In some ways, I am grateful for majoring in English in college: analyzing literature helped me understand and articulate nuance. I just don’t, or can’t, apply it to myself. As my mother succumbed to her own mental illness, she’d call me “the bad daughter” and my sister “the good daughter.” Instead of understanding that this is an immaterial distinction, and also just a fucked up thing to say, I internalized it: I am the bad daughter. A bad person. If I am bad, I cannot be good. I wish I was good, that I could be good! 

Walking from my dorm to Blockbuster Video, I paused in front of the small Catholic church/student center. Should I become a nun? My great-aunt was a nun and she seemed to be doing alright. Clearly I was unlovable, so why not? Because I was taking a film class, I went to Blockbuster a lot, so this internal conversation happened a few times a week.

Like many girls my age, I dabbled in Wicca in high school. My parents weren’t particularly religious, and I considered myself an atheist in middle school. But it was hard to deny the appeal of the Goddess. American culture is unkind to teen girls.

Even if I hadn’t slept much before that, I slept okay. I could sleep on pretty much any surface, and remain undisturbed by noise and light. But after a few months of him, of this, the slightest noise would wake me. Falling asleep became much harder: always waiting for the other shoe to drop. He was worse to his next girlfriend and I don’t know where he is now. Stumbling through a hazy half-awake twilight, I hope.