IF I FORGET ALL OF THIS, THIS IS WHAT I NEED TO REMEMBER

June 6th, 2020- Who I Was
I want you to know that I am you. I feel helpless, and always want more of the positive things in
my life. That, and I want to wear my boyfriend’s pink hoodie, maybe if only to fit in it. I want
people to look at my art and say ‘she meant something while she was here.’ I want that to be
true.
I was a friend. I was a student with grades I thought I wasn’t good enough for. I was an aspiring
actor. I was a climate activist. When Australia was on fire, some people said Australia was
always on fire, and the world would sort itself out soon enough. Everyone else went into full-on
panic mode, without the mentality of, ‘this is the worst it’ll get’ as no one knew what was
coming. I was one of those people. I was mostly scared by the World War III memes though.
Even though I think I’m not fit to serve, and most people would probably agree. Does that make
me a useless person? If I can’t just be bred to die. That’s kind of where we’re all headed now.
June 7th, 2020- Food
The last restaurant I ate in was a Qdoba. And I cried in the bathroom afterwards. The fifth
dietician I’ve had in fifteen years waited outside. She said my arms looked like they had been
manufactured in the age of disco. I was born in 2004, but my arms have burns.
We ordered from my Abuela’s favorite restaurant for takeout tonight. I didn’t eat a snack, so I
had to have extra dinner. I feel full, and I worry this will be the last time there is enough food for
me to fill my stomach. Hunger will outweigh fear, eventually. But that depends on how much
fear there is. Also how much food there is worldwide.
June 8th, 2020- Mental Health
I met with my psychiatrist today. He asked what I had been planning to do this summer, and I
don’t remember his exact words, but it was like he had no idea there was a global pandemic, and
it’s not safe to leave my house, much less meet up with friends and do things.
June 9th, 2020- Exercise
Most of the memes that are in good taste, are about gaining weight in quarantine. I would rather
get CoronaVirus and never recover, than gain weight. Even two pounds. That might be society
telling women to fit into a size zero, and be perfect and thin. I’ve spent so much time being a
faux-feminist because of my desire to be thin. I don’t want to define other women, doom them
into self-loathing. Society has taken that job. No one should do it. My mom is telling me to
exercise. She promises it has nothing to do with the fact I may or may not be gaining weight. My
friends' parents are forcing them to exercise too. Aerobics. It doesn’t make me feel better if they
are miserable too. It makes me feel better that we are miserable together.
June 17th, 2020- Quarantine
I think quarantine has finally gotten to me. You can see the large gap in how long it’s taken me
to start writing again. I’ve spent a lot of time lying on my floor, letting the carpet leave it’s
scruffy imprint on my face. I feel like there’s no more motivation left in my body. I want to sit
back and have everyone else fix the world. I mean, that’s basically what I’ve been doing this
whole time. But, atleast, before I was able to fool myself by signing change.org petitions, and
raising awareness to the BLM movement. But now I really feel like nothing. I feel negative and
numb.
June 18th, 2020- Drowning
It’s not a long day when you spend 10 sleeping, 3 hours in school, 4 hours fighting through
meals, and the rest of the time trying to sneak in a nap without getting caught. I took a nap in the
shower today, and must have kicked the drain, because I woke up when the water was high and
cold. It made me think of drowning. For those of you who haven’t experienced drowning, let me
explain. All your limbs are heavy and sore for no reason. The loudest sound is your heartbeat,
even as the world rages around you. And your voice is garbled and estranged to your ears,
leaving your cries for help useless. It’s basically quarantine. Everyone must feel like they’re
drowning all the time. That or the crushing isolation and powerlessness and the indescribable gut
feeling that the worst is yet to come. And the worst is probably named November.
June 19th, 2020- Bad Guy
I should probably write about Juneteenth. Hopefully this will be a central year for ending racism
in America.
Yesterday was an Emma-writes-about-a-very-specific-issue-that-actually-isn’t-that-bad day, so
today is going to one too.
My mom is on steroids right now. She needs to be. It will only be for a little while. She’s getting
so angry at everyone. I’ve told her almost everything, so she knows the buttons to push to get me
to break down. Apparently she does for everyone. I’m so angry I can’t look at anyone except my
step-dad without holding up both middle fingers and screaming as soon as they leave. I’ve bitten
my nails so low they hurt. I feel like the only way I know how to cope is relapsing. But that
means, in her words not mine, she won’t be able to handle having me at home. As if being sick is
selfish. As if being sick is my choice.
June 22nd, 2020- 7 Months
Apparently I am the productive friend. Because I’ve gotten jobs and written every few days.
Because I can’t tell them I lie face down on the floor and let Netflix play stand-up comedy in the
background. I used to be the smart friend. Now I think I’m the mentally ill friend. Everyone
wondering behind my back if they can talk about food, or have me for a sleepover, say I look
healthy.
Today I saw two of my three best friends for the first time in 7 months. We didn’t touch but I got
so close to one of them that I could have. Like I could smell the lemon dish soap on her mason
jar turned water bottle. It was so hot. 100 degrees in Albuquerque, and 84 in Santa Fe. My black
leggings got hot, and there was sweat in between my knees. The black card in Cards Against
Humanity near sizzled.
June 23rd, 2020- Psychological Scars
If you haven’t been able to infer from most of my previous writing I have some issues. I don’t
want to make more of an enigma out of it than I already have, so I’m a recovering anorexic- I
just got out of the hospital for it. And I have PTSD.
The brain is like the body, if you get hurt, it will heal in time. The more hit your bruised leg
against a chair, the longer it will take to heal. PTSD is a psychological scar.
My dad says Covid-19 is going to cause a physiological scar on every person who remains alive
on the planet when this is all over. If it’s even going to end. People are dissociating, people are
isolating, that’s symptomatic of PTSD. I don’t think the world will have PTSD post-Covid, but
everyone will be psychologically scarred.
You get a weird type of treatment being a little messed up. Not everyone knows how to act
around me, and I most certainly don’t. It will be wo
June 26th, 2020- The Bird
It rained last night, and looked like it would again this morning. The sprinklers in the park I walk
in with my grandparents once a week. And there were puddles on the ground, where the dirt
swirled in like paint into water when you scrape your paintbrush against the bottom of your
water cup. There were worms everywhere. Worms remind me of Wisconsin, and how I would let
them squirm across my hands and wrists and shoes. How I put a few in my terrarium. And how
bad it smelled when they died.
I was walking alone. My family is talking in two groups on either side of me far away. A large,
black bird flew down and picked up a worm, a few feet in front of me. When I went to that spot
on the path, half the worm bled out in the pebbles.
June 28th, 2020- Letting the Day in
You know you’ve reached peak poor-little-well-to-do-girl when you’re having a panic attack in a
Whole Foods bathroom. I actually found a woman unconscious in that very same Whole Foods
bathroom several years beforehand, and read obituaries for months to see if I could find her. I
didn’t. To make my story less whiny, it’s obviously the middle of a global pandemic. I hadn’t
left my house in about two months, even as the world opens up based on no science. I went to
Ross, Dollar Tree, and Whole Foods today. My step-dad said he would never go back to Whole
Foods-or any store-until there’s a cure. My dad gives maybe, 20% of a crap about the virus that’s
raging in the country that has handled it worse than any other country. You have to wear your
mask to get into Whole Foods, but you can take it off once you get inside, apparently, and stand
as close to people as you want.
June 29th, 2020- Apparently This is Becoming A Diary
There are two issues I take with saying this time is a blessing. A lot of people aren’t making it
out alive, and not all families get along. I don’t think mine does all the time. Allow me to think
we’re fairly functional, therapists have said my parents went through a pretty traumatic divorce
that I don’t remember at all. I was busy developing PTSD from other things.
July 4th, 2020- Black Lives Matter
Parts of this year, this quarantine have been eye-opening. Have been embarrassing even. The
suffering of Black Americans is deplorable. On July 12th 2012, James Eagan Holmes shot up a
movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. He killed 12 people, and I’ve heard from locals, injured as
many a 70. He was peacefully arrested by local police. I’ve been to that theater, and someone
who worked there laughed about it like it was a joke. Elijah McClain was walking home in
August of 2019 and was shot on sight by the police. He was a massage therapist who played
violin for cats in animal shelters. He was a good person. The cops that murdered him took selfies
with his grave at his funeral. Three white men, they are disgusting.
July 5th, 2020- The Woman on My Street
There’s a woman who lives on my street, who told me her name once. I’ve since then forgotten
it. I try to go on walks everyday around 5:00, she heads back to her home at the end of the street
around the same time. She grins and her wrinkles smile too, she waves both hands.
She said I exhale beauty. A compliment once given to her, by a boy flirting, when they were both
high on ecstasy in the 50s.
July 14th, 2020- Stop Screaming *Intense Language*
I go through phases of dissociating and just leaving Silence of the Lambs on, while I lie under
two blankets on the floor near the vent that pumps icy air into my hot room. We’re in Phase 2 of
opening up. Someone I work with said ‘It will put the mask over its nose and mouth, or it will
return to Phase 1.’ Now even seeing a person without a mask makes me a little nauseous.
Apparently I am the third of the loud-spoken, decreasingly Cuban women in my family. My
Abuela and I were asking selfish, ignorant people to put on their masks. They all turned away
from us making, no change. Until one shouted
“Mind your fucking busines!” My Abuela explained it is her business, as a human, and a person
of quite some years, with a daughter who’s immune system was greatly weakened, that it was her
responsibility. The woman’s response was to my grandfather.
“Tell your fucking bitch of a wife to fucking shut the fuck up!”
I didn’t think it was funny then, that she said ‘fuck’ so many times, although she could give
absolutely zero about other people. She threatened to spit and lick my brother, like that woman
who made national news did.
She spat “Have fun dying!” I walked home quickly, holding vomit made of terror and acid and
spit up in my mouth. She shouted at us, as we stared, and backed away.
My brother helped me get home.