BLIP: Jaw

5.09 AM

I finally slept, I finally woke up on time.

My Jaw is incredibly tight. It keeps snapping.

Something has agitated my face.

Easy.  Take it easy.

But then, what was the point of waking up?

5:57 PM

I am orchestrating a way to stay awake and all I can think of is wine.

I was recently watching Shark Tank, obsessively, like a lot of it, all the time, because I was procrastinating my own grant proposals and so I felt comfortable watching people fail at their own partnership proposals on television.  Also the “Sharks” give out pretty good general advice about success and it’s fun to digest that advice as I lay in bed wondering if the world will explode before I can admit that I have mostly only accomplished baby steps.

I was recently watching Shark Tank and a woman, built and toned as if she was operating solely for the purpose of proving that human beings have muscles, tiny and seemingly high on something, something that might have been legal seventy years ago but now is very very very very illegal (still miraculous, but illegal and bad sure, but…it works if you need it, just saying) this lady had invented a sports bra.  I cannot remember what was supposed to be so magnificent about the sports bra. All I remember is the sentence, “I am a mom, I have four kids.”

Nothing else she said mattered.

“I am a mom, I have four kids.”

But she said it as if it was unbelievable, with a tail of a smirk, “I’m a mom, I have four…kids?”

“YOU HAVE FOUR KIDS,” everyone in shock, nothing else she said mattered.

“Yeah I have four kids and I am a fitness professional and this bra is my life.”

Friends, if I had four kids, my bed would be my best friend.

I have a single dog and I think I sleep more in a week than that woman has slept in the past year.

I have been up for thirteen hours and I look tired, I feel tired, I am counting the minutes before my nine o’clock “ok I’m not a total loser for sleeping now” bedtime comes around so I can lie in bed and hope to sleep. I might not sleep. But I can at least lie there and think about sleeping which makes me happy because it, to me, seems an improvement from most activities.

I like safe hiding places.  When I am irritated, safe places bring me joy.  That’s the kind of freak I am.  I like to hide.

Today, right around three o’clock, the world became very overwhelming.

If I do not take a 1 PM nap, this is what happens:  The world becomes very overwhelming.

Still, I had to go out because my dog needed to go to the park.

I have no idea how I survived that walk.  And it was only a walk.

But, I walked into poles.  Doggy ate garbage and I just didn’t care.  He licked the hands of pedestrians waiting for the light to change and I uselessly watched thinking, “cool”.

I do less in a day than most people.  Why don’t I have any energy? Where does it all go?  Why does my face look like I just fought on a battlefield for months?  And why is my jaw so tight, still? Snap snap fuck you snap what has happened to my face, my joints, why are they tired, why are they upset–

I lied, I don’t do less than most people in a day.

I feel like I do nothing but really, I do quite a bit.  I like activity and I love creative output.  I do lots of things that are absolute pathways to exhaustion.

BUT I WANT TO DO MORE, I WANT TO DO EVERYTHING, I WOKE UP AT 4 AM FOR THIS

For what?  What else did I wake up for?

For this.

This, what?

I don’t know.

The problem is, unless I have proof of productivity, I feel like time betrayed me or like I betrayed my Purpose or my father or my god.

Who cares?

Time is time is time is time, it moves regardless of accomplishment. Even in the night, it moves.  Even in the winter, it moves.  Even when I am sitting at home trying not to smoke or missing a friend or staring at the dog hair on my floor, it moves and when it moves I age and when I age the body ages, the face ages, the jaw tenses, I sense an ending and I’m in bed by 9 PM.

And I think.

So, today didn’t count.

I think that every night.

Today didn’t count, tomorrow will count.

I want you to know that nothing counts.

This weekend I drank half a bottle of wine with someone else.   It was wonderful.  The wine gave me a stomach ache.  I put it aside in my kitchen.  I thought to myself, “This is a great way to stop drinking.  I drank half a bottle with someone else, it was wonderful until it made me sick.  Perfect.  I’m done.  Tomorrow.  I am done tomorrow.  Today didn’t count.”  But, I didn’t throw the wine away.

I am drinking it now.

If you’re reading this within the vicinity of anyone else in the world, take a look at what they are doing.  Ask yourself how many times in their life they have done this particular activity that they are doing right now.  How old is this habit?  HOW OLD is this habit, how old are all my habits?

How long has it been since my Jaw has snapped?

Probably years.

It’s been waiting.

It snapped this morning and it cannot stop because the joint is so happy when it snaps.

Something must have agitated my face.

Something must have made my face give up, it has given up because I am tired.

I am tired and I am pushing myself to keep going and it’s making me tense.

Shoulders ache.

Neck juts forward.

Jaw tenses.

If I sleep like this, I will wake up and my mandible will hate me.

I don’t want my body to hate me.

I want it to love me so much that it provokes my mind to invent something like a sports bra or a child or four children.

My good friend’s brother is in medical school right now.

He is currently studying obstetrics.

He mentioned to her that when women give births “some of the poops are disgusting.”

I can’t wait for that relief.

I want my jaw to take a shit.

Just take a shit and give birth.

In fact, I want that for every piece of myself.

Just take a shit and give birth.

Let it out.

Because it feels good today and tomorrow doesn’t matter yet.

I can’t imagine a pregnant woman giving birth, taking the best shit she’s ever taken and, in spite of the relief she feels (for also having birthed a baby), she’s so upset with the fact that she took a shit in front of a room of people that she thinks “But today doesn’t count.  Tomorrow, I get my vagina back, I will hold my baby, new possibilities will be everywhere.  Tomorrow is what counts.”

Right, but today you gave birth.  And that counts too.

If today you took a shit and birthed anything at all, you’ve used time for something cool.

Time serves yesterday, today and tomorrow.

That’s what’s so fucked up about it.

Time is always time.

It cannot be wasted.  It just renews.

And it cannot be controlled. Let it go.

I just opened my mouth to test my jaw.  It snapped.

There is nothing I can do about it snapping.

I could take twenty shits and have three babies and maybe my jaw will still snap.

I can’t control my jaw.  Let it go.

Let it go with time and tomorrow will come.

Secret is:  the woman who had four children knew exactly what her body could do.  She used her time to strengthen and get to know her body so well that even four pregnancies made sense to her because it’s no surprise that her body could manufacture four more bodies in one lifetime.

I keep wondering if I am wasting time by being physical enough to perform my upcoming freak show.  Shouldn’t I be working harder at…anything else?  Shouldn’t I be working harder at a desk somewhere or for the purposes of someone else’s company or their vision or their wealth (and therefore their body and their children and their shits)?

It feels stupid to pay attention to myself even though I know that soon I will really need myself to do something worth doing.

Preparation is tiring.

Preparation is a stiff fucking jaw.

Preparation is an early bedtime.

Preparation is time.

Time is preparation.

And I will not feel bad for preparing myself to take a shit and give birth.

It’s what I’m supposed to do.

That’s what time has proven:  A species evolves through the constant preparation of survival for the time being.

So, I’m sitting here not doing anything.  I have nothing to show for my work.

But I’ve had to sit here in order to cut down on most vices (not wine, but let’s be real…).

I am renewing.

Renewal is preparation.

For my show, sure.

But my jaw snaps and I’m so sure:  I am renewing for the sake of physical ease.

Ease easiness, easy.  Keep it easy.

Or maybe I’ll just stop opening my mouth.