What Does the Narrator Want

There are certain times in life that feel like dividing lines etched into a window to your psyche. Natural confluences of moments that come together to make you contemplate the “what next” of it all.

I feel stuck at the edge of movement, unsure which way to go.

In the last six months, I’ve gotten a promotion, adopted a cat, started meds for ADHD, loved fiercely and had my heart broken a couple of different ways, gone back to the office, gotten my kids vaccinated and myself boostered, and finally, gotten Covid.

When the event you’ve been avoiding for nearly two years finally comes to pass, it lends itself to those demarcated spaces.

We’re all fine. Between holidays, covid, and snow my kids have only been in school for five days since December 17 – but we’re fine. Not in a dog with a cup of coffee sitting in a room on fire sort of way – no, we’ve all actually recovered and now there is both a certain sense of freedom and fear that comes with this type of “what next.”

The kids were back from winter break for four days when Lorelei said her throat was scratchy. The next day her temp was 101. Home rapid test was positive almost the second the snot hit the little window and suddenly the rest of us became walking Schrodenger’s time bomb vectors of disease.

The CDC doesn’t give good guidelines for what to do when you’re living in a household with Covid and isolating from the other people in your house just isn’t feasible. Besides, we were all already exposed.

Then Rowan got sick and spent a night quite literally tossing and turning on top of me at which point it was all fuck it from there.

The kids got better and I got sick and at least they didn’t burn down the house. That was basically all I asked. I ordered $200 worth of crafts and Play-Doh. I paid for food to be delivered. My friends made donuts and Mexican food appear as if by magic.

But now, we’re fine and it’s snowing and my world is quiet for a minute. Probably literally a minute. Between the low-key and the capital T trauma over the last decade combined with OCD, my tendency is to see it as the shoe hanging from a tightly-wound hair-trigger coil above my head as I stand on a cliff. It’s hard to tell if the precipice is a long way down the hard way or a launchpad.

I’m single, which I can look at as “between relationships” or try to accept it for what it is in this moment. Relationships take a lot of time and energy, especially when you tend to jump in with both feet and leave the fallout for the future version of you.

I’m in a network of Facebook writing groups specifically for anyone who is not a cis-man. Someone asked how to go from writing personal essays to pulling it all together for a book.

The advice that resonated with me was, “Ask yourself what the narrator (you) wants. And what is stopping her from getting there?”

Yes, I want to be in a serious, connected relationship with someone who actually wants to be there too. That last part being more relevant than I previously would have considered. I want it so badly I can feel and taste both it and its absence in the same way I can feel the spring lurking beyond the winter.

In. My. Bones.

But there are other things I want, and I cannot force them all into my life simultaneously. For some reason “go on dates” became the gold standard of living as a single person and I feel judged if I just… don’t.

It feels like there can’t be valid reasons to step off that treadmill, even if just for a little while.

But my heart is tired.

So, maybe it’s time to give some attention to those other desires.

What does the narrator want?

I want to connect with the rest of you.

I want to write again. I want to necessitate the firing of emotional neurons in pursuit of finding confusing truths we all somehow missed along the way.

I don’t know if this narrator will ever write a book. I haven’t yet figured out what the universal theme would be. I don’t know how to find the major conflict, arc, or growth.

But I know that we all grow whenever you tell me, “I’ve never been able to put that into words before.”

Maybe if I listen to those whispers I will find the common thread. Or maybe I will always reach out via essays and Facebook posts.

Either way, the enterprise is worthy, as are we all.