what's the opposite of starting over?
on moving/leaving/loss/illness
I sit in my bedroom, surrounded by stuff and stuff and more stuff, and look at all in mild despair. The walls are covered in paper, every surface cluttered with knickknacks and random crap, extra books piled on the floor. I have no idea how to start packing.
This isn’t like any of the other times I’ve moved. I’m not starting an exciting new chapter – not buying linen for my first dorm room or new furniture for a bigger apartment. I’m moving back in with my parents, leaving my life here behind because I’m no longer healthy enough to manage on my own.
I’m completely overwhelmed by the idea of taking everything I own and winnowing it down to just the things I can’t part with. I decide to start with my desk, thinking that at least I can take it drawer by drawer.
Unfortunately, the desk has never been organized. I’ve been shoving stuff in it willy-nilly for years. I dig out loose pages of a half-written play, binder clips and thumbtacks, a receipt from the eye doctor, a tangled string of copper lights. I untangle the lights, then throw them in a box to get tangled again. I pack the scale ruler I bought for a scenic design class in college, then have to go dig it back up when I realize I don’t need it anymore. This happens a lot as I pack – I want to hold on to things that don’t belong to me anymore. They belong to someone who never got sick, someone whose future is unpredictable enough that she may need to make scale diagrams again.
I throw away three pens that have run out of ink.
People keep expecting me to be sad about leaving. They ask me how I’m doing with an answer already in mind. I know I’ll mourn for this whole life I’m leaving behind at some point, but right now I don’t really feel anything. A little relieved, maybe, that I won’t have to suffer through it alone for much longer.
I’ve already lost most of my life here anyway. My job, my work in the theatre, many of my friends. I can barely leave the house. I can barely cook food. I’m scraping together a threadbare existence and it isn’t very hard to give that up. I was devastated two years ago. Now I’m resigned. I’m tired. I want to go home, and this doesn’t feel like home anymore.
I keep forgetting the dog is dead. I catch myself looking forward to seeing her again.
My bookshelves have needed pruning for a long time. I find a copy of Waiting For Godot from college that’s been warped by water damage, which I kept for some reason, even though I had to buy Beckett’s collected works for another class the next year. I spilled balsamic vinegar on my copy of Norwegian Wood when I was reading it, and not only did I keep it, I moved it here from my last apartment. I didn’t even like the book.
I throw these away. I make another pile to sell. I don’t get rid of nearly as many as I should. I have a hard time parting with anything even remotely sentimental. If I can remember buying it or finding it or getting it as a gift, if I can remember using it, I want to keep it. When I get rid of an object, the memories associated it with it will eventually fade, and it will be like it never existed, like I never held it. Which doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, but still it feels like a loss.
I’m often cranky. Irritability is apparently a symptom of ME. I don’t know if it’s really a symptom or just a natural response to being in constant low-level pain, stuck inside while you watch the people you love live their lives around you.
I have small bursts of bitchiness. I get annoyed hearing people complain about their jobs, because I can’t have a job. And then I feel stupid, because their complaints are perfectly reasonable and it’s not like I liked my job that much anyway.
I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t want people to stop telling me about their lives. I want to just not be annoyed by my situation, but my situation is annoying.
I’m standing in the kitchen when the sadness finally hits me. It’s here that I’m most confronted with the person I’d wanted to be. Here is the expensive Dutch cocoa powder. Here are the pots and pans and dishes, accumulated over seven years. Here is the heart-shaped cake pan I got for Christmas, still in its plastic because I got sick before I finished unpacking.
I really love food. I used to sink so much time and energy into cooking and baking projects when I could. I’d make a two day bread dough or a layer cake or coq au vin because I liked that these things were better when they took time. Now I buy precut vegetables because I can’t manage the work of chopping them myself.
It takes so long to put together a good kitchen. All the spices, the dry goods, the equipment. A lot of love and money has gone into the curation of these things. A lot of them have been gifts. I save a few things I really love. I leave most of it behind.
I think to myself that I used to be building a life. Now I feel like I’m selling it for parts.
The hardest thing is leaving my roommate. There’s no good word for someone I’ve lived with for seven years – both “roommate” and “friend” feel insufficient to describe the person I’ve shared every apartment I’ve ever had with. The person I’ve shared birthdays with, bought furniture with, eaten dinner with, who’s cut my hair and made me a bouquet of felt roses, who I’ve cried on and dedicated a play to.
It’s brutal splitting up the pictures and knickknacks we bought together. These things are meant to be together, they look good here because they’re part of a larger whole. We spend the longest time debating a pair of dollar store fabric wall hangings, one patterned with dogs and the other with cats. They were the first thing we ever bought together. They can’t be split up, and neither one of us wants to claim sole custody. Despite being cheap and silly – perhaps because they’re cheap and silly – they are immeasurably precious to us both.
The “renter friendly” adhesive we used rips huge chunks out of the drywall when we take the pictures down. I leave behind a mess that my roommate will have to deal with; a house full of scarred walls and empty spaces.
My sister comes to help me pack. She is so efficient it’s almost scary. I mostly point at things and then take a nap. I try not to feel guilty about her doing all the work, reminding myself that that’s the whole reason she’s here.
She packs up most of what I own in a day, and is able to take an earlier train back to New York. I’m so grateful for her help that I don’t have the words to adequately express what I feel, and probably do a very bad job of showing it.
I sit alone in my room, surrounded by boxes. It finally feels real that I’m leaving.
One night I can’t remember my address. I know the street name, but can’t come up with the house number. I’ve lived here for almost four years.
I can’t remember what bus I used to take to work. I can’t remember the meaning of a word I looked up ten minutes ago. Important dates pass me by. I forget to return phone calls. Annoyingly, I retain every word to a Jardiance commercial I’ve seen on TV.
The day that I leave Philadelphia for good is underwhelming. My parents carry everything out to their cars while I sit and watch them and feel useless. I look at my street and think that I’ll probably never see it again and am disappointed that this feels just like every other time I’ve left my house.
I’m so tired and distracted that I forget my cane. I don’t realize until we’re in New Jersey. I lean on my mom’s arm to walk to the rest stop and text my roommate an apology – one more thing I’ve left behind for them to deal with.
I settle in to life with my parents and I’m mostly not sad. Or at least I’m not any more sad than I have been.
I spend most of my time every day on the couch or in bed. The most effective treatment for ME is rest – both physical and mental. It is profoundly boring and unfulfilling.
One night there’s a solar storm and the northern lights are visible in Maine. My mom and I sit out in the backyard for hours, wrapped in blankets, watching the colors dance across the sky.
It’s one of those moments where the world feels impossibly big and beautiful. I feel very lucky to be here to see it, and to share it with someone I love.
I keep thinking I’m going to write this long, beautiful essay about moving and loss and whatever the opposite of a fresh start is. I keep thinking that I’ll write everything down, put it in order, and make it make sense. That once I write it down it’ll all have meant something. And if I can’t find some meaning it in maybe I can create something meaningful from it. Because otherwise what was all that suffering for?
But honestly it doesn’t even feel like suffering anymore. All the symptoms and the loss are just everyday, and boring, and deeply deeply meaningless.
I find myself in a situation where that scale ruler would have been useful after all.
I turn twenty-seven. I somehow feel younger than I did when I was twenty-four, more like a child.
My dad calls me downstairs one afternoon to show me two Savannah sparrows that have landed in the backyard. He teaches me how to recognize them by the distinctive yellow markings on their heads. We watch them for a while, pecking in the dirt.
I had been annoyed at first. When I’m in bed resting, the last thing I want to do is haul myself up and deal with the stairs. But the frustration quickly gave way to appreciation. I like looking out the windows with my dad, but more so I like that he wanted to share this with me.
If there is no meaning to be found in my daily pain and exhaustion, there is always meaning in this. Someone who loves me saw something beautiful, and wanted to make sure I didn’t miss it.
Illness is a very lonely thing, but I’m not alone. I was never alone. My world may have become infinitely smaller, but it is still full of love, and if nothing else that gives me enough reason to keep going.
I’ve been picking away at this post since April. I felt the need to write about this, and I’m not sure if I ever figured out what I was trying to say, but here we are. It’s been long enough.
Hi Franny,
Thank you for sharing your story, I know how much precious energy it takes. I can empathize with the emotions you are feeling. Know you are not alone. I also have ME/CFS, am mostly homebound other than doctors appointments, and live in Maine as well.