Insecurities

“the year of letting go, of understanding loss. grace. of the word ‘no’ and also being able to say ‘you are not kind’. the year of humanity/humility. when the whole world couldn’t get out of bed. everyone i’ve met this year, says the same thing ‘you are so easy to be around, how do you do that?’. the year i broke open and dug out all the rot with own hands. the year i learnt small talk. and how to smile at strangers. the year i understood that i am my best when i reach out and ask ‘do you want to be my friend?’. the year of sugar, everywhere. softness. sweetness. honey honey. the year of being alone, and learning how much i like it. the year of hugging people i don’t know, because i want to know them. the year i made peace and love, right here.”- warsan shire

~

My trip to Chile begins with an ‘almost’ fuck-up, which is not surprising as I always seem to live my life on the verge of chaos, unclean and slightly reckless. If you have ever been inside my bedroom, you know this side of me well. I live amongst piles of things- lucky to see a square foot of open floor space. It’s probably gross, but there is something about being in a space unhinged that makes me feel imperfect, and thus, much more human.

My flight from Denver to Houston was delayed, so I have three minutes to make my connecting flight to Santiago after getting off the plane. It is my first time pulling the ‘DESPERATE RUN THROUGH THE AIRPORT GET OUT OF MY WAY I’M SWEATING’ dash, so to get myself through the pain of harsh breathing and flailing suitcases, I script a movie narration in my head:

*‘The Winner Is’ by DeVotchKa plays softly overhead*

With a body that hosts both chicken-wing dagger elbows and the soft belly of an all queso diet, the girl of our story begins her journey in a rush. Sweat pelting her hairline down like a half-lubed penis, our girl puts one foot in front of another- over and over her feet pulse forward and through. Here, she escapes the chronic blistering thoughts we all have in those empty moments, in those times we must remain still on the border between awake and dazed. She does not know what she is doing, or really, where she is going.

Out-of-shape puke forms in the belly, and our girl moves forward.

Foot after foot, our story begins.

And this… Well, this is a story of a girl.

I make up fake movie narrations for my life often. Once, I was able to continue a narration for several months; I would finish one daydream and pick it right back up in my next dream. In this particular several month endeavor, I created a boyfriend in my head and for all intents and purposes, it was a pretty fo-reals relationship. We met in the park, held hands, had a steamy kiss in the feminist section of the public library. Two months into our escalating relationship, Wyatt (yes, he had a name) came over to my house to tell me he never loved me and that he was leaving me for my best friend.

In real life, I sobbed to ‘Unchained Melody’ by the Righteous Brothers for a solid thirty minutes before eating a whole Kit-Kat bar in one bite.

(Am I aware that I made this all up in my head and that I self-inflicted this fucked ending? Yes. Yes, I am. Stop giving me that look.)

Anyways, I am running in the airport trying to catch this flight, and I know I must be making the most uncomfortable facial expressions. My face is an open book- every thought manifests itself in some sort of visible expression. I can get so lost in my thoughts that I often am not aware of my facial expressions. Many times, I will be sitting with friends lost in thought, and someone will interject, “Aly, what is wrong?”. I usually am taken aback, not realizing such twisted expressions have made their way to my face. I then have to awkwardly mumble “nothing”, as I really don’t want to get into how I just had a small life freak out about eggs that crack with a double-yolk (WAS THE DOUBLE-YOLK TWINS, WAS IT CONJOINED TWINS, CAN TWO CHICKENS COME FROM ONE EGG AND WILL SOMEONE JUST LIKE DECIDE IF THE CHICKEN OR EGG CAME FIRST BECAUSE I’M SICK OF ALL THE RIDDLING OKAY).

I make it to my gate and my suspicion that I am wearing a ghastly expression is confirmed as the guy sitting in the gate next to me hears my heaving and glances up with an appalled look of concern. I shove my passport and plane ticket into the hands of the gate attendant with the utmost urgency. Do you ever expect the world to be at your same level of urgency and then get ridiculously disappointed when your level of urgency is not reciprocated? I get this all the time in the drive-through at McDonald’s when I want a McFlurry:

Me, ordering as if this is the last thing I will accomplish on earth: “I must have a large M&M McFlurry.”

McDonald’s employee: “A’ight.”

This occurs with the gate attendant:

Me, after running a literal marathon 1 minute and 45 seconds to get here on time: “Did I make it? Am I okay? Here’s my ticket! (+ !¹⁷)”

Gate attendant, without looking at me reaches out: *drops passport and plane ticket*

Me: ….

Gate attendant, after I dip down to grab my things and hand them to her: “Kay.”

The anti-climatic nature of this is deafening. I find my seat on the plane and close my eyes.

~

I travel on various planes and buses down to Puerto Natales, the base city for entering the national park area of Patagonia. During my travels, I meet a handful of other travelers. To make conversation, we divulge what has brought us here; most mention something akin to adventure and greater self-discovery. I listen, but I think about borders as we talk. I’ve been thinking about borders a lot lately. On this trip, I am traveling to Chile to hike the W-Route in Patagonia and to later attend a conference in Viña Del Mar. I will move with ease along the southern tip of Chile- my ‘sense of adventure’ and blue US passport working as justification free from further questioning. Meanwhile, on countless other borders, fronteras, borderlands and bordertowns, people trying to traverse land will be stopped, detained, emotionally/physically/sexually abused, de-humanized and abandoned.

I can’t help but think of borders. Of the twisted privileging of my individualistic pleasure over others’ existence and well being. When I think about borders, I vary my reactions from wordless spinning to flustered, incoherent rants to my friends and family. Borders and this spatial abuse of neocolonial power leave me flustered as fuck because the hypocrisy of borders is just so full of shit. A LOT OF SHIT- just all shit, like that same shit that names me ‘bilingual’ while others of different positionalities get labeled ‘can’t speak English’ even though I cannot roll my r’s and a decade of institutional training has left my Spanish SUB PAR SUB PAR I TELL YOU! Uh, it’s all just one big shit hole, a big hole with a big shit and…

I can hear Emma Burns telling me ‘to simmer’. I digress.

I finally make it to my hostel, a completo and greasy middle part in tow. After a much-needed shower, I lay reading on my bed and try to squash my growing fear of hiking the W-Route alone. I start a mantra to ease my nerves: I will not fall off a mountain and die. I will not fall off a mountain and die… My roommate interrupts my growing mantra to introduce herself. She is from Denmark and is traveling for six months before beginning her full-time job in September. Within five minutes of talking to her, I have invited myself to hike with her and her co-worker for three days. My innate witty charm or a needy desperateness? Not going to question it.

We wake up early the next morning to travel into the park. As we walk, the small talk quickly dissipates and evolves into bigger wonderings about the world. This is what leaves me addicted to traveling- the swiftness at which feelings and big ideas can color a conversation between two strangers. We hike for 8 hours the first day; of course, there is beauty I cannot begin to describe. My fondness for my hiking companions is confirmed after two key events: 1) the male co-worker immediately names us #squadheavybreathing and 2) we stop for coffee at the hostel on the trail, showing a winding calmness that warms our journey.

A few days and many conversations later, we reach the end of the hiking route. My companions will continue hiking another day as I begin my return back to Viña del Mar. We sit sipping a few beers in celebration and nursing our swollen heels. By this point, my neurotic, over-thinking nature has been revealed. Mathias, the male co-worker, asks me more about my plans for after graduation. Immediately, my tendency to freak out is activated, and I start spilling over. I spill self-doubt because right now, my self-doubt is the only thing I am sure of and I feel the need to spit out vulnerabilities.

I have a strong tendency for freaking out- for alienating myself amongst my thoughts so completely that I disjoint myself from reality. I don’t see my tendency to freak out stopping any time soon. (In fact, a few days later at the meet and greet for my conference, I will be overwhelmed by the prospect of having to meet all new people. I will grab a glass of wine and lock myself into a bathroom stall to chug the wine as my ‘social lubricant’. Then, in the sweaty fervor of going to the bathroom and eating an olive empanada, I will almost wipe my vagina with said cheesy empanada napkin. It will be a really close call.)

I finally come to the end of spilling with Mathias. He pauses, a look of sureness personifying his eyes. He looks at me to say:

“Let yourself be insecure, Aly”.

~

So, I am learning to open myself. I am learning to be uncomfortable. Unexpectedly, I am learning to be insecure- less rigid and more stable in the unknown. I hope to exist imperfectly.  

There is this socialized myth about what it means to ‘grow up’. It is closely tied with professionalism, so that somehow growing up means you are less free to be emotionally honest with both yourself and others. You grow up and you warp yourself into the image of ‘security’. But, I wish growing up was more about fullness- the fullness of laughing hysterically in public spaces or of crying in surprising times or of letting yourself be insecure in the face of vulnerability. Maybe I can still center silliness. Maybe I can be angry, unfiltered. Maybe I can still feel others deeply. Maybe, just maybe, I can break the isolation of stoicness.

Away from isolation, I am a feeling being. And so, if I love you (which I probably do), I have intertwined you into my being. I walk with you, I experience deep joy with you, I shake with you, I allow myself to be insecure with you. To be with you is to feel like the turning on of a warm heat lamp. As I intertwine you into my life and being, we may even develop an usness- those idiosyncratic intangibles that make us us. Our usness might be awkward laughing and ridiculous gossip and foggy glasses and sometimes broken smiles and tell me about your dreams and too much left unsaid.

In the end, I hope we exist imperfectly.