Renewal

It came to my attention recently that I do not know how to live without trying to live up to expectations. For as long as I have been aware of the world, I have been unable to ignore the feeling that someone is watching and measuring me up to some impossibly high standard that I have to reach somehow, sometime soon, no matter the cost. So I work. I have a job, I take at least 15 credits a semester, I attend church and clubs and fulfill my calling, I get my homework done on time and I have never paid a late fee for a test. Maybe I should be proud of this; I used to be proud of things like this. There was a sense of satisfaction in having things under control, but lately I have begun to see that I am wound so tightly that cracks have started forming where the pressure has built up. Instead of feeling at peace when I finish an assignment, I only feel my heart beating, working so I can work, and then I feel guilty. Even with all my knowledge of mental health and the negative impacts of stress, I am weak in the face of rest--I do not have the courage to embrace quiet moments or harmless fun. Perhaps all is not lost, though: I think I have it in me to change.

On Friday, I skip my last two classes and get on a bus. From the bus, I board a train, and from there I climb in my aunt’s car and go to Saratoga Springs, where my cousins Anna and Buck live with their four kids.

I hate to break it to you--this isn’t an irresponsible or carefree decision, although I’ll confess it is a bit impulsive. Anna and Buck are in Salt Lake, their babysitter has to leave at four, and my cousin Maddie is stuck at work and can’t come watch the kids like she had planned. Baby Johnny is only six months old, and though June has more confidence at 7 than I have had in my entire 19 years, she’s definitely not old enough to care for him, especially not with the 5 and 2 year-olds also home. I’m sure something would have worked itself out, but this is family.

Having the responsibility of four kids aside, this is rather rebellious...at least for me. I have skipped classes exactly once before, at least for something that wasn’t school related, or a funeral. Skipping was never an option I felt any real pull towards, before this point. School is important; I have always thought that getting an education is necessary, and though my mother would disagree, I basically always play by the rules. So other than the stress of public transportation and not wanting kids to die, I feel pretty free.

Hazel is 5, and I wonder if I should warn Anna about how much of myself I see in this girl, a firecracker with hair to match. She pulls me to a table strewn with paper and crayons, proudly showing me her “comic book.” On the first page is a squiggly line, almost a spaced out “me” in cursive. The book is called “The First Time We Saw the Dog.” There are no dog pictures in the entire book. I am dragged to Anna’s office, and deemed a suitable person to operate the stapler, so none of the story will ever go missing. Rose (2) wakes up from a nap and smiles when she sees me, not worried that it is not her mom picking her up. She reaches for crayons, but instead of drawing, she hands a purple to me. Her eyes are wide and clear, and she stares expectantly at me, frozen over a piece of printer paper.

I used to draw all the time. When I decided I preferred the stage, I stopped. As comfortable as I am in costume, a microphone broadcasting even my breaths to an audience, I have never been able to overcome my insecurity with a pencil. Art classes have always filled me with anxiety. People wonder why I always write in pen, and I don’t know how to tell them that with anything else all I can see are the black tables from my elementary school art room, a picture that doesn’t look right to me, even at six years old. There are so many things that I never realized could traumatize a person until now.

Rose is still looking at me. I should make the girls clean up the mess they’ve made. I should let them play with each other--they still think sisters are just built in best friends--and clean the kitchen or make a bottle so I am not overwhelmed when Johnny wakes up. I should have brought my backpack or laptop or something other than a journal and a phone charger to keep my wallet company when I left. There are a million things I should be doing.

A line, straight down. Purple. It should be gre--no. She gave me purple, I should use purple. A small circle, a little lopsided, not perfectly centered, sits about a quarter inch above the line. Still purple. Quickly, I add the petals, purple, and Rose laughs hysterically. I am not sure what is so funny about a flower, but I smile and let her scribble across the entire page.

When I was nine, we had a pottery unit in art. We could make anything we wanted. I had just read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and loved everything magical. I wanted to make something my mom could use. A pencil cup would be good, but I wanted to make it special. For Mother’s Day, she received a card, and the pencil cup shaped like a phoenix.

When the girls get bored with the crayons, they perform an interpretive dance number to “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” from Mulan. They don’t care that they have no idea what moves come next, they just do what they want. Sometimes this includes climbing and jumping off of the bunk beds they sleep in, or hanging upside down from the ladder. When they want me to dance, I decide to stop hesitating. The only times I have danced like this recently, I have been alone. Somehow these children are the best cheerleaders ever, and I stop worrying about the fact that I can’t stretch very far in jeans. I let go.

By the time my cousin Maddie escapes from work and joins us, I have watched an entire improvised play, painted nails, and done cartwheels. June made me a sandwich--it’s called the Mysterious Delicious and consists of brown bread, Nutella, and cotton-candy colored sprinkles. June named it. I wonder what it tastes like to her.

Things do eventually calm down a little, but when the kids’ parents come through the door everything explodes again. Johnny needs to be fed, but he isn’t screaming, so Anna plays with Rose for a minute before passing her off to Buck, a jungle-gym dad, and thanks Maddie and I. Somehow I feel like I should be thanking her. There is more to do tonight, but we stay at their house a few minutes longer. We ask Buck how Wicked was and try to throw the squished bread away without anyone noticing. Eventually, the impatient voices in our heads win again, and we begin the drive back to Provo.

Maddie likes to have Hamilton playing as she drives and we sing along, finding a comfort in the ease of cousins-turned-friends that, until moving here for school, I figured I would only have at family reunions. When Eliza Hamilton asks Alexander “Why do you write like you’re running out of time”, I know Maddie is thinking the same as me, wondering how much time is left, counting the things she must accomplish before class on Monday.

Once I am home, I could, would, should do homework, but my boyfriend calls. I am the artist in this relationship, but Quentin is likely more free-spirited than I am. Without his need to go and do and live, I doubt I would have seen half of Provo. It’s late, but that has never been a deciding factor in what we do on weekends. He wants to go bowling. I grab my shoes from the bag that used to hold my identity, and we head to the lanes.

Try as I might, I can’t ignore the part of me that says that I have already wasted so much time today, how dare I waste more, I am going to fail if I don’t stay home and work. Quentin can tell I am on edge, but he doesn’t judge me. How long have I lived with this time-bomb in my mind? How far can I push it before it explodes and I have to be productive or else I will fall apart? I don’t know, but it looks like tonight I will get closer to finding out. I want to go bowling.

At times, I feel I look at myself as a phoenix--wanting to be reborn. I keep reinventing who I am--I went from a super serious bowler to dead-set on being a performer and living life onstage within six months. I changed once again when I left home and came to BYU, deciding that I needed to be more open, direct, and courageous. This is pretty common. I think most people go through many phases in life trying to find the one that fits. However, we get impatient with the process of growing and decide that if we stick to something that isn’t making us happy and work until it does.

I think people make fun of bowling because it isn’t something you can rush. If you don’t take the time to prepare and breathe before you roll, it isn’t going to end well. There is a deliberation that can only be achieved through time, focus, and control. Weird as it sounds, bowling is half a mind game. There’s no rush to the finish involved.

It’s my turn first. I prepare for the approach, still a stickler for technique, although I quit bowling competitively five years ago. I used to do this twice a week, in scholarship leagues and state tournaments--the whole shabang. When people ask me why I stopped, I think about how it had all become a constant, unending competition. That’s what I never liked about sports--they take something fun and make it only about work. I only bowl for fun now. As I roll the ball down the lane, hitting just where I like it, cutting across the 1 and 2 pins, I think about the stress of being alive. Somehow my mind always ends up here.

In a John Mulaney monologue on SNL, he said “Everything is fast now and it’s totally unnecessary.” Our bodies and minds are not built for the world we’ve created. With the advancements of technology, our world moves much too quickly to be comprehended. As our methods got faster, we trained ourselves to do the same. Half the preschools nowadays are giving worksheets to 3 year olds, and instead of being precocious, toddlers reading is almost average. We push everything at our disposal to the limits--especially ourselves. We run on clocks that are five minutes ahead and getting faster, and it is killing us and we are glorifying all of this. What’s the point? There will always be more to do. We cannot work fast enough to have nothing left, so why do we feel like we have to get to that point before we can rest?

The crash of the pins jolts me out of my thoughts. Strike! I grin, and Quentin is already behind me, hugging me. I twist and wrap my arms around his neck, grateful that I have someone to save me from my head when I get lost in the chaos.

At the end of the game, we sit, fingers intertwined, staring at our scores. I got a 112--about 70 points lower than my average back in the day, but I tell myself that’s no reason to be ashamed--and I am already looking forward to next week’s rematch.

Phoenixes in legend burst into flames at the end of their lives, and rise, newborn, from the ashes. We glorify this beginning anew to the point that we call it “burnout” when we’ve worked ourselves to the point that we break. We think that if we do everything now, we will achieve our rest. However, the fact remains that we are not phoenixes. We are human. If we burnout, we will have to put the flames out ourselves, rescue the charred flesh, and nurture it back to life. Life will not be won by running faster than we have strength; we cannot work ourselves to renewal. We must take the time to stop and let it happen gradually, idle moment by idle moment.

Originally published at allthebestjess.wixsite.com/website on March 11th, 2019