Clothes to Be Worn

final draft

I had declared myself sick; troubled, though I am young and ordinary. According to James, my ex, I'm “older than my age”, because nobody wants to date many years their minor. The doctor reported that I was not sick, and my parents agreed I was just going through a phase. Supposed by my teachers, I'm far from ordinary; they said I'm "talented" and will do "great things."

I began to feel it right after I watched a news special on how a dog was put down for biting a 7-year-old boy. I remember immediately agreeing with my mom's verdict "what a relief" it was that the monster would never harm anyone else ever again. But later that night, I couldn't dissuade my thoughts from pitying the owners of the dead dog and silently accusing the bitten child of provoking the animal to react in such violence.

That next morning, I was aware of something hard growing inside my stomach, trying to surface itself through my skin. Just the odd familiarity of the sensation made me panic, and I racked my brain as to why I knew it. At first I thought maybe it was just a bizarre recovery process in dealing with how James moved away, but the pain was different. Abandonment makes my head throb; it is an ache and it creeps between chest bones just when I think I’ve dealt with it. But the new sickness began as a thick, heavy feeling, and grew into a physical square shape pushing sharply through my stomach. It seemed to be attaching itself to my ribs and suffocating my organs, and whenever I heard about another's situation, frigid air penetrated through my clothes. Even now, if I lie on my back, I can see its outline, but when I tried to show my mom, she misunderstood that I was calling myself fat. Apparently, I am the only one who can see it, which is why I believed myself crazy.

One of the times when it felt the strongest was when I was visiting my sister at college. I was missing one of my team's last regular-season soccer games in order to see her. When my team called me after the game was over, I couldn't believe how apparent the sickening pain was in my stomach. We had lost by three points, but Jenna assured me it was an awesome game despite the outcome. Of course, she had also scored four of our five goals, so obviously it was a good game in her eyes. I could hear our goalie crying in the background. We weren’t going to the tournament.
Each time they recounted another detail about the game, the metal box inside me grew significantly. I tried to listen and to react relatively, but finally I couldn't take it anymore. My season was over.
I hung up the phone and, overcome with extreme nausea, ran top-speed to the bathroom.

When my head finally cleared, I saw my sister's feet at eye-level as she stooped over me with a worried look.

We stayed up all night discussing what I was experiencing and why I had only recently become aware of it. After I explained everything, she told me that she herself had been going through something similar for many years. But hers wasn’t as acute or noticeable as mine.


When I went back home after the weekend, I was still confused. But I had an idea. I decided to look at my family’s photo albums and I discovered that, just as in person, if someone else looks at me or my pictures, they see nothing out of the ordinary. Yet I can see the faint outline of something ugly beneath my clothing, even as far back as age seven. Over the years, it has become darker, heavier, and larger; I couldn’t see it until recently because it used to be just “skin”, or “feeling sick” or “anger” or anything other than the reality of being self-centered.

It took me about four long months to come up with a diagnosis for my condition: I have a screen, or a filter, inside of me. Everyone has one- in a way- although it is a customized, adaptable representation of it. I figure that, after James left, I began to notice it because, for one of the first times in my life, I didn't, and still don't, know how to react. My best friend said I'm lucky and should be glad for the time spent with him. I am.

My brother asked me if I wish I'd never met him. Sometimes, I do.

My protective screen clothes, which are the things we use in order to guard us from our selfish focus, have become dirty and faded. Screen clothes, or mind-clothes, are things that we have been taught, advice to remember, that we must put to practice in order to broaden our perspective. And we must put fresh clothes on daily.

In general, we human beings are self-orientated, and thus unintentionally sift through every experience in order to pick out the good or bad according to how it may affect us. Based on these results and possible benefits, we evaluate an experience.



The past few weeks, I’ve been working on how to control this phenomenon that is both physically and mentally a part of me. Now that I am aware of what is happening in my own being, I can be more discerning of universal truths of “good” or “bad,” as opposed to everyday amoebas: “what’s in it for me?”

I can view my past and present as things that have occurred. They happened. They are happening. That’s that, and that’s all there is to it. I like to view it as a multi-colored afghan: it’s made up of yarn that is dyed many colors, but it is still just one yarn, and still just one blanket. While noting the benefits and detriments, I can realize the entire situation is bound together. I don’t have to pull it apart in order to embrace it.
I still never know how I am going to react to things, but I know that a larger perspective is always better, and that acceptance is the key to breathing.