Sweet Doll

Crying at a house show, weird dreams, and head colds

Spring has taken over Boston, and everyone is some kind of ill. I spend half an hour hacking and praying for it to stop before I can fall asleep, with a big bottle of Zyrtec now taking a coveted nightstand spot next to a half-finished cup of tea, Lexapro, Magnesium, and a stack of books I finished. By the end of the week, I’m taking 5 different pills before bed (Lexapro, Sudafed, Robitussin, Magnesium, and Birth Control).

I had a dream that really scared me, where I was eating Lexapro like it was candy and freaked out that it would kill me, and when I told Ethe, they looked at me and said, “Maybe your dreams do have meanings”. However, Google wasn’t helpful in this analysis. In my fundamental Songwriting course second semester, they taught us about “song seeds”, so in a notes app, I write “Eating lexapro like candy” and tell Ethe if I ever put that in a song, it’s game over.

My dreams have just seemed to get stranger and stranger, all incredibly vivid, leaving me to wake up in a state of confusion. I had a dream where I mockingly waved at an ex-friend who then confronted me over text, one where my little sister was in danger (terrifying), one where I reunited with my ex-boyfriend’s parents (surprisingly touching), one where my sister, aunt, and I witness a mass shooting while I was trying to purchase a copy of Famesick by Lena Dunham (genuinely … what?), and one where I was at a bookstore that also had bikes (boring).

The most intense dream of mine had many parts, but what freaked me most was walking into a class that was my Friday 11 am entrepreneurship class, except I thought that it was Tuesday, and I realized I’d lost days of my life that I couldn’t recall. Nothing seemed more terrifying to me. I woke up thinking my phone and laptop were broken and that I had developed amnesia, except none of that was the case, and I, in fact, just woke up tired.

My room is freezing cold because my radiator conveniently decides not to work every two weeks. I’d submit a maintenance request, but I know they hate me because my roommate and I have to put one in every week. Last weekend, we didn’t have a working toilet, and the day before, we had no electricity for three hours.

I read an excerpt from one of my pieces on here for my final Business Plan presentation, and was shocked that there was very little pointing and laughing. In fact, none at all, faces staring at mine with some strange expression - empathy? Understanding? I still can’t shake the experience days later, but I feel seen in a way I’ve never allowed them to before. I am no longer the confident New Yorker with strong opinions and cool experiences I share one-off. They reached my sweet, sensitive center.

I had an out-of-body experience at a basement show in Allston, seeing my friend Ethan perform. My bare knees rub on the gravelly floor, but I can’t mind. Ethan is the special kind of person who is impossible to love; they are kind, wise, and a generational talent. I don’t even fully realize I am crying until a fat tear plops down on my hand. I quickly brush off my cheeks, sniffling. It is impossible not to feel when someone loves what they do so deeply, and I felt every note as if a feeling I’ve had that Ethe plucked out of my brain and played to a room of people I was scared to see.

I later get wildly overstimulated and shut down, recusing myself from the post punk band and the moshing to smoke a cigarette. I suddenly felt like I had become conscious of my body again, unhappy at how my legs looked, exhausted from shaking my head excitedly, and stressed out entirely by the dancing around me. I almost Googled “how to make my legs thinner,” but I decided against it. Ethe comes to join me, and I again can’t help but cry at how proud I am of this unreal person in front of me. I am at the whim of my emotions as I hug my sides in, looking up at a dark sky. I text my mom “#adhd” and that I was overstimulated, even though I know she is asleep.

When she responds, I tell her it stopped feeling natural at some point and that I was putting on a show. Like I was saying, “Look at me! I’m okay! I’m cool and pretty!” She reminds me that I’m not the same person they knew, and she was right. I’m not.

Before I left, everyone fished out their fortunes from a bowl typed on tiny slips of paper. You went first, picking “Your presence alone brings joy to strangers”, to which I jokingly responded, “I wouldn’t say that”, but maybe part of me did mean, and part of me wanted to twist the knife. “I’m nervous,” I sing as papers swim past my outstretched hand. “Your kindness strengthens strangers,” I read with a laugh, “People have said that about me.” Ethe smiles in agreement as Cole goes to select their own fortune, laughter and conversation filling the backyard.

“I wouldn’t say that,” you said, leaning your head down so your lips are just above my ear.

My Uber driver is a soft-spoken woman named Jaldie, and I cry to Rowena Wise in her backseat, my eyes glazed over as Brookline passes by. She has a stuffed dog holding a heart in the window and a decal on her mirror that says “Trust In God”. I don’t know who I’m crying for or why, but this time, I let my tears fall onto my folded hands. I smell like tobacco, and I wonder if I am doomed to feel despair as long as I live.

I get in my bed, turn up my broken radiator, take Magnesium, and pray to whoever is listening that I won’t feel like this when I get up.

A woman in the book club I joined texts us that she’s just gotten engaged, and I am sitting in bed watching Materialists and angry and in my Los Angeles Apparel boatneck longsleeve and Brandy Melville red and white striped underwear I took from my sister, texting everyone I can think of that I’ve been feeling weird. How do you fix a feeling you don’t completely understand?

My therapist tells me there is no such thing as “winning a breakup”, which I find quite discouraging, but I know she is right. “Don’t think about new opportunities as winning,” she said, “Let yourself genuinely enjoy these things.” She said the closest anyone has ever come to “winning” was Lily Allen with West End Girl, which I have to agree with. I loved the album the second it came out, but you thought it was “cringe” when I played you Pussy Palace, which should’ve been my first red flag.

I, too, am crafting a project, except it’s more about finding me than loving you or losing us.

I fall in and out of love every day, I want love and then don’t, I dream of being someone’s, and love to be alone. I am a girl in between. I’m working on a song, and the first line is “Wanna waste the day in bed/Watch myself thin out instead,” and as I type this, cuddled in my puffy comforter, it couldn’t be more true.

Music is my one constant, my one true love, my own super special secret. I feel lucky I can make it, and even luckier I can consume it. I am a bottomless pit that needs to be fed.

The semester that has rewired every part of my body is coming to a bittersweet close. I am no longer the girl who came back to Boston in January, eager to see her beloved boyfriend and optimistic about things getting better. In some ways, they did; I have the most incredible friends, and our bonds have only strengthened over this semester, and I have gotten to know the girl I truly am, without a boyfriend or in a crowd of people, in a way that is unlike any other. I started writing on Substack, which I look forward to every day, and writing songs I’m excited to sing to crowds. I’m starting to sing to crowds, too. Who would have thought?

The saying goes, it has to get worse before it gets better, and trust me, being completely blindsided four days before your birthday by a man you were madly in love with, while also struggling to regulate your increasingly worse anxiety, while also still dealing with the loss of your father almost two years ago, is not the worst it’s ever gotten, but it sure felt like it. It took strength, trust, and resilience to rebuild myself, except I wasn’t prepared for that to come from within me. The love my family and friends showered me with was the fuel I needed, but the true change that had to come was from me. I had a lot of help along the way, but the person responsible for my growth when it comes down to it is me, and I am so incredibly proud.

What do I have to show for it? Some really great friends, a semester of incredible outfits, risks I have taken and will continue to take, a project I am proud of, a job I enjoy, and a little faith in myself. That kind of growth is only possible when you have no other choice but to crawl yourself out.

I watched Alexi Wasser’s short from 2016 called Love Alexi about a breakup, where her character invites two random delivery guys to hook up with her, the second helping her learn to move on, all while she calls her ex repeatedly. In her final call to him, she says she was most scared to face herself. “It was so much easier to be wrapped up in you.”

I told you that I feel good because I am dressed like a sweet doll, and you say I always am “in a good way.”

When I was younger, I used to count how many steps it took me for each pavement square, stretching my stride out to keep it linear. One, two. One, two. I still do this every so often when I want to remember that I’m here, and watching my feet as each square comes and goes. One, two. One, two.

I feel like every feeling I’ve ever had melted into one, like candies left in the pocket of a bag in the summer, each color blending into one. Each flavor on my tongue is distinct yet something new. A hint of grief, a touch of heartbreak, and a speck of growing pains become one like a kaleidoscope. I can’t seem to shake how all my sadness turns to one.

“I know, like, two people who started at the same time as me and are dropping out this year,” I tell Ethe as we walk home from their office hours, “If I wasn’t so close, I think I would’ve considered it too.” They frown, walking away from me, “I can’t believe you’d leave me.” I frown back before letting out a laugh. “I’d never leave you, Ethe. We’re walking together!” I shrug as we give each other our signature pout. “Besides, when my mom met with the medium, he told her my dad said I can’t drop out. Graduating means a lot to my family.”

My mom sees hearts everywhere, her sign of my father, in coffee cups, ice cubes, and leaves. I am far less spiritual, but I have always envied her connection to him, something I’ve never felt after his passing. I furiously beg for dreams from him, or guidance, or signs, but they rarely ever do come. Fifteen minutes after my conversation with Ethe, I see a heart-shaped leaf under my flats. I guess I was right about needing to stick it out. It meant enough to him that he had to let me know.

Things that inspired me this week:

• Happy Hour by Marlowe Grandos

• Ordering capris from Blondita because I was sad

• CONQUEST by Cossette

• Afternoon snack plates! I particularly enjoy having pickles, hummus, pepperjack cheese cubes, and Undercover Chocolate Quinoa Crisps

• Rhode Peptide Lip Shape Contour - I was inspired by Emelia, and I am very happy about it. I love a lipliner

Incredibly blurry picture of Ethe before their set

Happy Friday! Finals are starting to really make me want to die, so this isn’t quite my favorite, but writing is a muscle! Hoping everyone enjoys a peaceful weekend & a great start to May

xoxo, Maia