Get ready with me!
Journey to the center of a meltdown.
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Something happened this week that hasn’t happened to me in a very, very long time. I couldn’t think of what to write for this essay. I played around with a few ideas, but nothing seemed to stick. I wrote half of an essay about how much I’ve learned about myself from my five year journal, then promptly deleted it. I briefly considered dedicating a few hundred words to my all-encompassing and slightly concerning obsession with the real-life romantic comedy which is Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, then reminded myself that I really have to get a grip (no, but really, I do). I thought about writing about a product I love, or what I’ve been cooking lately, and, very briefly, contemplated writing a re-watch recap of the Disney Channel Original Film Model Behavior (honestly, I probably would have gone with that one but I couldn’t find it streaming anywhere — a huge loss, though I do suggest checking out this clip on YouTube to be thrown back in time). It’s not that any of these couldn’t have been good ideas on any other day, but today, they just all felt wrong. No, no, no. Blah, blah, blah. Nothing felt right. And then, the feeling reminded me of something.
It reminded me of the particular experience of getting ready to go somewhere when everything starts to slowly unravel, outfit by outfit, item by item. At first, you start out totally normal. It’s a day like any other day, aside from the fact that if you’re me, it is almost certainly 2-3 days before the start of your period. But otherwise, things are things are good. You are getting ready to have a fun, low key afternoon. A nice date night. A trip to the store. You have an outfit planned that is cute. Appropriate for the occasion. Everything is grand. This is what I like to call Phase 1: The Calm. It starts out slow, you know? You put on the outfit that you had planned. It looks fine. Right? Of course it does, you think. You’re being silly, you say. But then you pause. No, you realize. It isn’t right at all. But that’s… fine. Yes, it’s fine, you convince yourself. It’s going to be fine. Maybe you motivate yourself with a bit of tough love, “I could do better than this!” Or perhaps there’s even a cheery exclamation of, “Ah, I have just the thing!” before you go back to your closet. And this is the crucial moment, the tipping point. Because then you try on that thing, the one you’re convinced will be right, and it turns out that that, too, is wrong. It doesn’t work either. Then it begins. Suddenly, you’re half-naked, pulling things in and out of your closet with wild abandon, items flying through the air. It’s like sort of sick, twisted early 2000s movie makeover montage. Except there is no after. There is no perfect outfit. You are changing in and out of clothing faster than ever. You are sweating like this is the final push of a Soul Cycle class. New top. New pants. New dress. New skirt. Tap back. Go again. Start from scratch. Stop trying to try on a pair of jeans over your shoes, for Christ’s sake. No, no, no, no, fucking no. Congratulations, you’ve entered Phase 2: The Panic.
Now, you start to spiral. You thought that was spiraling before? No. Oh, no. Jeans feel tighter than normal. Fabrics feel scratchier than you remember. You can swear at one point this bra looked good on you, but now it feels impossible. Inconceivable, really. You look in the mirror and only see fruit shapes. Apple. Pear. Tomato. Watermelon. Honeydew melon. Butternut squash. Spaghetti squash. Regular old squash. You are spinning out of control. You are squash. You hold up an outfit you once thought was incredible, worthy of being seen and appreciated, and discover that it is now the worst thing you have ever seen. It is heinous. It is something Snooki wore on The Jersey Shore. It is a costume for Fiona in the Broadway musical rendition of Shrek. It is a nightmare. Who was the person who bought the body-con floral dress? Surely, not I, you will think to yourself as you stuff yourself into it, anyway, stubbornly, even as you feel yourself enter into Phase 3: The Rage. This is where you know that nothing will work, but you keep going anyway, only to confirm the thing you already know which is that yes, you’re correct, there is only one solution now. The entire wardrobe has to go. It all must be destroyed. There is nothing salvageable, nothing good, nothing stylish. You are exhausted and sad and mostly naked now, a toddler pouting about nothing, your butt hanging out for all to see. Who cares? You think. Let them look. (Unclear who is looking). You fight back tears as you stare at the Great Dane-sized pile of discarded clothing on your floor.
You suddenly imagine taking a match to it all or showing up at the Goodwill donation drive-through in nothing but your strapless bra and a pair of Spanx. “Good luck finding anyone to take this garbage,” you’ll say as you pop the trunk and speed off, black plastic trash bags tumbling out as you drive away. In a final flourish, you take off the Spanx, too, throwing them out the window as you blast “Not Ready To Make Nice” by The Chicks. But of course, you won’t do this. You won’t throw out everything you own. You won’t burn all the clothing. You sure as hell won’t drop off the donation bag at Goodwill, at least not before driving around with it sitting in your trunk for four months first. And finally, you have arrived. Welcome to Phase 4: Defeat/Acceptance.
You look in the mirror, and there you are, slightly less squash-like than you were moments earlier but not quite back to your normal self, either. You take a deep breath and then you dig to the bottom of the Great Dane-sized pile, not allowing yourself to think about how long it will take you to put everything back in your closet. You pick out two pieces of clothing seemingly at random and put them on mostly out of spite. You consider how much easier would be if everyone could just walk around naked, how much colder. You look in the mirror, resigned. This will have to do, you say. You have things to do. Places to be. You can’t just fall apart like this. You tuck your shirt in, smooth your skirt. It isn’t so bad, you admit. Do you still want to cry? Sure, of course. That’s natural. But it’s not the end of the world anymore, either. You walk downstairs, your partner fully dressed and waiting, clearly ready to go but treading carefully. They popped in somewhere around The Calm and exited during The Panic, choosing to save themselves out of instinct. “Alright, let’s go,” you’ll say to them, like you’ve been waiting around for them all night. And then right on schedule, they’ll say it. You know it’s coming right away, but you brace yourself anyway. “Wasn’t that the first thing you had on?”
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Ridiculously relatable. Somewhere between Panic and Rage is also usually when I’m texting my best friend that I’m not coming, I don’t know why we made these plans, I can’t leave the house, and in fact I’m never leaving the house again.
“You are squash” killed me!!!!