: aka
>This is a work of autofiction. Any names or characters, businesses or places, events or incidents, are possibly fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is likely coincidental. Or not<
Out of all the pieces I have shared with you, this might be the most difficult one to put out. So far, in my writings, I have been nothing but honest, allowing my most vulnerable sides to be known to you: an unknown audience comprised of people I do actually know. I have been fairly comfortable with this level of openness. But the story that I do want to share now goes a bit beyond that. This story is a strange one. I am trying to piece it together as I write it, finding fragments on my phone, in my wallet, on my body. But I am hoping that putting it out there will be revealing, more than to you, to myself. I want to understand, with you- my dear readers- the story that I became an unaware protagonist of. Because, as you will soon come to understand, it is a story I did not live, it is a story I did not even write. What I did live, and what I will write, is the story of how, a few days ago, I woke up to drafted blog entries detailing events of which I have no recollection. Yet it is me, undeniably so, writing them, living them. It's me, it's my voice, it's my thoughts, it's my actions. All plausible, all disputable.
But don't let me get ahead of myself. Let me give you some context. Let us start from the beginning.
I had tried everything to attempt some form of regularisation of my sleep. My very own practice of unrest was exhausting. The only thing that seemed to help was a strict management of time spent on my phone. I had purchased a lock box with a timer, the ones people buy to stay away from liquor or food or other substances of dependence. I allowed myself to be online only between 8:30 pm and 8:30 am. Desperately disciplined.
It turned out that using dating apps was the only thing that could put me to sleep. I had gotten into the habit of swiping in my bed, half asleep, un-alert. There was something meditative about the process of moving my fingers up and down and across my keyboard, swiping left left right left left left right became automated. So automated that I would completely doze off, waking up to chats with guys I swore I had not swiped right on. Occasionally the messages would move to Snapchat, a space I felt impersonal enough for what I wanted from these men. My disciplined desperation led to enough matches to carry out 6 to 12 separate conversations at once. No need to wait idly for a guy’s reply when you have 10 more double texting you.
I had never felt the need to meet any of them in real life. My intended form of desperation called for a very specific type of isolation which sincere direct human interaction would have ruined. I felt a need to protect the virginity of the hole in my chest. Maybe I was just scared to fall into the trap of a smile, afraid to be charmed, to see any trace of a stranger's interest in who I was. Somehow my digital double and the virtual form of connection I could establish this way felt the right amount of detached cold frustrating insignificant to fit with what I thought my practices of indulgence called for. And so I half consciously went on with my sleep texting. At 8:30 am my phone and all its contents would be locked away. In the morning I felt no need to look back at these messages. They existed in a place and time beyond consciousness. And either way, Snapchat made it its job to delete them for me.
This went on for a while. I was still moving through my days tired, but there was something peaceful about the routine I had created for myself. For a brief moment I felt like maybe I was getting back to my old self. I did not know if I liked that or not. When I first experienced the panic that led me down the path of desperation, I could not tell for how long I needed to live like that before the gap in my chest would close. I was just trying things, throwing illogical behavioral patterns at the wall and seeing what would stick. A state of reflective trance began to permeate my waking moments: what does it actually mean to be desperate, why is one act desperate and why is another one not, how can it be true pure desperation if ultimately I am the one controlling it. Looking back at it, after all that has happened, this whole pursuit was me constructing a narrative, giving a name to something (the hole, the panic) that I did not understand but that I knew was happening to me regardless. I wasn’t in control insofar as I was writing the script of my life. I was in control because I was carrying out all my acts of desperation, especially the ones I knew were stupid hurtful inconsiderate greedy sloppy pathetic, with such pure sheer conviction, that they HAD to be part of a narrative. Ideally my narrative. I was the author, actress, and director all at once. I improvised without knowing a script was even written. The artist and the muse, at once, unaware of each other’s presence. This is to say that the little theatre of mysery I orchestrated was scripted and unscripted, reality tv but in real life. It is much easier now, with hindsight, to see the scenes, the characters, the plot points, the gaps, the patterns.
My subconscious, I guess, decided that too much self doubt and self reflection was not fit for a truly desperate person. My subconscious, I guess, decided to give me a push. I was swallowed deeper into my impulses.
This became evident one unassuming end of autumn morning when I woke up feeling an odd headache. My mouth tasted like cigarettes and cheap beer. A pile of clothes haphazardly thrown over my chair: black dress, black tights, black thong. Besides this, nothing different. I took a peek at my chest, nothing new. I resisted the urge to check my phone, it was 8:34, I was already betraying my rules. I ignored the incident, I moved on, thought maybe I slept walked and slept smoked and I guess slept drank a beer. That night, before going to sleep, I resisted the urge to find traces of my night through the likely missing cash in my wallet or potential photos in my camera roll. I hopped back on tinder and began my ritualistic swiping. The morning after I woke up to a similar scene. This time my pack of cigarettes (ultra light vogues) was empty. No dress or tights on the chair cause I was still wearing them. No trace of make up, my skin as soft as usual: I did not get undressed but I still did my full skincare routine. I tried to hide it from myself, but I began to worry. At 8:30 pm, I took out my phone and locked away my house keys, afraid of what my unconscious might do that night. I woke up half naked, tight little skirt lying at the bottom of my bed, window to my balcony open. So, that night, I plastered my walls with post its, urging night time me to stay inside. I woke up to them torn to pieces. On one I had even scribbled an answer: "Please don't go out" "Why not", I had replied. This Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde situation did not sit right with me, but I also was scared that in repressing it I would make it worse. But I could not lie, not even to myself, there was something intriguing and sensual and exciting about those mornings and the haze they brought with them. I started to think that maybe my nighttime double was right. While it was scary not being able to recall what I was doing those nights, I thought: why not go out? why not indulge like that? why not abandon myself to the night? My choice of underwear (or lack thereof on the third night) suggested meetings with one or multiple men. The lack of any anomalous physical sensation anywhere on my body suggested the lack of any sexual interaction. If my assumptions were right, I was being a very responsible sleepwalker. That night I stayed awake, hoping to see myself transform and live through the eyes of my nightly double. But nothing, for the first time in four days of sleep texting/walking, I remained too awake and too alert for anything to happen. Still myself all the way to the morning, or a groggy and disappointed version her. As night time came again, I returned to my swiping habit. I woke up to a text message that somehow escaped my notification walls, my snapcastle. "Good morning :)". I felt like puking.
But it was too late. My conscious had rearranged itself into something or someone outside of a normative view of the self, of my self, something or someone both outside and within me. From scared to curious to devoted. I embraced the chasm, I condoned the mirrored image, I rationalized the split. I told myself this was all in line with my plan. But honestly, maybe, I just wanted to get laid.
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