by Sara Arnell
You Must Change Your Life.
It took about ten minutes. “You Must Change Your Life” stretched between my wrist and elbow on my left arm. He told me how to care for it, and I walked down the long stairs and into the street feeling like a new person, like the kind of person who could really change.
“Guess what,” I said to my daughter.
“What?”
“I got a tattoo yesterday.”
“Oh no. Show me.”
I pulled up my sleeve and exposed my forearm to her on FaceTime.
“That’s Sharpie!”
“No. It’s a real tattoo.”
“I don’t believe you.”
I told her I couldn’t ignore this thing that happened when I was cleaning out the house. I told her I was going to be inspired by these words every day. I told her I loved it.
“So, what now?” she asked, like she was therapizing me.
I didn’t know. I immediately regretted showing the tattoo to her. I should have hidden it for a while, I thought. Now she thinks I’m losing it. Seeking in vain. Trying uselessly.
I began to worry that my actions were giving away how sorry I was feeling for myself: Boo-hoo, you-need-to-figure-things-out-type sorry; Boo-hoo, your-kids-are-growing-up-like-all-kids-do-type sorry; Boo-hoo, there’s-no-one-you-can-talk-to-at-home-anymore-type sorry. I felt leaden. Moving my body was an effort. My arms each weighed one hundred pounds; the tattoo had done nothing to change that. I could barely raise them over my head to get a glass from the kitchen cabinet. I had frequent visions of myself lying on the floor, unable to move, with no one around to find me. To save me. Perhaps this should have been a happy time for me. I was free of the day-to-day tasks of raising children. I was free of the anxieties of a job. I was free of everything that had once demanded my time. If I didn’t want to cook, or eat, I didn’t have to. I could shop for what I wanted without worrying about who would or wouldn’t like it. I could be my only focus, and it could be great. I could start that book I kept promising myself I would write. But the tattoo lay dormant on my arm. The command went unheeded. I carved it into my skin hoping it would create a new me, but it didn’t. Maybe nothing could?
Chapter 21
I’m Going Home
I was lost and the only way to get unlost, I thought, was to go home to the place where I grew up. I wanted to take the crystals out of my pants pockets and admire them for their beauty, not carry around rocks for energy and inspiration. The tarot reader at the bookstore told me I needed them, but they were weighing me down. All my superficial attempts to change my life were bricks, not wings. I needed to heal. I needed to sober up and stop drinking myself into oblivion. I needed to be a better mother and better person.
I drove past the four-story, green-shingled house on the corner lot that once belonged to my maternal great-grandparents, whom everyone called Mom and Pop. Nine of us lived there, sleeping on couches, beds tucked into attic corners, or in one of the three actual bedrooms. I lived within a loving extended family consisting of my great-grandparents, my grandparents, my great-aunt and uncle, my mother, and my younger sister. It was the mid-1960s in upstate New York. We all had our meals in the shared kitchen in the basement, which opened onto a small arbor of concord grapes with a flower garden a few steps beyond. We had a big all-family pancake breakfast every Sunday after church. Even the slightest whiff of buttermilk pancakes or sausage cooking in a cast-iron skillet brings me back to this time without fail. My sister and I were doted on. My great-aunt Nell and great-grandmother Blanche played board and card games with us by the hour, helped us make cookies and brownies, cleaned up all the messes, and then patiently followed us around the house and yard as we moved onto our next activity. There was no actual father in my life, but I had seven parents, which was more than anyone else I knew had, and that was OK with me. And the extended family didn’t end there. A few blocks away lived my grandmother’s sister, Aunt Beanie, with her husband, two sons, and my other great-grandmother, who had gone blind from glaucoma. On weekends and summers, I could have breakfast at one house then head over to the other for lunch. In between, almost anything could happen.
I wanted to feel like that child again. That child who was unconditionally loved and admired—that child who wandered freely and was welcomed everywhere with hugs and kisses.
“I’m just a girl. I’m just a girl that grew up,” I said to my daughter. “I’m having a hard time, and nothing is getting better. I may seem brave on paper, but in reality, I can’t face people anymore. I can’t look people in the eye. I say things like ‘oh stupid me’ and put myself down when I don’t feel like I measure up, which is all the time. I avoid conflict with you, your brother, and sister, which means that I’m not being the mother I should be. We aren’t friends. I’m your parent. I forget this a lot. I’m constantly walking on eggshells with all of you. I never push back. Challenge. Ask a question. Do you know that I’m scared all the time? I sleep with clothes and shoes in a pile on the floor next to my bed so in the middle of the night, I can get dressed and run out of the house at a moment’s notice. I’m constantly ready to run away. To escape, evacuate. I can’t be who you need me to be because I’m so scared. The people I loved growing up have all left me. I was raised by three generations, and now they’re gone. There’s just my mother, and she’s getting old now. I’m always scared that you’ll never come back. And if that happens, I’ll pick up my clothes from the floor, get dressed, and walk out the door. I don’t want to live like this anymore. I don’t want to be sad. I want to be a happy baby.”
When I walked into my old bedroom in my mother’s house, I cried uncontrollably. It all came at once, when I least expected it. I was engulfed in sadness so intense that it felt like relief. The rush of calm I had from sitting in my childhood room, looking at my scattered mementos and memories, faded fast. I eyed my desk lamp and the blotter I used throughout my school years, scribbled on as if I just took a note or captured a thought. There was a wooden keepsake box that every high school senior got for free from a local store, placed just where I left it. Inside the box were old photos, a pin, my college dining hall cards, and an old school ID. There was a newspaper clipping of me out at an event with friends, and an article I’d written for a local publication. I curled my toes in the orange-and-green carpet that I remembered picking out when I was ten years old and lovingly breathed it all in.
My frame immediately stiffened. I had allowed myself to feel happy for a moment, and now this was the result. I felt a deep pain in my right shoulder. My body was revolting. Tears came rolling out, reminding me that I was not allowed to feel joy, or respite, or anything but complete and utter dismay. I realized that I saw everything as a problem. Problems were all I had left. My dramas, messy stories, fits, inner turmoils, and hysterical crying were what defined me. Crying felt normal. It made me feel like me. I wasn’t even worthy of reminiscing about being happy, let alone seeking it in the present.
I sat in front of my make-up mirror to wipe my eyes. It was on the dresser, in the same place my thirteen-year-old self used to sit. I was transported back in time. I saw four big-eyed cat prints framed on the walls over my desk. I saw a globe that I used to spin when I was bored and doing homework. I saw a burlap wall hanging with the words “God Is Love” cut out in blue felt and glued on. I’d made it in Sunday school. I saw my great-aunt Nell sitting up in bed behind me. I cried harder. I cried with regret and remorse and longing. This room wasn’t mine and hadn’t been mine for a while.
After I moved out, it was given to my grandfather’s aunt, who needed full-time care. It was my Aunt Nell’s room with some of my stuff still hanging around. I remembered seeing her in my old bed when I would come home to visit. Sometimes she knew who I was; other times, she was just happy to have company. I remembered that she always recognized a sparkly marcasite hair clip that she gave me. I put it in my hair whenever I sat with her. She knew it was her clip.
She reached her hand up and touched it when I brought my head close to the bed and showed her. “See,” I would say, “I’m wearing the hair clip you gave me. I love it.” I can still feel her soft hand with its skin so thin and fragile rub my cheek and tell me how beautiful it looked in my hair. I wished I still had it.
I continued to stare in the mirror, past my puffy, red eyes and tear-stained cheeks. I saw my teenage self, sitting here putting on make-up as I was getting ready to go to a party or school event. I remembered that when I was allowed to wear make-up to school for the first time, I asked for a lighted make-up mirror for Christmas. It was all I wanted. The mirror had a slide at the bottom that allowed me to adjust the light based on the environment I was getting made up for—day, night, home, or office. It was two-sided for regular and magnified viewing. It made me feel grown up. It made me feel in control. Now I wished I had a new make-up mirror—one that would show me false hopes, misplaced affirmations, and missed signals. I wanted to pick up the phone and call one of my friends to commiserate. But there was no one I could call. There were no childhood friends because I didn’t keep in touch with anyone from home. I had moved away and left everyone behind. Including myself.
I flipped the mirror to the magnification side and looked at my eyebrows. I remembered when I plucked them for the first time. They never grew back right. I saw a mark from the second hole in my earlobe that I pierced myself, in this mirror, when my mother told me I couldn’t get another piercing. I numbed my ear with a piece of ice then stuck a sewing needle through it. I walked downstairs and said, defiantly, “See, I just did it myself.” I remembered putting on blue eye shadow, blush, mascara, and lipstick—more make-up than I’d worn in years. I remembered flipping open the pages of Seventeen magazine to try out the latest beauty tip. I made a facial mask using a beaten egg and honey and sat here, slathering it on my skin. I watched it harden and tighten around my mouth until I couldn’t move my lips to talk anymore before walking to the bathroom to rinse it off.
I turned the mirror off and pushed it back on the dresser. I couldn’t face myself. I was no longer thirteen. And I was no longer Coco Chatterly, the nom de plume I was given by a mischievous editor to write a monthly New York City social calendar, one of my first jobs after college. I knew why Coco suddenly came into my thoughts—she would have loved this mirror. She was out every night, going to clubs and parties. She was putting on make-up, dressing up, and meeting friends. Now I was thirty pounds overweight, with ill-fitting clothes and a face so bloated that there weren’t enough settings on my mirror to lend any light to my situation.
I began to realize that I hadn’t been happy for a long time. Longer than I had thought. I tried to recall a moment of unabridged joy over the past two years and couldn’t muster up a single one. I couldn’t face myself in the mirror anymore. I knew when I was indulging in mocha ice-blended coffee with extra whip that I would pay for it somehow, but it had all happened so fast. Thirty pounds and counting. One day my pants fit, and the next I couldn’t get them buttoned. My jeans wouldn’t close. I walked around for a while with the top button undone, hidden under a baggy sweater. But even that little maneuver had become impossible as I continued to gain weight. I’d taken to rooting around in my son’s closet, digging out old pairs of sweatpants from his high school days. They reminded me of him and they fit. This felt like success.
As I stood in my childhood room, I realized that I was heavy in both body and mind. I wore regret and sadness like a jacket weighted with chains. I was Jacob Marley, dragged down by what my life had become. I was shackled, tormented, and doomed. My shoulders slouched. My posture was horrible. Everything about me submitted to gravity. I tried to stand up straight, but it was too much of an effort. I adopted the posture of putting one arm behind my back like a stance of a well-mannered, old-school gentleman—someone from another world, another generation—trying to force my shoulders back to an upright position. I sucked in my stomach and pushed out my butt. I looked at my profile in the mirror as I went through a series of posture corrections that all resulted in the same slouchy, Neanderthal stoop. I remembered a recent routine doctor’s visit. The nurse had looked me up and down and said, “You’re about five foot seven, right?”
“No,” I said, “I’m six feet tall.” I realized that I was being weighed down. I was diminished by five inches. I was literally failing to measure up to myself.
I looked around my old room. I wished my Aunt Nell was there touching my hair and smiling up at me. I wished my grandfather would walk in and tell me it was time to get ready for school. I wanted to hear my grandmother yell goodbye up the stairs as she ran out the door for church, always in a hurry. Always just a little late. I longed for the people in my life that were gone from this world. I missed them. I wanted them back. I closed the keepsake box and unplugged the make-up mirror.
I wanted to move forward with my dreams, but my dreams consisted of going back in time—to my childhood, to my kids’ childhoods, to a past I could not relive. I don’t know how I had never fully considered what my life would look like when my children grew up and left. I don’t know why I had never pondered what being alone would feel like and what I would be doing. I hadn’t planned for this part of my life. I hadn’t even thought about it. Instead, I fantasized about myself as an enchanted being. I envisioned myself as someone who was always happy and carefree, walking from place to place, room to room, smiling, humming, getting organized, completing tasks, and waiting for my little ones to come home for dinner. In this fantasy, I was always whistling and looked a little like Snow White. But what finally began to sink in was that I was all alone, with nothing but my children’s three empty rooms, and three hungry dogs, in a cold, dark house. The only thing that could help me forget, escape, avoid was my special glass emblazoned with the words “Mama Needs Some Wine,” filled to the very top.
I stuck my knitting needles into the ball of yarn I was using and put it away, high on a closet shelf. “I can’t do this anymore,” I sighed. I had taught myself to knit from a YouTube video. I only knit scarves because they were the most mindless of options. I could knit a scarf while watching TV. This made me feel productive. I kept a basket full of yarn and knitting needles next to my bed. I knit scarf after scarf. Some were better than others. I had a drawer full of subpar scarves that no one really wanted, including me. The problem was that I lost interest halfway through each one and none of them were long enough.
“The scarf is a little too short for me,” my daughter laughed after she unwrapped a green-and-white version I had just mailed to her. “It doesn’t wrap around my neck.”
“Right,” I said. “I can make it longer. Send it back.”
“No, that’s OK, Mom. I Just wanted you to know that you need to make them a little longer generally.”
Chapter 22
Jesus Will Save You
I tried to ask myself, “Remember when you had a life worth living?” But I couldn’t bring myself to answer this question. I decided I needed to get away and force some feelings out into the open. I didn’t want to be in familiar surroundings where I could easily distract myself with busywork. I planned a weekend of nothing in upstate New York. I wanted to hibernate in a hotel room, lick my wounds for my closed business and childless existence at home. I wanted to rest exposed on the bed and face everything I was feeling. I wanted to commit to the words, thoughts, and emotions that I couldn’t say aloud to myself or others. I wanted to confess exactly how I got to this point. Deep down inside, I was sure I knew. I thought I could sit in a hotel room and force it out. On the surface, I couldn’t—or wouldn’t—articulate it. I needed to speak the truth, and I wanted to do it alone in an anonymous place where I could cry without anyone noticing or caring, without anyone looking at me with worry and concern. I would shield my raw, red eyes from strangers, hiding behind dark glasses whenever I emerged into the light for food and coffee.
I had settled into my room and was
walking on the street to get some air and a bite to eat when I saw two young women coming toward me on the sidewalk. As we approached each other, one of the women said she liked my coat. We exchanged smiles. “Thanks,” I said.
“Do you have time for a quick question?” one of them asked me.
“Sure.”
“Great. Ok. So, what makes you happy in life?”
“Nothing.”
The two women exchanged glances then stared back at me in silence.
“Service to others,” one of the women said, “will give your life meaning.”
“Doubt it,” I said flatly.
“Would you like to talk about it?” they asked.
“No. I’m going through a hard time, and I need to be alone. I need to work things out for myself. I’ve always been self-sufficient, and I need to get back to that. I cry every day. It’s not healthy. They aren’t tears of joy. My youngest child moved out for college, leaving me all alone. My business folded, and I’m out of a job. I have to face myself, by myself, for the first time in years. I have no friends because I blew them off in the name of work and kids. I have no one to talk to or turn to. I’m here in this town to seek solace. I’m on my way to get some food then go back to my hotel room to scream into a pillow.”
“Jesus will save you,” one of the women said.
The other handed me a postcard and told me they were sister missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
I told them to have a good day, and we continued on our ways.
I called my daughter to tell her I scared away two missionaries.
“That’s quite a feat,” she said hesitantly.
“What did you say to them?”
