WRITER’S BLOCK

October 10, 2020

Hi Ella

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How are you?

When you read that, you’ll probably feel the anxiety make your heartbeat pulse irregularly. “Hi Ella,” followed by the three dots in the text bubble that surfaces, disappears, then resurfaces again. It’s the not knowing more than anything else that’s scary. What could they want this time? Where did I fuck up? What have I done wrong again?

But no, I’m not here to chastise you or ask how you’re doing only to reveal later on what I actually want from you. Actually, it’s me. Well, I guess, you from the past. I’m writing to you because it was just World Mental Health Day and I thought to myself when I woke up that morning, what better thing to do than to reflect and write to my future self?

As you remember, I’ve written to past Ella before, younger, more naive Ella that was still learning how to stand on her own. Maybe you’ll notice that I keep saying our name. I know it makes you uncomfortable, because it still makes me feel weird every time I hear anyone say it out loud. We chose this name, remember, when we moved to America. We thought it sounded pretty when we were five years old, but I don’t know if we ever grew into it. I think it’s because we grew up hearing our Chinese nickname more often, and every time we heard “Ella,” it was more punitive rather than positive. I mean, yeah, people call me by this name, but do you? Do you call yourself Ella?

Our names are just the part of who we are that makes us human. I think I never called myself this name because I have a hard time remembering that I’m human. You’ve lived in my head before, so you know what it’s like in there. I really just want to get out. 

But the truth is, Ella, I’m writing to you because I’m actually feeling a little bit lost. It feels like I wander and wander and wander, but I don’t end up at any particular destination. And the fact is, I have no clue where I’m heading either. And so I was wondering, have you found yourself yet? Or are you still looking?

I’ve been feeling out of touch in therapy lately. It’s been a little hard trying to connect, because I’ve changed therapists so often in the past few months. It doesn’t feel like this newest therapist really gets me yet. She does a good job of listening to me, but it feels like she’s not so much working through my problems with me as she is just trying to map out who I am as a person. 

My head is spinning a little bit right now because it’s hard for me to be this honest with someone, even myself, even you. Because I don’t know what you’re like in the future, but I’ve found from experience that you tend to be really critical of your past selves. 

One thing every therapist has pointed out early on in our sessions, regardless of my later experiences with them, is that I am really bad at “vulnerability.” Sorry that’s in quotes, I’m still just grappling with the concept myself. If I’m actually being 100% honest here, I think I’m bad at being vulnerable because I was taught to hate it. Baba always used to tell us, “You can fool anyone in the world. Anyone but yourself. You can never lie to yourself.”

And so the words twisted themselves into an ugly root at the base of my brain and festered. I’m sorry that I’m probably telling and going to tell you things you already know. But if I write it down, maybe you’ll remember what I was thinking back then and love your past selves a little more. 

Being vulnerable is like being weak. It’s like showing your Achilles’ heel and begging to not be shot. That’s how I always saw it, at least. Vulnerability was letting your strength down. So…since I viscerally hate being vulnerable,  there really isn’t anyone I want to practice it with. So in the same vein, I guess the only person I can reach out to is you. I hope that’s okay. 

So that blog is coming along, kind of. I only write in bouts. I can only write with the rise and fall of my moods. When I’m feeling the energy in me, I’m able to write. And then I go through dry spells when I’m unable to write. Sometimes it’s because I’m so busy, I can’t. And if I wait too long, I’ll just feel less and less like writing because I can’t write so I just start to avoid it. 

That happened these last couple of weeks. I’ve been working so goddamn much because I just can’t seem to stop. It’s like Newton’s law, like if I’m in motion, I kind of just stay that way. And I program myself to this routine until I wear myself out. So I stopped writing and because I stopped, I just kept…stopping. Fuck. So yeah, I don’t know what I’m writing really. 

So I’m writing to you. 100% real, from me to you, the stream of consciousness that comes into my mind. I’m going to stick a hand into the shower of thoughts in my head in this moment. I hope that fixes my writer’s block, at least just a little bit. I’m also going to try to doubt myself less. This is actually something I should talk about in therapy. See, writing to you might actually be good for me. 

That’s another thing, too. This whole idea of fixing, of repairing. Fixing implies broken. Fixing implies imperfection. Fixing implies not enough. I’ve always been so adverse to that word. Fixing. Because I’ve tried so long to fix something in me, not knowing what it is I’m fixing, just knowing that I needed to be fixed. And then I decided f u c k  that I don’t need any FIXING who the hell gets to decide that I need to be repaired? I do, I get to decide. And I decided I didn’t need to be fixed, but for some reason, that didn’t make me feel any less empty deep down inside. 

If anyone that’s not us reads this right now, they’d think we’re a little nuts. But if it explains anything at all, I see shapes in my head all the time, which is how I learned that my thoughts are circular. I repeat things in my head, over and over, in this compulsive, non-stopping record in my head. I relive, replay, over and over again, reanalyze everything because that’s just what I do. I can’t explain it. I’ll forget something that just happened a few minutes ago, but I’ll remember the name of someone during a precise snapshot of a tour exactly two years ago for a lifetime. That’s got to be a little fucked up, right?

But anyway, I doubt myself a lot. I question my own sanity, my own validity, my own rationality. So when I’m being “100% honest” with you, I’m writing to you no filter and trusting in my own voice. Even if it’s batshit crazy. Even if I’m a little fucked up. 

Remember those days we used to cry? When we’d just sob uncontrollably and it was so ridiculous because nothing seemed to be able to stop the tears. Yeah, I remember them too. I haven’t really been able to cry lately, unless I’m especially hormonal. 

Most days it feels like I’m watching myself in slow motion, kind of like I’m moving in molasses. I am numb and I’m not actually feeling anything at all, so I have to let my mind do it for me instead. I dream up something crazy, something that could never happen, I imagine myself sinking, drowning, plummeting from the glass windows of a skyscraper, falling, falling, free falling until I trick my heart into feeling it too. The sickening lurch, diving into the pit of my stomach until at last, a tingle in my fingertips so I know I’m still breathing, still grounded, still fine, still…existing. I tap into my senses and I try, try, try my damndest to feel. 

I smell paper burn and smoke billows overhead, even though a ceiling encases me. I fixate my eyes on the smoke gathering overhead, writhing in serpents all around me, engulfing me, swirling into white solid above me. And I hear shit, Ella, I fucking swear. Random thumps, a hint of a rustle here and there. It drives me fucking mad when I get startled, but I can almost swear sometimes, I see the softest silhouette of someone there. I know someone is watching me, someone is there when I’m not looking, someone, some presence, whether it’s protecting me or out to get me, I couldn’t fucking tell you. But I know it’s there. Sometimes, I think it’s me. Like you know how we dissociate and we don’t feel in our bodies, we just kind of exist outside of it and watch ourselves from the outside in? So sometimes I think that presence that silhouette that SHADOW, that could be me. Scares the living shit out of me, but I’ve trained myself to stop flinching when I catch the faint flicker in the corner of my eye.

I see faces, too, gliding past me all the time. You know that scene in Spirited Away when all those spirits disembark the ship at night in the bath house town? You see their faces first before the rest of their bodies materialize. For me, it’s like that just in the background of my day. I think I’m imagining it actually, these faces, these shadows silhouettes flickers, the sounds. Is it just vivid imagination or am I actually kind of crazy? You don’t have to answer because we both know. 

Sometimes if I were to look at our life as if it were a movie, I’d see it as an inevitable car crash. It’s like you’re just waiting for the impact in that split microsecond when time stops. In that instant, that brief flicker, I can feel. Everything all at once, and then once that flicker is gone, it all disappears. Then I feel the impact as my soul collides back into my body, slamming my conscience into my skull. And I realize. I wrote all those poems, those essays, those blog posts. I was getting “better.” I was getting “not sick.” I was getting “normal.” 

And yet I wasn’t. I’m not fucking normal. I can’t possibly be, not with the way I think, the circular thoughts, the soaring imagination, morbid ideations. I’m not happy. Which is shitty to say because I have more than I could have ever asked for, so why the fuck do I still feel this way? Why am I allowed to feel this way? Why is it the only feeling I can be certain of is NOT happy. What a grand fucking contradiction.

I’m pretty over this whole depression bullshit. I’m done with the anxiety. I could throw it away and say I’m NOT any of these things anymore, but it’d be erasing a part of myself I just finally learned to acknowledge. Not even ACCEPT. Acknowledge. 

I want, so very badly, to write about my soul. I like to think I write from the bottom of my heart, but how do I know if that’s connected in any way to my soul? I don’t even know where it is. I just feel empty inside. 

So my point is, Ella, I don’t know. I can’t possibly, nor do I think I ever will. What do I not know about? Everything. Yeah, that about sums it all up. I’m confused. My eyes lie. My ears lie. My heart lies. My mind lies. But they say everything happens for a reason and I’m pretty sick of wanting to die. I’m also tired of thinking about death all the fucking time. Because the real truth is, I probably don’t actually want to die. I just don’t want to be here. Now. 

So if this ever gets to you and you remember to read it, I just hope you’re there and that you carry me with you. This part of me. The crazy fucked up wild stream of consciousness confused completely 100% a wreck part of me. And even though I wish just a little bit that you figure your shit out and aren’t half as messed up as I am right now, I hope you haven’t changed. 

I hope you still like the quiet of the early morning and the dusk right after a miraculous sunset. I hope Humans of New York still makes you tear up and that little kids make you laugh. I hope you still think about Taiwan as much as I do and that papaya milk and minced pork rice still make you giddy inside. I hope you don’t completely give up on love because I’m pretty cynical about all that right now. And I hope wherever the fuck you are, whatever the fuck you’re doing, you’re doing it because you want to. And that you never ever have to be anything other than yourself ever again. 

And honestly, Ella, even if none of these things are true anymore, even if one day you wake up and have to be not you again, I just hope at the very fucking least, you’re still around. I think maybe knowing that would make me happy, even for the briefest moment. 

I’m going to bed now, but I’ll probably keep writing to you now and again. Who else is going to listen to me spout my mouth about random shit like this anyway? 

Saying good night is dumb, but good night. I hope tomorrow isn’t quite the fucking shitshow today and yesterday and the day before and the day before were. You probably never tell yourself this because I know I don’t. But I love you. I’ll remind you every time I write if I have to, because I know you’ll forget if I don’t. 

Always, 

You from a little while ago