What To Say When They Ask You Where It Hurts

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Everywhere and nowhere.

What I mean is, it doesn’t. It’s not a hurt. I’m not in pain. For all intents and purposes, I’m fine. Completely fine.

I went out last night and I ate fried dumplings and talked about birthdays and the bar that always plays nature documentaries was playing one about ants and I liked the bartender’s shirt. I went two drinks over my drink limit but I woke up this morning on time without an alarm anyway and I’m about to walk my dog to the coffee stand so like, everything is fine. I booked a hotel for my best friend’s wedding and I’m losing weight so I’ll fit into the dress and everything is fine.

Except

I can’t really breathe. It feels like something is sitting on my chest. Everything feels heavy and weighted and like I’m about to nod off to sleep and doing that snap back motion when your head doesn’t have anywhere to go so you just wake back up. But I’m not sleeping. I Amazon-ed Melatonin to take for the first time since 2006 but it’s still just sitting in the mailbox because I haven’t had the interest to get up and go get it from downstairs for two and a half days. I’m afraid all the time. I overcompensate. I use things like all caps and exclamation points and emojis to make it seem like I’m not completely and entirely made up of static.

But still

It doesn’t hurt. Nothing hurts. I don’t feel anything. The most exciting thing to happen to me in 96 hours was when I got to tell someone how to fix an open wound on his leg and then berating him for being an adult who doesn’t have Neosporin at their house. I’m not sleeping but feel like I could for years. I don’t care about anything, I don’t care about mistakes, I don’t care about me. The only reason I’ve walked at all lately is because I have a dog and I don’t feel like she should have to suffer just because I’m a piece of shit.

And also

There’s constantly something looming. There’s something that’s sitting on my shoulders and making everything difficult and I can’t seem to shake the idea that it would be better and easier and more fulfilling to not wake up. That I’m scared of the emptiness, the ambivalence, that constant and overwhelming lack of motivation. I’ve felt like I have to throw up for days but there’s nothing there. I either don’t eat or eat everything in 15 minutes. Everything is either completely lackluster or annoyingly extreme.

So

When you ask me what hurts, where it hurts, what to do or if I’m okay.

I honestly don’t even know.