asymptote

observer self.

If you think about it too much you notice it even more, and you don’t necessarily have to think much to experience it. Many times, I’d wake up and check for it. I’d open my eyes and stare at the ceiling and wonder if that chemical allergy had flared up in my mind again. I’d think hard enough that, at times, I could conjure it up from nothing, as if just the previous knowledge of a feeling could put it front and center. My therapist would always tell me to stop checking, that if you search you will almost always find. The use of a scale implies that you always exist somewhere on it, so it’s better to not consult that scale. If there is no zero what is the meaning of one? It’s basic mathematics. Everyone knows this.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t even a question asked. I woke up and stretched my hands across the pillow and thought, there it is. At my fingertips and across my face as I rolled over in the sheet. Bleeding into the floor and up into my knees as I moved my legs over the edge. A chemical disturbance that was just as physical as it was mental. I rubbed my hand across my face and felt the two second lag of feeling, the second before the pads of your fingers hit your forehead, the second before touch should register and then doesn’t. I couldn’t quite figure out where my foot was in relation to the floor unless I stared very hard and rubbed my heel flat against the hardwood.

People say that it’s like watching yourself on a screen, or like a video game in third person, but it’s nothing like that. It’s more like a phantom limb but the opposite sensation. You can kick your foot against the side of the table and know that the foot is there while still feeling nothing, or feel something about a second after it happened. Like the feeling of pain in a robotic arm that has only one of the five nerve branches attached. Like remembering for a split second that you can feel your heartbeat, and then forgetting. Except the heartbeat is your entire body.

It’s not the greatest setting of the body for a second date, but it was scheduled and the only thing worse than complete derealization is the guilt of same-day cancellation. It felt as though I had made these plans months ago, though it was only days. Any sickness makes time work in confusing ways, it slices time into two very large chunks: before the feeling and during. After is too abstract to conceptualize. There was already this fear planted in my head before the feeling materialized. I was afraid I’d agree to things too quickly or immediately distrust him based on some unimportant personality trait. Dating, oftentimes, feels like too much calculation for me to handle. I dislike not knowing everything about the problem before it happens, and there are always problems. I’d jumped into my last relationship after three or four dates and I refused to do it again. The root of complication is always lack of information.

As I called the uber, chewing gum and scratching my nails against my palms and doing all of the things that are said to ground the body, I was becoming more sure that he would notice. That I’d miss a step or two and fall into a consciousness of infinite derealization where my brain would fully disconnect from my body. It felt like a very short but indefinite coma was incoming, and one small mistake could make it appear. You have to calculate the space between the floor of the car and the concrete when it’s happening. You have to be aware of how tall the heel of your shoe is and maintain balance and retain grip on your bag and your phone. Sometimes you have to speak at the same time. I slowly managed it with a lot of concentration and false confidence. I had to grip the car door and the bag with all of my might and not furrow my brow so as to not look too angry.

He ordered me a drink and I sipped it once every twenty minutes. Every time I drank I’d have to stare very intently at the glass so that I didn’t squeeze too hard and drop it. I’m sure he thought I was a very proper and poised girl. That I was normally this modest and slow to move and prim in my handling. He had no idea that my posture and slow responses and intense eye contact were solely for the purpose of not losing my grip on reality. But as I suppose it always is, in a way. This is why people say and do a lot of things that they don’t mean.

There was a jazz quartet on the stage, and I’d stare intently at the bassist’s fingers and imagine what it was like to touch and immediately feel. I hadn’t played my guitar in six days and I was convinced I’d never play music again. That I’d totally lose myself in this new evolution – or regression – of my brain. He asked me about my siblings and my favorite bands and if I liked the music. I responded after lots of deliberation and every time I shifted in my seat I’d think that the mind and the body are not as interconnected as people say. The body just does what it’s told. The mind can apparently decide it’s never been quite sure of what to say or how or when to speak. It can decide it’s forgotten how to perceive correctly and, if it goes on too long, can convince the body that the whole machine is broken.

I did not use the bathroom or stand up or clap too much. I listened intently to every word he said. At one point he moved from across the table and sat in the booth next to me and I registered every step he took and every move of his jacket about a second too late or too early. I was both intently present and incredibly far away. Every so often I’d consult that scale again and see how many miles my mind had gone from my body, but every time I checked it was so clear in front of me that a number couldn’t do it justice. I couldn’t gauge it because I wasn’t sure where it ended. A world existed where they never conjoined again, diverging completely until they were two separate entities, similar only in their defects.

The date, however, did end, and by that time I felt like I could have drawn his face from memory with my eyes closed. The contents of our conversation, though, and the sound of the music were long gone. I went home with my hands in fists and my head pushed very hard against the window. I had made no real progress on determining whether or not I had calculated the start or the limit of our compatibility. I had measured very little and everything all at once. I was sure I would consult the scale in the morning to see how I really felt about him. I wondered how long I could go before we diverged completely, before I couldn’t remember when we met and when we left each other’s lives.