Rock bottom, 8:32pm: A truly George Costanza moment

George: It’s not working, Jerry. It’s just not working.
Jerry: What is it that isn’t working?
George: Why did it all turn out like this for me? I had so much promise. I was personable, I was bright…It became very clear to me sitting out there today, that every decision I’ve ever made, in my entire life, has been wrong. My life is the opposite of everything I want it to be…
Jerry: If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.

It took me less than 24 hours of being on the ranch to hate every single aspect of it. It was dusty and stinky. There were no animals there except for some wild cats that defecated everywhere. It was in the middle of the desert and boiling hot. Red clay dust settled over everyone and everything, steaming under the midsummer sun. Nothing but miles of barren hills covered with brown cacti in every direction. It was much less a ranch than a big house with cabins everywhere that served as hotels for, I guess people who hated themselves. And all the help they wanted were just household chores, from cleaning up cat shit, to cleaning the bedrooms and bathrooms of the cabins. The rooms were the worst of all. All the helpers stayed in bunk beds in the house, four people to a room. I spent the first night wide awake, tossing in the oppressive heat, swatting at flies, screaming into my pillow, slowly growing rabid from the various men snoring in the room. When helping make breakfast the next morning, I slit my fingers open on a rusty knife and spilled blood all over the carrots.

That was it.

I hightail it out of there. I’m sick of volunteering on these stupid farms, with their evil Australian bitches and disgusting kitchens full of dust and crap. So there was only one place left to go. Back to Indiana, to visit Ferret Two for a while. I made up an excuse about needing to go back to the office for work (even though I had nothing on the horizon) and hopped on a train headed to the LA airport the next day.

It doesn’t strike me till I’m 35,000 feet up in the air, over the turquoise waters of the Atlantic Ocean, that I’ve officially reached rock bottom. The horrible, yawning, black chasm that I’ve been struggling furiously away from since I got laid off that hot, putrid June day over a year ago. Too many of my friends had to move back in with their parents after graduating, working at minimum wage jobs, whether they couldn’t even get started, or if they’d been laid off right in the middle of a dream like I had been.

I had vowed I would never be that person. No matter what it took. I went back to freelancing, but the paychecks were pennies and far and few in between. I took that stupid bartending exam in January, and nothing came of it. By the time I had blown through my entire savings and maxed out all my credit cards (on luxuries like rent and food), the housing situation was falling apart anyway. The apartment was in a cold war of sorts, lots of sneaking around and hissing behind each other’s backs. It took just one roommate to bring the entire thing crashing down. Maddie turned out to be the biggest, fakest jerk, and basically drove everyone out. As soon as Maeve moved out, I knew I would too. I put my stuff into storage and subleased the remaining months. So began the backpacking adventure.

I’ll never understand it. When people take it upon themselves to try and save me, it has always ended badly. Caregiving burns out romances and friendships faster than almost anything else. Maddie and Leah, after months of putting up with me, had unofficially grown weary. It was more Maddie than Leah. She had taken charge of my care since things had started slipping downhill back last September, making sure I ate and took my meds and went to sleep on time and didn’t wander around the streets of New York, kept my sisters and medical team updated on what was happening.

And now she was tired of it. They agreed with the doctors, they wanted me to go into residential treatment. So the whole operation fell apart. I watch helplessly, as this happens to me over and over again.

As the beautiful Seattle skyline fills the plane’s window, I realize I’m fucking tired of it too. I want to check out too. There’s a two-hour layover in Seattle before the next flight takes me to Indiana. I press my face against the glass, watching the glittering gold buildings float underneath, swimming in inky blue clouds, the churning ocean waters, the pale pink setting sun peeking through the mountains. I’ve always wanted to move to Seattle. The grunge music revolution, the rainy days, the resplendent snowy mountains, the coffeehouses, the home of big tech companies (without the annoying itch of Silicon Valley), the place where one of my favorite shows, Fraiser, takes place.

I’ve never moved anywhere on a whim. If I was going to Seattle, it would be with a job offer in my pocket, after I got an apartment, bought a car, took my stuff out of storage, and all that. But what if I just left the airport, never got on that plane to Indiana? What if I start over here? New life, new everything. Clean slate. Wander into a bar, Beatnik style, with nothing but my backpack, and ask for a room, in exchange for a job, cleaning windows, pouring drinks, whatever?

And that’s when the George Costanza moment kicks in. If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right. All the choices I’ve made in life have led to this. Out of a job, out of an apartment lease, on my way back to the town I swore to Almighty that I would never return to. So it’s time, it’s time for the exact opposite.

When the plane lands, I sit down at a café and weigh my options, and argue with myself till I’m blue in the face. The clean slate is so tempting. But it’s stupid. Who in their right mind would choose to be homeless? Would purposefully put themselves in a vulnerable position? Chase danger like it’s a butterfly? The clock ticks the minutes down, one by one as I stay rooted in my seat. The plane going to Indiana is on the opposite side of the terminal. I can’t move. You know what’ll happen, you’ll just end up back in the hospital. That’s what’s at the end of this road. You know it well. The big airport windows show an absolutely gorgeous sunset, tinges of pink and cream and orange, all melting into cotton candy clouds over the mountains. There’s a big city out there, all fresh to explore, with no mistakes in it. Yet.

I decide, right now, right here, this all has to stop. It’s a big moment for me, no matter what it looks like to the outsider. The audience cheers as I run madly through the airport to make the connecting flight. I’m through with it. I’m through with being sick, I’m through with throwing my life down the toilet over an impulse, over romanticized bullshit that only exists in books and not in real life. There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m committing to the sane life. I’m going to bite my tongue and be fucking normal, even if it bleeds me dry.

The plane lands somewhere north of 5am. The milky darkness before dawn is kind of peaceful; translucent and vibrating. I’m excited, but I won’t wear it too brazenly, in case the audience is misled. I’m going to get skinny again, I’m going to become a consultant, and make plans for grad school, I’m going to run the writing group I’ve always wanted to, and I’m going to stay OUT of the hospital. I text my social worker to let her know I won’t be needing residential housing after all. Violet and Tiasha and zir and whoever had better get behind this plan. I know medicine can’t blast them away, but the first thing that destabilizes me is sleep, so I squash my instinct and decide to keep taking them. Remember, opposites, opposite of every instinct. I don’t have schizophrenia, but I’ll admit to something, maybe insomnia and a few narcissistic tendencies. That’s all. After all, I got past the Seattle temptation, that’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

There’s a life out there. A life without 911 calls and fleeing in the darkness and hospital beds and sleepless nights and overdoses and dreading the sound of the phone and midnight swims and Quiet Rooms and rescue missions and evil voices and meaningless adventures and lying in therapy and pills and strangers’ pity and piles of missed calls and days spent in bed and Ativan shots and barfights and nobody knowing where you’ve disappeared to now.  

I wonder what that’s like.