Okay, maybe it was an Uber.
I’m not sure if the era of a Rite-Aid purchased Schick sliding down my calf was before or after we protested capitalism, racism, and patriarchy. I can’t remember if it was the time I couldn’t afford to pay the balance that I owed, trying to trick the app with my delayed Paypal, and used Lyft on a different credit card because screw the train when NYC always has you running ten minutes late.
There was lip balm in the cuts I’d created on my thighs.
My Spanx was making its way down my tummy again.
And how the hell was I getting home on a teacher’s salary?
It was the 2nd of the month and rent was past due, and I’d spent $50 of it on school supplies. I will write the check, deficit my account, and eat air and train rides for another week and a half. Please don’t tell my mother.
The people that I’m headed to meet will tell you that I’m superhuman. They will tell you that I’m flexible, resourceful, and filled with wonder. They are not privy to the six loads of laundry, the dirty dishes, and the planner that’s been untouched. They know nothing of the dilapidated couch, the text to an ex-boyfriend, and the Netflix that watches me sleep.
I ask my therapist if I’m depressed. She smiles, through my phone screen because I am too busy to make it to her office, “No, girl. You’re a mess.”
We laugh together. It takes 20 sessions to realize that therapists are not there just to label you and prescribe you. They are there to vent with. They are there to deal with your inadequacies. They are there to watch you fall. They’ll teach you how to catch yourself.
She teaches me how to catch myself, “I’m just playing. Seriously, something always falls to the wayside when everything else is going well. You can’t be so hard on yourself.”
I think about my career.
It is going well.
At least that’s what my social media highlights will tell you.
“Business is good.”
My dad used to ask me the same question, every time he took his card from his wallet. He’d say, “How’s business, Erica?”
I would smile and play along, “Business is good.”
I was taught that if you discussed business in the slightest, the transaction could be one on the dime of your company. Good thing my father was self-employed.
But how do you charge brokenness to the game?
I sit at dinner flipping my debit card between my fingers, praying it makes the swipe, when a friend says, “I got this.”
Those three words sound like heaven to my ears. This is not just because I am saved and fed. This is because I yearn to utter those three words without feeling like an impostor. I covet the day when I solidify the notion that I’m doing this adult thing the right way. I am hungry for someone to tell me that I commandeered whatever task anxiety surrounds, on a Tuesday.
I stir the wine glass in my hand, because it’s something I’ve seen on television and not because I know what the hell I’m doing, while another friend laughs about my nervousness.
“You get everything you want, Erica. You got this.”
I’ve been spending years trying to fathom whether her words are laden with jealousy or hope. I stop calling when I realize that I’ll never figure it out.
I repeat it again, “The other applicants are Ivy League grads. They have way more of a shot than I do.”
They’ve stopped listening. No one can recall that I have generalized anxiety disorder, or hear the loud thump of my heart, or the urge to leave their presence, over the sound of our next order.
We start talking about someone else’s problems. We leave, when we are too engrossed with our phones instead of our lives. We part ways.
I hope that we’ll get together again, but I’m sure that it will be some new variation. I will sit at a table with a new set of women, months from now in this same restaurant, in the only spot I know...because memories.
One woman will be a co-worker.
One will be a friend that was here the last time and happened to be in the neighborhood.
One will be a friend of a friend that sits silently and awkwardly.
They’re different as shit, but they all have one thing in common. The co-worker will speak first, “So, y’all know my friend. She’s like superwoman. She does...”
Her speech turns to muffled sounds and once again I’ve been robbed of the opportunity to introduce my own existence.
The silent girl will speak last, “Oh, I know you. I follow you on Twitter.”
She’ll send random texts for months after this moment. You’ll regret giving her your number. Her messages will come in on nights like this one, where you yearn authentic human interaction, and she is more infatuated about something she just saw online about you, your busy, your career, your perceived “cool,” instead of just getting to know you.
You yearn for someone to truly scratch the surface. Don’t you girl?
Scrape.