Self Care

I’m running down the hill behind my apartment complex. Running, stumbling, crawling, then rolling. There’s a roar in my head, my stomach’s in my throat, and I’m made of Jell-O as I hurtle down the grassy slope and into the rain-filled retention pond at the bottom. Raindrops pelt my face like dull needles as I lie on my back in the filthy water. I close my eyes.

***

Less than an hour earlier, I’d peeled myself off the couch for the first time all day, gotten dressed in a sad excuse for an outfit that still vaguely smacked of pajamas, then set out for a walk around the neighborhood. It was a muggy, boiling hot day. Steam rose from the sidewalks and the sun’s rays seemed to glint off of every surface. My thin cotton shirt and leggings were plastered to my skin with sweat almost instantly.

Exercise and Vitamin D, I repeated to myself over and over as I made my way down the street, the mantra my only motivation to get through the miserable daily ritual. It’s what everyone tells you to do, isn’t it? Take care of yourself. No one can help you until you help yourself. No one will love you until you love yourself. Et cetera.

Days like those, when unfamiliar familiar voices were hissing between my ears, undermining my life and worth, pinning me to the bed, the couch, holding me back from eating or drinking or talking to anyone until I was only a buzzing mass of energy slamming against the bars of my skull’s cage, on those days, a walk was the best I could do.

I hadn’t seen another soul as I’d ambled down the rickety wooden stairs of the apartment building. Ten apartments total in my building, and I’d never met a single one of my neighbors, actually, though I knew the units were occupied because of the terminally full parking lot and their voices that often carried through the thin, bird-infested walls.

Cars drove down the narrow street as I got farther from my building, assuring me that other people were still existing outside of me, untouched by my vortex. Moisture beaded at my temples and above my upper lip. I repeated my mantra in my head a few more times, drowning out the storm within with sunlight and positivity. I tried not to curse myself for forgetting my water bottle.

Shielding my gaze with a hand, I surveyed the crossroads at the end of my street. I never knew which route I’d take on my walks when I set out on them. It felt like an exercise to let intuition guide me, and to remember that everything that will be, will be. I was still standing on the corner, deliberating, when the sprinklers kicked on. One by one, the neighborhood’s watering system erupted into full spray, trapping me in a tunnel of water. Swearing, I ran across the street, away from the waterworks.

I heard snickering and muttering behind me and whirled around to find a group of kids, middle-school age, probably, pulling up on bicycles and skateboards. I couldn’t hear anything they were saying over the rising disgust pounding through me at the thought of sprinkler water in my hair, my face, my mouth. The last thing I needed was lead poisoning or a parasite.

I scurried down the road, angling for the cul-de-sac that would bring me quickly around to the front of the neighborhood, then back to my apartment. I tried not to think too hard about being drenched in unclean water, instead running through the steps of the rigorous decontamination I’d be conducting as soon as I made it back to my bathroom. It wasn’t the relaxing afternoon walk I’d had in mind, but after a few moments I at least began to feel hopeful that once I’d cleaned up I might feel human enough to run some errands.

I made it to the neighborhood entrance just before the rain started. Mere seconds before, the sun, beating down on my head and shoulders, had already begun drying my clothes, yet, as suddenly as an explosion, cement-gray clouds bloomed across the sky, heavy and buzzing with electricity, then unleashed.

I was forgetting what it felt like to be dry. I feared slipping and breaking a bone or cracking my head open on the pavement as I hurried home through the storm. When a loud, angry lightning strike sizzled and cracked against a tree a few meters away, I screamed, my heart skipping a beat and my knees almost giving way.

Squeezing my toes in my sneakers for stability, I jogged down the block as fast as I could manage on the slick cement. Not far from my building, a black SUV sped past me, tires splashing through the flooding road and sending a muddy spray my way.

You have got to be kidding me right now, I began fuming, but I was so close to home. So close to my warm shower and soft, fluffy towels. That’s when I heard it.

A low growl, quiet and vicious. I dared a glance over my shoulder and spotted the source of the noise right away. A large black dog was behind me. Trailing me. It had to have been the largest dog I’d ever seen. Its teeth were bared, jaws snapping as it chased me. When we made eye contact, its growls intensified.

Officially terrified, I bounded the next several yards to my building, then crashed up the stairs. My hands were shaking, my mouth dry as I frantically rifled through my pockets for my keys. They weren’t there. Of course, they weren’t there. They must have fallen out of my pocket during my mad dash.

I turned to find that the beast of a dog was making his way up the stairs. He wasn’t going to let me go. I ran again, down the hall, to the other end of the platform, then down the opposite set of stairs. The dog chased me relentlessly as I circled around the building, screaming for help. The steep hill behind the complex was slippery with rain as I desperately hurtled myself down, down into the reservoir below. He was never going to let me go.