Snow Soldiers and a Waste of Time

Bentley was an apathetic lump, lying on an expensive couch freshly reupholstered. I lifted his tiny body — standard Shih Tzu model, squished nose sniffing — from his blanket, where he spent hours waiting for Mom to get home from meetings, and work sites, and her daily eating of “literally nothing but a handful of cashews.” One thing about Mom was that she always came home sighing. She woke up sighing (I could almost always hear it from my bed) and she sighed while she worked, and as she shoulder-pushed through the door to the garage, with arms full of binders and carpet samples and, like, wood from relief society meetings and dinners with Dad and every other thing that dogged her.

She was predictable and consistent — faithful, even: every day the sighs, every day the cashews. She was an emotional locomotive with a strict schedule; she barreled into everything with a sad exhaustion that seeped into the colors of wherever she was or would be. When it came to the subject of Church her wet eyes betrayed — perhaps on purpose — a guilt, RE: “Going” that she dropped into my arms. She was desperate; she would have done just about anything if it would get me to follow her to that building (we could both be blameless there.) But my Not Going was at the core of her guilt RE: “The Types of People That Do and Don’t Go, What That Says About Them, and What People Will Say About It,” which kept bubbling and growing and weighing her down right along with those armfuls (she was shoulder-pushing through my door) — the guilt was getting to her, I could tell. And what was weird about it was how it wasn’t hers; it wasn’t about something she’d done or not. It was about…me. Somehow. Because I guess mothers see their children when they look in the mirror.

So with her, at least, the guilt seemed to be trickling down. It dripped on my head with the gathering force of a ceiling leak, and before I could feel the wetness or look up to note the source it was already Ours — just like that, automatically, quickly. Quietly. Her guilt was for me, too. Custom-made. About me. It was about all of us, but I’d always been the strongest, the vessel for most of their hope, and I was the last one standing.

Well, technically. My brother (the last 1/3 remaining churchful) had said out loud that he’d probably leave if I did. So there we all hung by my string and she needed — needed — me to go with her, on Sundays, to the mass-produced buildings with the upward-reaching steeples that pocked the valley, a reminder of just how surrounded you were. Disorienting too was that the fact that those same heavenward spires were once a comfort to me. It hadn’t even been long since I’d felt it. But sometime between that trip to Barnes and Noble in 2011 and now it had grown tight. Threatening. And god, when I tell you it was squeezing the life out of me I mean it.

But Mom wanted me to go. The all-important weekly worship visit. Just had to show up.

Couldn’t do it, though. Couldn’t do it.

Her monologue went something like this: Faith was the only thing that had kept her afloat all these years; it was her anchor, her rock, her insert-heavy-object-here, and she knew it could steady me too. There were times she thought she might opt out of life; she had thought a lot about leaving, permanently, she said. But in those moments she felt God, who was Jesus, who was The Church (they were all the same, indistinguishable), and that was pretty much basically why she needed me to go. Sprinkled throughout were questions resembling “How have I failed as a mother in this way when I did everything right and I tried so hard?” Variations on the theme. Indistinguishable.

She knew it, she said, the thing about faith and how it helps. She stifled sobs. “That’s all I’m gonna say. I just want you to know that.”

“I know, I promise. Thank you. I’m sorry.”

I let her sigh and cry and plead to my vague apologies; endured the silent hugs where she shook a bit. I imagined walking through Church doors and exploding, surviving but losing just enough of my limbs to be rendered immobile and one-hundred-percent stuck.

“Maybe next week. I’m not feeling great today. School is stressing me out. I had a late night last night. I don’t have any clothes that I — no, I don’t want to go shopping.”

Bentley loved my mother — nobody else, so don’t even try it. He had loved my grandma, too, but she withered away in a Lazyboy chair last winter. Bentley and I had watched — nothing else to do — and now we were both without her. We’d helped how we could: Bentley curling carefully in her lap and me throwing away the small slices of pear she couldn’t stomach. Mom did everything else. She definitely would have cried if she’d had the time. I had never seen her so steely.

So we lost grandma, and the loss was the only thing Bentley and I shared. Mom took him in after that. He ignored me most of the time —forgot about our time together, I guess — and usually acted more cat than dog (aloof as hell, never listened). But today I wagged the leash in front of his squashed and rapidly-sniffing nose (the thing was machine-gunning, seriously) and his tail wagged with it. He scrambled, tiny claws slipping on wood, and was suddenly at the door, bouncing.

I hooked the leash to his collar and opened the door, the unseasonably warm air flowing in with a natural and refreshing Near-The-Mountains nuance, the chirps of thawing birds ricocheting in and around the subdivision in-progress (hammers pounding somewhere in the distance) (the faint smell of freshly sawn wood).

But my stomach clenched. My chest twisted. And something inside me reached to slam the door.

I stood still, deciding, letting the feeling do what it does (eat me up in giant bites). Bentley’s claws tapped. To be twenty-one years old and step out of my parents’ house, for any reason, contained the psychological drama of jumping into freezing cold water. Couldn’t tell you why. Snipers were nested in the neighbors' windows, was what it felt like. Something was tugging insistently, laced with a general panic and pulling me back inside toward what didn’t make sense, and definitely wasn’t good, and was the only thing I wanted: to be inside and hidden and gone. There were snipers in the windows out here. It felt like it made sense to hide. It was safe in a dangerous way, and miserable in a comforting way, and stupid, stupid, stupid.

A glance at every window in sight proved that they were empty after all, uninterested in a struggling germ.

There’s some part of me that always wants to blame the house. I lurched forward decisively — hard, like there had been glue on the soles of my shoes — blowing air through my lips — hard, in that way that sounds kind of like a fart or like, horse. You know the noise — tore myself from the spot and stepped out; slammed the door behind me to prove I was really leaving it. The house didn’t respond — the only sound was my slam’s deflated echo in the blue, open air. Houses don’t make you stay in them. So why is it like this every time I open the door?

Bentley bounced. Tiny paws on the porch now.

I wiggled my headphones into my ears, running my hand along the wire to ensure a lack of entanglements, checking the back of my shirt for ride-uppance, relaxing my shoulders with a backward roll. Convincingly calm, casual, totally unbothered, I followed Bentley. His tiny, prancing body pulled me and I slackened, surrendering full control save the tether of woven leash that kept him from running fully off. It felt good to get swept away, to be pulled by a tiny dog. To take a break from computing my steps and my time and my plans and my routes and what scared me, like Out Here.

Maybe think of it in terms of breathing. It feels easier to breathe when I’m alone. Like, physically.

But also not at all? But also the exact opposite of that?

Speaking of “breathing”, this weird metaphor, aren’t the easy breaths kind of predictable and shallow? They stay steady, boring, they don’t mean anything.

I know that — I KNOW THAT — but I keep doing it. I know that but I keep doing it. I know that but I keep doing it. The definition of insanity comes to mind.

Why is it so hard to go outside? Why are there snipers in the windows?

It’s not worth it out here. The exposure sucks me up with a straw.

How am I supposed to — I hate where I am no matter where it is. I can’t — It’s in me! When I dig it moves around. I keep leaving places hoping it’ll stay behind. I keep staying places hoping it won’t find me. This can’t be living, this can’t be i —

My parents’ neighborhood was adjacent to a main road that — unfathomably — contained three schools within a block, and I sighed through my teeth as I realized that it was 2:30 pm on a Tuesday afternoon. This was when I had decided to surface? The exact time of day, almost down to the minute, that I would have to wade through throngs of not only people, but pre-teens? I could feel the hormones zipping around me already. I was already wiping off the grease.

Dread-filled, I kept walking. My brain crouched at the back of my skull. To be seen was one thing, but to be noticed in a moment of panic, to be observed guessing — and second-guessing, and third-guessing, and wringing hands, and turning in circles — was like being caught with my pants down; like that nightmare where you show up to school naked or at least bra-less. Besides, Bentley was peeing on everything in his bliss. He liked it Out Here. It was all his now, anyway — all of it claimed by streaks and splatters of urine, jettisoned from beneath a well-groomed leg.

I pulled my eyes deliberately up — they always hung on a rubber band that threatened to snap — as Bentley continued weaving from target to target, the clusters of children threatening increasing closeness the more I walked toward them.

They milled about menacingly. I was more annoyed than anything. At their…just…their being there…I maybe could have…without them….ugh— but I was sticking with this walk. I was drinking in this air until it filled my stomach and lifted the clutter and god DAMN it —

Lately I can’t stick with anything, nothing feels right. My adhesive surface is covered in dust.

I have to do everything, every day, and 24 is a cruel number of hours. I have to make up for the time I’ve wasted. I have to, I’m so behind.

A poster of my own creation hangs on the backside of my bedroom door pleading “DON’T FREAK OUT”. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, and I don’t even know if it’s a good idea because maybe it’s just reminding me TO freak out, but I keep it there, and it’s maybe bad, but I don’t know what else to do oh God what the fuck is GOD — Snipers in the windows. Snipers in the windows. Snipers in th —

I reached the part of the sidewalk that passed the school and I did not hesitate, loath to lose momentum. My blood pounded, ran laps in my veins and I thanked God silently that this wasn’t a high school. Like this, “Thank God it’s not a high school,” but quiet. I was only 21; those memories were still too fresh. People 15-and-up still held the power to intimidate the not-much-older me, with their sports and their slang and their fake confidence that was actually really convincing (maybe even real? For some of them? Assholes). I hated myself for it, which only ever made it worse. And it was in this mindset that I entered an atmosphere of children.

Bentley, a dog, padded forward without a single perceivable anxiety. Some of these kids were thirteen-ish — the worst age — and didn’t usually pass up an opportunity to yell pubescent incoherencies at me when I went outside during school hours. But this time they didn’t.

They probably just noticed my headphones and therefore the lack of shits given (score), or maybe they behaved for the moms in minivans, who looked concerned and harried as they carefully pulled in and out of the parking lot, the kids launching themselves through the sliding doors as the girls-turned-mothers chimed “hurry, hurry, where is your jacket?” and I half-wondered if the tired look in some of their tired eyes was regret, or some version of it, and whether I’d recognize that look if I saw it, or —

Stop it. STOP it. Stop. Walk.

I walked. The children still-in-waiting flung wet snowballs into orbit around me and I worked hard not to flinch. I didn’t see a single cell phone in any of their small and cold-reddened hands (there’s hope!) and I suddenly became aware — a friendly feeling, like the icy jolt of a snowball lovingly thrown — that I was walking through what life was supposed to be. Maybe. Or was it was, Out Here. Uninhibited. Raw. Sort of refreshingly chilled (or maybe that was just the weather). I was encased in them, gliding through with my pint-sized urine-depleted man’s-best-acquaintance dog and suddenly, unexpectedly, I forgot about gravity, that pesky and impossible and crushing thing. I swallowed the urge to playfully return snowball fire and stopped as a goofy, overweight, and completely endearing boy — probably twelve or so — asked with eyes squinting in the snow-reflected sun if he could pet my dog, please. I let him, and we chatted, and I noticed a series of breaths escape me more easily. He made things easier. I don’t know, he just…wasn’t afraid to ask.

All I know is that I was completely comfortable — I wanted to hug those children and tell them that I see them and I see their life and it’s the best thing I’ve seen all day. I want to beg them to hold on to it, to grip it stubbornly and uncompromisingly. Because so many beautiful and unique and horrible things are going to happen to them — they must not release their grip, even for a second! I want to tell them to hold on to these moments, to keep throwing snowballs. “Adulthood is a trap!” I’ll tell them in a way they’ll believe. They need to believe what I’m telling them. I’ll hold a flashlight beneath my chin around a campfire and I’ll tell them about taxes. They won’t sleep for a week, taxes in their closet. I’ll tell them that I grew up fully aware of the trap, I got the cheat codes from my brothers and I crushed the first signs of adulthood. You know, like Mario crushes Goombas. I dodged them matrix-style and caught them with a Pokeball and references, and references, and references. They’ll get it. I never fully lost the throbbing life that I had, that they have — not really, I’ll tell them, which is why I’m so fun (immature, annoying, obnoxious, overcompensating). I’ll do a bad cartwheel and we’ll all laugh. I’ll tell jokes that they’ll like. Something about poop. I’ll razz the cool-looking one, take him down a notch. I’ll be their big sister, tell them to hold on to their siblings if they have them, if they can. They might be the only people they can turn to when they are twenty-one years old and struggling with shaking hands to say out loud for the first time that they are gay —ugh. Gay?

Lesbian. — What? God — I hate — I hate — I hate — I HATE ALL THESE WORDS they feel like acid on my tongue I can’t say them they’re stuck in my throat they’re so heavy they hurt they have barbs they’re so stuck and they’re laughing and crying and hiding from those snipers those fucking SNIPERS in the windows Jake it’s like they’re waiting and hungry and drooling at the thought of my righteous execution Jake do you see them DROOLING it’s like everyone has a knife behind their back and a list with one name and it’s mine and I’ve seen them I swear it’s that look in their eye and when they know, oh God when they know I am DONE and they’ll turn toward me with That Face that screams they never knew me and they never will it’s DEAFENING Jake I can’t hear ANYTHING ELSE I can’t HEAR YOU from behind this wall I’ve been secretly on the other side of and from over here it’s hard to ignore just how much I’m one of The Ones They’ll Always Hate and it’s knives and it’s knives and it’s knives because I’d thought for so long that they’d loved me but they’re WAITING I know it I’ve heard what they say they keep asking and asking and their blades are unsheathed and glinting in a too-bright light and I’m tired I’m frozen I can see their heads turning they’re coming for me with those eyes Jake WHAT WILL I DO WHEN THEY SEE ME.

I can’t tell Mom it will kill her Dad will cry he never cries. theyhadthiswholeotherlifeplannedoutformewhatcanido.

Jake.

I’m so glad you didn’t pull the trigger.

It would’ve meant death for me, too.

But — would I be giving them good advice? I’m not actually going to say a word to these kids, I’m just walking my dog but I’m thinking that maybe if I hadn’t avoided it for so long, all of it, it wouldn’t have metastasized into every aspect of this life that I’m trying to claim as mine, 21 years in. Maybe I wouldn’t have to cut into myself to remove the people, places, things, ideas — the nouns, all these nouns blocking my lungs. All the things that I left unchecked; my future self’s responsibility. These had always been adult decisions that adults knew how to make but suddenly my drivers license and my college education and my married friends prove that I am an adult who still can’t stomach the thought of shattering her mother’s heart. She already comes home sighing.

At the end of the day at least I no longer hold my breath as I pass by a church. I can bear to occasionally accept my mom’s request to play the piano in relief society, my foot just taps a little quicker than usual under the bench. At the end of the day I just worry so much about wasted time. I need to tell the kids that time is always being lost. I have to tell them to hold on to the seconds! I can’t shake this feeling that I’ve wasted too much time hiding behind stacked doors, they don’t want this feeling. At the end of the day… is any of it wasted, really?

Kids, forget my scary stories. Forget taxes for now. Just don’t forget how to do what you want. Could it possibly be that simple? Even if you can’t feel good at first, even if you can’t seem to get excited about the sound of an ice cream truck, the smell of a new book, the impossible way that a flock of birds flies in together like that, like you used to. Even if you get stressed about stress about stress about “how do I make these impossible decisions of whether or not to live honestly at the cost of shattering everything else that I’ve built.”

Even if you spend your whole life guarding an acidic secret to protect someone. Someone who accidentally cares too much about making you into her preferred version of a daughter (I love you, Mom). Is it wasted? Does Abbie Simons end up with something meaningful?

Hell if I know. I’m just walking my dog. You absolutely can pet him.