After she started taking the pills, she stopped hiding that way. When I was a little older, I used to get them for her. Twice a day I would line up her pills for her and it was exciting. Then it was four times a day and it started to cut into my TV time. Before long I’d moved on to locking myself in my own bathroom, lying in my own darkness.
The world seems split now between those who take pills and those who don’t. I’m what’s known as a resister. Which makes me sound like something from Star Wars, and I’m okay with that. I’m resisting happiness, they think, because who doesn’t want to be happy? Me, that’s who.
You’d be surprised at the people who don’t care that much about happiness. There are a lot of older folks, people who have lived through things, who know that happiness means nothing. My father was a resister for a while, but then my mother insisted he take something if he wanted to stay married, and he was tired and at his age divorce seemed like a lot of work, so he agreed.
Happiness is not on my radar. I want other things. Like control over my life, my body. Like being able to get through a day without feeling like I’m doing it wrong. I want to feel all my feelings, not swallow them, and if they swallow me, so be it.
So there are the medicated and then there are the rest of us. The resisters. It’s not just angry women like me—but it’s mostly angry women like me. And we’re angry for a reason.
Sometimes just getting to work in one piece feels a win.
I have been happy in my sadness for most of my life. It isn’t an overwhelming sadness but one I have grown into. Like a big sweater I’m filling out. I’m not weeping all over anyone, or lying on floors unable to move or eat. I’m not threatening to throw myself off buildings or hurt myself. I am quietly sad, and not just about myself but about the world. Have you seen it? It’s a shitshow. If we lived in France I would be fine. I could mope to my heart’s content, which it would never be.
I’ve never been able to stay in those dark rooms for as long as my mother. People always lure me out. Men, mostly. Worrying they’ve done something, which they have usually. I just need some alone time, some headspace, I say, which is true, though the opposite is also true. Mostly, I shut my eyes and hold my breath and sometimes put my hands over my ears just to stop the world spinning for a second before I start things over, at my will. A tiny rebirth. I don’t think my mother did that. Maybe she didn’t know how.
I’m not out to make anyone else sad.
I can still smile when it’s required, laugh when something is funny. I will still accept a hug and sometimes even give one. I’m not turning up to weddings crowing that most marriages end in divorce, lurking in maternity wards to tell new parents that they’re certain to fuck up their child in some way. I’ve never interrupted a sporting event by shouting, There are no winners because we all die! I’m not totally dead inside. I can still get it up when I want to. I just don’t want to, most of the time.
* * *
The next day, after work, I have a doctor’s appointment. His office had called, saying, It’s pap smear time, which is the opposite of Hammer Time. And I thought, Well, no one else wants to look at it right now, so why not?
When I get to the doctor’s office, he’s wearing his best smart casuals—golf-ready, I call it, for men who are counting the hours till they can escape their lives to get back to the most pointless activity known to man. When I start undressing, he says, I think I’ve made a mistake, and I think, This is all too familiar. But then he apologizes and says, Well, you’re here now, so carry on. How’s life?, and I want to say, Well, apart from men dicking me around, it’s fine.
The doctor smiles at me and asks if I’ve tried this new yogurt, and I know then that he and my mother are in cahoots, which is a place I have never been. Next thing you know he’ll be saying, Your mother says you have no interest in getting married or starting a family, even the gays can do that now, Janet, what’s your problem? And before I have a chance to say, There are other ways to live, he’ll have signed me up for a Facebook group called Barren Bitches.
I hate small talk. Well, to be honest, I hate all talk.
Am I dying? I ask, only half joking.
Ha! he actually says. You, Janet, he says, are funny.
Funny people die too, I say.
Ha! he says again.
I remember the last time I was here. I’d come to see him about not sleeping, and he said I should try to reduce my stress, and I asked him how exactly, and I told him about my job and the state of the world and my mother and my boyfriend, and I think I might have mentioned nuclear weapons. I definitely accused him of being a man and having white male privilege. He isn’t holding that against me, though, mostly because he’s always thinking about golf. I have never once thought about golf.
What’s this about? I say, like I’m an important professional person who has better things to do than this, whatever this is.
I called you here today, Janet, because I have something exciting to talk to you about, he says, rummaging in his desk.
Please, god, don’t pull out a yogurt, I think. I know the pharmaceutical people are always giving out samples, and for all I know the yogurt companies use the same people.
He hands me a pamphlet. A genuine pamphlet, like from the old days, when there was actual printed material and no one told you to just google it. I might be one of the few people left on the planet who still reads actual books, so I take the pamphlet.
I’m still mad at him for making me think I was getting my pap smear—I showered for this?—so I just stare blankly at the pamphlet, like most adults faced with actual reading material would. I think about making a joke, but I don’t bother, because he already knows I’m funny.
What’s this? I ask.
The answer to your problems, he says, like all men who want to fix me.
As far as I know, I don’t have any problems, I say. Other than people trying to medicate me all the time, I don’t say, still thinking of my poor unchecked vagina getting its hopes up.
It’s a new pill, he says.
I don’t want any pills, I say, so thanks but no thanks, and I hand him back the pamphlet, which is probably a mistake because it is most likely the last example of print media I will ever see again and also because I’ve barely registered the fact that he called it a Christmas pill, which, what does that even mean?
It’s not like the other pills, he says. It’s not permanent. It’s just to get you through Christmas. It was made for you, Janet.
When someone says my name, a tiny neuron fires in my brain that magics me into focus. I’m not proud of this. In fact, it makes me disgusted with myself. Like I’m one of Pavlov’s dogs, salivating at the thought of some attention.
Go on, I say, because I am a fan of myself, even if no one else is.
Okay, not just for you, he says, but for people like you, and I want to punch him in the nuts. You motherfucker, I want to say so badly, but I rein it in. Most of my life is reining shit in. When I finally let it all go, have my breakdown in the grocery store, it will be spectacular.
I know how you feel about being medicated, Janet, he says. Sure he does—I’ve told him enough—but also I’m definitely on some master list of resisters. I’m sure this whole new pill got started when the list got slipped to some government office, like it was Santa’s naughty list. I can just hear Government Santa now: Ho ho ho, those little fucks aren’t getting any toys till they start taking their meds. Some elf would object—But, boss, we’ve tried!—and Santa would lean down and yell, Try harder then!, spitting all over the elf with his whiskey breath. So that’s what’s behind this pill: a chem lab full of elves fearing for their lives.
But this is a special pill, Janet, he goes on, a pill to get you to Christmas with a smile. Don’t you want to be happy at Christmas, Janet? I mean, it is the most wonderful time of the year. Don’t you think you deserve a holiday, Janet?
&nbs
p; And fuck it, he’s right. I do. I want to be allowed to be my melancholy self for the rest of the year, but I could use a day off from my sadness at Christmas. A day off for good behavior, just for going the year without murdering anyone. It’s like the doctor’s seen inside me, seen what I’ve always wanted. For a minute I’m feeling pretty good about this, until I start thinking about what this means—that they’ve probably been monitoring me, and I’ve definitely done some things I’d rather no one knew about. I’m ninety percent regret at this point. Everyone is always recording everyone now, after all. Every corporation worth its salt has some stupid chip hidden somewhere in your home, just for future lawsuits.
You’ll be one of the first civilians to try this groundbreaking pill, he says, as if I give a shit about being famous. But then he says two magic words: Congratulations, Janet. And once again I’m rendered helpless—by the word congratulations, which makes me think I’ve won something, and by the sound of my name. Most people don’t even know I have one.
You start taking it in November for eight weeks, he says. It’s nothing, he says. He looks like he wants to shake me and say, It’s a Christmas miracle, Janet! It’s what you’ve always wanted!
Read the pamphlet, he says. Google it if you must, he says.
I must, I say, and he nods. We are all Google’s bitch.
Old me would have crumpled up that pamphlet on the way out and made a show of throwing it in the trash, or ripped it into pieces and thrown it at the doctor.
New me, the me who’s curious about feeling new things, puts it in my bag and goes home.
* * *
Later that night, when I’m looking for gum, I find it. The pamphlet I’ve already forgotten.
I like to think that, all over the world, girls like me are finding this pamphlet at the bottom of their bags, when they’re looking for a tampon, but they can’t find one, or the one they find is ancient, and they don’t even technically have their period, it’s just some brown sludge, to match their mood, and they’re tired of it all. Instead they find this pamphlet, a distraction from whatever is going on between their legs but somehow more inside, and they don’t really even read it but just look at it, easing themselves into the idea gradually. This idea that there are options. Despite the fact that it was handed to them by a white man in an office where the government was definitely spying on them. And they decide to hang on to the pamphlet. They can always use it for some sort of art piece later. Or toilet paper if there’s an emergency. So they leave it by their bed, and maybe once in a while look at it again before they go to sleep and then dream of a different life. One where everything is a little softer and there are always fresh tampons.
Only I was never really sure there were girls like me. At school it was always, No one wants to start a coven, Janet! We’re tormenting boys and kissing them, and if you’re not into that, then you better fuck off to the library. Only I was already there, looking for books that would tell me how to hex them all.
* * *
I unrumple the pamphlet and pin it on the fridge amid the takeout menus. It looks like any other pamphlet, but on closer inspection you can see the subliminal image of Santa’s face. Unless I’m hallucinating and seeing Santa’s face where people usually see Jesus.
They’ll do anything to make me take the drugs.
I order Chinese and try not to think about how things might be different.
You can’t just sit in your room listening to the Smiths, Janet! my mother used to say, and I’d say, I think Morrissey would disagree, and if she could be bothered, she would say, Morrissey is barely Morrissey these days, Janet, and I would have to agree.
That was before I knew the power of my Doc Martens, a push-up bra, and a few drinks. Before I figured out how to get everyone to look at me, even when at the same time I wanted no one ever to look at me, myself included.
I didn’t know how other girls did it, any of it, so I made it up as I went.
These pills feel like maybe a chance to let go for a while, to have someone else make it up for me, and to be honest, do I really have anything better to do?
If enough people tell you that you have no life, you start to believe them.
4
When I started working at the shelter, I was issued Wellington boots and ear defenders and I thought, I won’t be needing these. I love the sound of dogs crying out for love. I can relate.
How do you bear the noise? my mother always says, and I think, How does anyone bear anything?
Dogs make me the closest to happy I’ve ever been. Not just puppies; they’re too easy. Not the ones in stupid outfits; they’re too sad. What makes me happy are the old gimmers, the ones missing limbs, the ones with mange—the ones no one wants. I want them. All of them.
Dogs are goofy, so it’s easy to assume that people who love them are goofy, but we’re not. There’s always a sadness there.
My mother thinks the shelter is a front for a meth lab because she watches too much TV. I tell her Debs has a PhD in Women’s Studies, but that just makes her think it’s a lesbian meth lab.
I like Debs because she doesn’t ask anything of me, which is a rare quality in a boss. She says her door is always open, but that’s just a joke, because her door is broken so it doesn’t quite shut. She means, Don’t bug me unless you’ve got an arm off.
Something bad happened to Debs, more than once. You can smell it on her. She thinks the dog scent masks it, but it doesn’t.
Sometimes, when a dog goes out to a new home, I think, There goes a piece of us, a piece of our sadness, getting a second chance to be something else, and for a second I feel choked up, like I might break. Then I remember I’m just shards, shards and dust bunnies, and I am thankful for the bunnies.
My sadness wasn’t caused by any one horrific unspeakable incident, like my mother thinks it was. It’s more an accumulation of tiny sadnesses, ones I’ve been collecting for as long as I’ve known the value of pockets. I’m going to need more pockets is my You’re gonna need a bigger boat.
It doesn’t matter how you got sad, not to Debs. All that matters to her is that you know a thing or two about it, and you’re all right by her.
Debs told me on day one that she doesn’t care what prescription drugs I’m on, but she will not tolerate hard drugs. A little weed I’m cool with, she added, as long as you’re sharing, but nothing harder. I told her I wasn’t on any drugs and she didn’t believe me. Now she knows me well enough to understand that I’m just like this.
Melissa likes telling anyone who’ll listen what she’s on. She has something on her phone that tells her what to take and when, and when she gets the signal, she tells us, because she is a child. She tells us every time she goes to the bathroom and what she’s going to do in there. She likes us all to know when she has her period. She probably hopes that one day we’ll all break down and start telling her when we have our periods, but we don’t. One time, I thought I might have mine at the same time as hers, and I willed it back in my body, just to keep from being in sync with her. If that had happened, I’d never have heard the end of it.
* * *
The day after the ambush, I get up and still feel like shit, but at least I know there won’t be another surprise party anytime soon. I spend my life in fear of unexpected parties, but now I have a reprieve. I might get to watch my shows in peace, I think, like I’m a hundred.
I don’t miss coming home to someone that first night either. I thought I might, but I don’t. I’m completely prepared for it to hit me as soon as I walk in the door—the memory of our life smashing me in the teeth, before I could arm myself—but nothing. It’s too soon for ghosts, I thought, and if they do come, I’m ready. I don’t have to pretend my day was anything but exhausting.
I’d thought we’d agreed that we weren’t the kind of couple who kissed each other on the cheek after work and said, How was your day?, but I was wrong. Suddenly I rea
lized that he’d been having some sort of quiet breakdown, which is the worst kind. One he didn’t tell anyone about. One that meant he was someone different now, only he didn’t think he had to tell anyone. One he thought we’d all just go along with. Or me, mostly. I need more from you now, Janet, he was saying, without saying it. I need you to be someone else now, Janet, because I’m someone else now too. It wasn’t fair, his suddenly wanting me to be happy. He knew what he was getting into with me. And let me add that he was never particularly happy either. He just thought his girlfriend should be.
I still don’t miss coming home to someone.
One thing I like about working at the shelter is that it never requires me to be happy. I don’t like being told how to feel. It’s the exact opposite of working at the Disney Store. My friend Emma had a job interview there once, and she didn’t even get through the first round because she wasn’t cheerful enough—and Emma is the most cheerful person I know, probably from the Prozac, but also from knowing her whole life that one day she was going to get the hell out of here. Maybe not to Ibiza, where she ended up; she probably thought she’d run off to Beverly Hills, stalk Luke Perry a bit, then marry some tech nobody. However it played out, she knew she wouldn’t be here having to pretend she gave a shit.
Emma never gave a shit, still doesn’t, and that’s why she’s one of my favorite people. She and Debs would get along great, which is why they must never meet, or I’ll feel shittier than I already do.
On my way home from work, I get passed on the stairs by a guy in a Christmas sweater. Happy holidays, he tells me, like he thinks he’s hilarious and wacky, though really he’s triggering to me. Everything is triggering to people like me.
Sad Janet Page 3
