window. There is sweat under your arms. You can see the sky, now blue and clear from the sun. Your phone shows that it’s 8:19am. The call went well, or maybe it didn’t? A message from your boss lights up the small rectangular screen that sits next to your elbow. I think that went well!? It read, with two heart emoji’s. Yes! I think so, you typed, adding three heart emoji’s before turning it over and deciding that you’d like to be somewhere that’s not here.

Would you like a 12 or 16oz? You’re looking down and away from the person at the register. You pull your phone from your pocket. 11:57am.

12 or 16oz? They said flatly. Yes please, you mumbled, continuing to keep your eyes low. What size would you like? The voice said, much louder this time. You look up—oh my gosh, I’m so sorry, I was distracted. 12oz, please. You say it slowly, making sure to bring your voice up at the end in a friendly sort of way. We’ll call it out when it’s ready, the person behind the counter chirped sharply before making eye contact with the next customer in line. What can I get’cha?

The room was long with high ceilings. It wasn’t busy. You had taken off your blazer, placing it on the back on the chair when your name was called. The mug was warm. Your hands were shaking. Why-did-I-come-why-did-I-come? You thought. I came because it’s outside of the house. Because it’s lively and full of people who are happy and optimistic about things. People who sit in the sun outside even though it’s cold. People who squeak around in their puffy jackets smiling and saying hello as they nibble on their gluten free bagels. Now I’m just judging. But I’m judging because today was suppose to be a good day. Because I was suppose to feel like them. I did feel like them! In the shower, choosing my clothes, making coffee, reading. I should leave.

Your phone showed four notifications. All of which are reminding you to take your medication. At this point, the notifications seems useless, but the fear of somehow forgetting overrides the temporary annoyance. You put your headphones in. The walk home didn’t take long.

Just passed the mailboxes, there was the familiar stirring in your chest and tightness in your throat; the stimulation in the coffee shop left you consumed by your thoughts and your actions and the vibrations of moving and thinking too quickly. You dug around in your mind: my therapist would tell me that this feeling doesn’t have to make sense. That it doesn’t have to be good or bad. But what if it feels bad? How do I stop making this feeling feel anything at all?

The thoughts drained; you were floating, not walking, hands digging deeper and deeper into your pockets, and just as you took a cold, sharp breath in, you were rounding the corner into your neighborhood, mind suddenly alert with the expectations that come from being home.

It was 1:39pm. You hated this time of day. It mean’t sitting back down at your desk and trying to work on simple tasks that felt impossible to work on. As you took off your shoes, you bent your nail in the wrong direction. It felt like the worst possible thing that could have happened. A sharp exhale left your mouth without you realizing it.

You boiled water for tea. A distraction, really. Nothing more than a distraction. You decided on an english breakfast tea, and from the cabinet above your head, you carefully picked the mug with abstract shapes on it. It was your tea mug. You never used it for coffee.

After the tea steeped for 30-seconds, you removed the bag and poured the milk in, watching as the liquid went from black to cream. You felt briefly soothed by this process—so much so that you walked down the hallway, past the office, and through to the bedroom to take off your blazer, look at yourself in the mirror, apply slightly tinted lip balm, and before going back to the kitchen to retrieve your tea, folding yourself forward, dangling your arms over your head, and swaying side to side. It was something you did when things became too much, and now, on this perfect day, things were becoming too much, and for no apparent reason.

Pausing a little longer with your arms dangling overhead, you wondered how long it would be before it all soaked in. Before it was possible to trust both your inner world and your outer world. What would it look like for the two to work together?

The plants glowed on the windowsill, and from where you sat, you could see shimmers of ice coating the trees and a sky whiter than snow. You continued to sit there, trying to not feel badly about having the perfect morning and the perfect job and the perfect office, but not being able to work. Eventually, you got up, scooted your chair over, and sat on the floor with your tea. It was within those 20-minutes that you got quiet and listened and realized how useless it was to fight back in moments like this.

Soon, your book was in your hands and the thought that you should be doing anything other than what you were doing, slipped your mind.

The diagnosis was a welcomed relief 10-months ago, and now, all these months later, you were still adjusting to medication, paralyzed by work, afraid to be creative, and unable to keep up a social life; all at once, the weight becomes impossible to carry, and you have to do your best to set it aside. To let it be what it is, and to let you be who you are.

It’s not as simple as just setting it aside. But, you chewed the word around in your mind for a bit, it is worth it to try: I can say this morning was a good morning, and that that is all it needs to be—it doesn’t have to have anything to do with the next moment, or the next, or right now.

You stood up and went over to your desk, pulling out your journal. You wrote all of these thoughts down. You looped and scribbled on the page until you felt like you could let it go, just a little bit. And without thinking too much, you opened your computer and messaged your boss and put on some music that was soft and gentle and felt just right.

And then you did the first thing that was in front of you, and before moving onto the next, you told yourself that that was enough.