It’s been a month in the new place. We don’t have a couch in the living room yet, the WiFi in my room isn’t incredible, and despite waking up most mornings mid-panic about some unresolved emotions, the feeling of home is here. This is my fourth apartment with my roommate, Taryn (x). We’ve lived together since 2022, and though that seems like a short amount of time, it’s hard for me to remember what my life was like before I had her within arm’s reach. She approached me at an art show I did in Los Angeles after the pandemic. She had sent me a DM a few months earlier that I never opened, but felt the need to come up to me at my show and make a plan to hang out—it’s impossible not to be charmed by Taryn Segal, especially if you’re me. I took her up on her offer to hang; she mentioned she wanted to move to a more central part of LA, and at the time I had a spare room to fill, so I thought, “why not?” I’m definitely the more spontaneous of the two of us, but I still don’t really know what compelled me to ask this stranger to live in my house with me. Obviously, it was the right choice.
While sifting through my recent behaviors and trying to examine the losses in love I’ve suffered this calendar year, I kept trying to force the conclusion upon myself that nobody is really meant for anybody. Through a narrow scope, I tried to frame everything as random, an attempt to gain some type of control over my pain. But that is the problem with romantic love: it’s so overpowering that it makes you prone to sweeping generalizations that tend to make you toss out the consideration of platonic ideals because they’re usually so much less dramatic and spoken of (and maybe you’re a stupid bitch also).
I’ve been known to try to make homes out of things that are unfit. The places I think I deserve to hold and house me often make me crazy, suspending me in a moment of forcing the puzzle to fit, which only provokes a frustration I find quite addictive. I’ll go all concave before looking up, ignoring what’s in front of me because I’ve never known love or comfort without a challenge.
The love that Taryn and I share is easy, something that is not wholly familiar to me. We’re so in-toe, like twins or the best unreliable reflection, that we barely notice when the other needs a haircut.
I felt so foolish on my first night here. I was fresh off of something I guess I could call a break-up if I lived anywhere besides New York. I lay in my new room, all empty and echo-y, and realized that all my time spent looking for home had been wasted because I already had it down the hall. I usually beat myself up over wasted time, but not that night. I texted Taryn and told her to come out of her room, and I stood in the hallway crying, unable to say anything but words of thanks.
Not many people can handle me up close for extended periods of time. I am a painstaking person to be around, but for some reason, she allowed us to go from strangers to best friends to sisters, and I really don’t think I could ever feel at home without her.
Here are my notes from November:
I have no desire to get rid of my earthly possessions. I know that is a very chic want for women my age, especially New Yorkers. It’s cool to be nomadic and monk-like, I admire my peers who are. But, after moving apartments, I’ve only learned that I’m actually obsessed with my possessions, and I would do anything to keep them all. I would absolutely cage fight anyone triple my size for my Cartman painting, and I would absolutely close-fist someone over any of my Calico Critter bunnies. Taryn and I don’t have the funds for movers, so we did it all by hand, not once did I think the pain wasn’t worth it.
Watched a young woman finish up a FaceTime call with her long-distance boyfriend while I sat a park bench away at Maria Hernandez. I was wondering if I should go home right before she sat down. It was overcast and nasty, but my love for eavesdropping always overrides my discomfort in any situation. She blew a kiss at the screen before ending the call— a sentiment that would probably send me into thoughts of magic if I had witnessed it at any point in my life besides my present. I think from 20 onward, I’ve always barely survived October and November; something always happens, leaving me all Bridget Jones in a hairclip, sitting somewhere in the cold, having a sandwich fall apart on me, listening to American Wife by Rilo Kiley (x), wondering why I play with my heart like I do. I saw my most recent ex in the middle of this month, and he asked me a few times, “No new boyfriends?” I’m no liar, and he knows that. I had the opportunity to fib, and thought about it, but that’s not me. I’m most honest with those who have hurt me, I want them to know the truth of my life because that’s all I can give them when our time is over. Ugh. Anyway, if I’m ever caught blowing a kiss to someone on FaceTime in the next six months, there is a gun underneath my bed in a water-stained Miu Miu box next to my tank tops.
My brain isn’t as sharp as it used to be, and thank god. I think I don’t want to remember everything anymore.
My relationship with my mother is so fraught that each time we’re on the phone, it’s like a lost time game. Like she’s squeezing in the things that she forgot to tell me, the stuff that gives her a panic in the middle of the night when she imagines me out in the world as an adult. The last time we spoke, she told me not to leave a candle unattended.
Loneliness only hurts because it’s freeing. It wouldn’t feel so scary if it had a ceiling.
I have a burner LinkedIn account.
When I’m alone and walking, especially during periods when I’m not reporting my whereabouts in constant codependent text correspondence with anyone, I fall back into a slew of little games that reappear to keep my mind busy. The one my brain likes the most is very stupid, and it is called “Brick Man.” The concept is quite simple. I invented it when I was 11 while staring at a brick wall outside of a Harris Teeter, waiting for my mother to finish shopping. Basically, I look at a formation of bricks and try to create a person out of them. There are two main “Brick Man” configurations. I’m sure there are others, but I seem to be uninterested in them. The “game” aspect is really just a forced consideration: I ask myself who is the true Brick Man, which one is more worthy (?), which one do I like more, and I’ve been unable to decide for more than half my life.
God puts on a show for when you aren’t looking for one.
There are just some grocery stores you won’t connect with. In my case, it’s the Fine Fare near the M in Bushwick. Nothing makes sense to me in there. I walk through the doors, and my concept of where things should be leaves me; their idea of connecting the dots is far from what mine is. I walk in and see the pasta next to the Lysol, and I’m completely unable to remember what I came in there for because in what world does that make sense? It’s gotten so weird for me in there that the moment I come through the doors the cashiers have eyes on me, not because I’m stealing, just because they have to be clued in to my issues. I can’t help but walk around with my face all confused. I don’t care if that’s rude, they need subliminals.
The perks of exploiting yourself on the internet for your entire adult life are clear in the age of the influencer. Though I’d never describe myself as one—because I’m too proud—I’ve been known to moonlight as one in the pursuit of free shit. I ended up at Ställe Studios for a free facial the other week after a night out where I behaved so badly that Taryn admitted she saw the “Jezebel” trait within me that many Sagittarius women allegedly possess. I almost–almost–almost–not-really went home with someone I shouldn’t have, following them outside a bar while drunk, tiptoeing around a “that would be crazy, right? lollll”, but I decided against it. I woke up late and hungover, marked by the devil, hauling ass downtown in a dirty T-shirt I’d pulled out of the laundry, full of thoughts about loyalty and bad-bad boys and semi-good girls. Walking into Ställe, it was clear I was outside the bounds of their usual clientele. I apologized for my appearance almost immediately, but my facialist was down to chat with me as I recounted the events from the night before. She reassured me that a crime was barely committed.
Putting the apartment together hasn’t been easy. It feels like a real adult space, not like the apartments built for moving out that I’ve grown accustomed to. I don’t think Taryn and I would even have beds to sleep on if it weren’t for our friend Ian insisting that building furniture is something he finds really fun. Odd. Ian built Taryn’s bed on his birthday (big heart, selfless, perfect) and came over the next weekend while I was out running errands with my dad to build mine, while Taryn kept him company by quizzing him with her hypotheticals until I returned. Whenever I am talking badly about men, I am never talking about Ian. We rarely get sentimental with each other sober, but being close to him is something restorative for me, and I never take it for granted, even though he’d probably joke otherwise. I think the art of being a friend is similar to cursive or Latin; it’s mostly untaught, and most people don’t see the worth in keeping it alive. I don’t really know how Ian does it. He’s a better friend than me. I want to say he was raised right, but I know too much about his family, so I don’t think that’s true.
Everything is a ghost to me.
I described my constant emotional state in group therapy as a ‘rattling cage’. I’m not completely sure what that means, and I think my unclearness about it makes it all the more true. There is something so loud and shaky and metallic about my insides. Everything I feel comes with a ping or a pop. Maybe I’m more like a microwave than anything. It’s impossible for me to leave a moment unchanged. I wish I could just leave things as they were, but the only way out I know is to shake things around until I’m a little punctured.
Purchased a book on Peter Pan Syndrome (x). I would love to say I got it as a joke, (maybe), but turning around and looking at the year I’ve had, and the patterns I’ve sewn, it seems like a worthy necessity. I never really considered my attraction to these types of men to be related to my own father, which might be foolish, and it only occurred to me the other night while I was at an impromptu girls’ night at my friend Brittany’s apartment. We were sitting on the carpet, playing the life story game, and I mentioned offhandedly that I never knew my father to eat anything that didn’t come out of a box with a cartoon on it. I was kinda stunned when I said it, and then even more moved later that night when I laid in bed thinking about it as everything clicked. He gave himself cancer mostly because of his diet—letting his comfort and novelty override potential danger. It’s a shame that I’ve become so endeared to the childlike stuff. There was a year of my life where I was extremely put off by it, but I’ve developed a taste for it again. I’m hoping I can return to that place of dislike, but currently, I’m too pulled by my desires. I guess acting like my father feels too good.
I think my biggest mistake was making love the project.
It occurred to me the other evening that I’ve been crying to the same Lomelda album, 4E (x), for almost 10 years. I remember seeing her perform it all the way through in 2016 when she opened up for my friend’s brother’s band and feeling pulled immediately, writing the lyrics I could catch down in my Notes App to Google later. One of the only things that soothes me in true-stupid-turmoil is wondering who hurt Lomelda. It’s the only exercise that has been able to distract me from my upsets since my high school years. I always wonder if she was hurt in a similar way to me, if whatever happened that made her write this music is parallel to the part of my life that brings me back there.
I don’t think I’ve ever compartmentalized something. Emotional open season. Always.
I don’t sleep with a pillow. I have pillows on my bed, but I don’t use them. I have them there so it can create the illusion that I don’t sleep like a dog with my head flat on the mattress.
My birthday is coming up next month, and it seems like I made a massive mistake of telling too many people I was going to have a party. I don’t think I’m going to have a party.
I’ve spent nearly every Thanksgiving since 2020 in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, with my friend Clare and her family. I never thought Thanksgiving would matter to me; family stuff has never come easy, and in 2020, when I was essentially asked by my parents never to return home right before the holidays, Clare’s family let me spend Thanksgiving with them, reintroducing me to the idea of human kindness. I don’t throw around the word “priceless” often, but I don’t think I could invent anything worth trading for my stays in Wyomissing. My heart is never fuller than when I’m opposite Clare on the couch in her warm house, out of breath from running around in close quarters after her parents have gone to bed. Though I’m never there for long, it helps fill the gap of lost time inside me that still longs for an easy childhood. I think the highlight of this year was the night we went out to the only bar that seemed to be open in town and chatted up two local guys—one of them reassuring me, before he even spoke, that he thought I looked like Zoë Kravitz, but he WASN’T hitting on me because he was married. Lol. Forced both of them to take a picture with me.
This month ends as many of them do. I’m here in my bed. Tired. I’ve only left it once to pee since I started my work for today. I woke up in a panic, which seems to be my new usual. I’m waiting on a few paychecks, my heart is still unstill some shit I shouldn’t even be thinking about. I considered taking an Ativan, but I find submitting behavior early in the morning is actually akin to quitting before you even try. I just ordered sushi from the place a few blocks away that got shut down by the health department because of some bio-hazard in the kitchen, but I do not care. Their 2-for-1 special does me a lot of good, even if it’s poisoning me. Their 2-for-1 special does me a lot of good, even if it makes me behave like my dad. I’ll upload this to Substack a little later in the day than I would like, eat, and continue my work, letting the feelings of home hit me over and over until it’s time for bed.
P.S. - New Yorkers, please clear your calendars for January 2nd!!! Announcement on Instagram (x) soon!
peace and love forever <3
Mackenzie xoxoxxo
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