The Chronicles of Kaitlin: 24

She turned the lights off to her 24th floor bedroom, with the backdrop of the city silhouetting behind her thinly-veiled floor-to-ceiling white curtains. She had foregone the choice of darkness and easier sleep for the look of charming and relaxing beauty and luxury; the sun would peer in earlier and stay higher yet later, without the comfort of her thickly-draped blackout shades, but she was comfortable with her decision and the sacrifice it entailed.

She turned the lights off to her 24th floor bedroom, to turn the white lights on to her 2.79 by 5.65 personality, followed by the yellow undertones reserved for those embarking upon night mode. It was 10:45 pm, which meant it was time to crawl into her sheets once more, open herself up to a world of infinity, and crawl back into her mind behind a wall of insecurity.

The night’s proceedings unraveled within her head, and the day preceding played before her eyes. During the day, she was concentrated, focused, astutely attentive of the morning and evening’s tasks, and acutely aware of the unnecessary and annoying inconveniences surrounding her. Save for some yawns and the occasional dreary-eyed stares at her dreary-eyed screen, she was awake and alert, too busy to be tired, too busy to think about life outside of work, too busy to be alone with her thoughts.

But now she wasn’t busy, now she wasn’t surrounded, and now she only had herself. Herself, and the consistent connection to the continuous cascade of the perfect lives around her. She meant to escape the void, but she only found herself falling farther into the abyss. She was scrolling, and the emptiness was growing. It was supposed to be a retreat from the stress of everyday life; but the only break here was in her soul’s cavity. She kept scrolling, and the emptiness kept growing until she collapsed under the imagined weight of the perfect pictures of the perfect people leading their perfect lives in front of her. Suddenly the everyday stress of life felt like the retreat.

It was a distraction that couldn’t detract from the unhappiness she shared with herself.

It was a comparison she couldn’t help but making. She had 1,400 friends. At her fingertips were 14,000 photos. She saw a multitude of posts from a host of strangers. She read. She felt. She wanted. She thought, she desired, she compared, and she sank.

She examined herself with a scrutiny often kept for enemies. The reasons she wasn’t good enough were so apparent. Each little mistake throughout the day played in her head. She shouldn’t have said this. She shouldn’t have done that. What did the person she was prolonging the conversation with think? Or say when she left? Probably faking the good words all along, to be sure. That was the only logical conclusion. Obvious. Apparent. Clear.

And then there was the past. Not just today, but the past. Of all the regrets she had for today, she’d been alive for 8,881 days. How many regrets was that? Within her closet skeletons hung like criminals in London in the 1700s. Plentiful and horrific, the only difference being one was displayed for the public and the other was tucked hidden away. Both equally ate at the fabric of being, though.

But more than that, it was who she was as a person, and not just who she wasn’t. She was a bad person. To care about others, she couldn’t comprehend. To really, truly do so. And if she only paid attention to herself, why did she never succeed at making herself good enough? The shortcomings she couldn’t live up to, she observed idly on the sidelines, never knowing how to adequately combat them and woefully accepting them into her everyday life. She didn’t find meaning in work. She didn’t find meaning in relationships. She had a good job but it wasn’t what she wanted. She couldn’t find a partner she liked, or better yet, one who liked her long enough to stick around. It’s because they got to know her. Deep down, she knew her traits and flaws, and she cheered on cataclysmic chaos like it was her job. Like Daisy, she was smashing up things and creatures, careless.

Deep down, again, she also knew this was a convenient falsity. She was a good person. She wasn’t as selfish and rude and careless as she presumed. She was nice, she could be nice, and it wasn’t out of some inner selfish desire to be liked that she wanted to be friends with people and make them feel good, and it’s because if you make someone feel good, they will like you and they will want to spend time with you and you won’t be alone, and they will say good things about you to other people who will then come to you and you will never be alone. She could be nice, she was nice, she told herself.

It was for this reason, she hated herself. She couldn’t decide what she was or who she was. At all times, she was split. At one point in the year, she was the best she could be. At another point, she was the worst person to exist. It was any given month, week, or day. Within the hour, it could change. She wasn’t sure. There was no way to be sure. The only thing that made sense was the only option left, which was to hate herself. So thoroughly. So constant. It was the one constant she could have.

It was really the only thing she had in common with her ego: how much they both hated herself.

*****

She knew when she’d awake in the morning, she would look in the mirror, and she would apply mascara, eyeliner, eyeshadow, lipstick, and blush. And she knew that when she’d fail to be asleep in the evening, she would be thinking about how all of the makeup she can apply, faces she can make, personalities she can present, feelings she can fake, and words she can say – they are all a thinly-veiled attempt to hide herself and be someone else, and everyone can see through everything she is and isn’t. No one is fooled by her disguise, to be certain.

She knew it.

They knew it.

Everyone knew it.

All she could see was the online images and imagined personas of each perfect little person and perfect little life. And all she could do was want what they had and feel incomplete with what she had.

Everyone else was perfect.

She wasn’t.

They were.

And so she longed for her blackout curtains. Something to hide the light from coming in; the morning, too early, she hadn’t slept from the night before. She needed protection. Instead, the corners of the room only crept closer, the walls got smaller, and the ceiling caved in. She was trapped alone with her thoughts, only wanting some rest and reprieve in the form of sleep. But, although tired, her salvation was here – once she was successful after struggle to rise out of bed, it was time to start her day all over again. She would be distracted. She would be busy. Too distracted and busy to be alone with her thoughts. She wouldn’t have to worry until it was time to end her day all over again. She had at least 12 hours to go. Likely 16. Salvation. She could deal with the little inconveniences. She didn’t have to worry about later, now. And in 24 hours, she’d be back to this same point. This same distraction. This same salvation.

And so she knows she’ll never break the cycle. And it will only build and get worse. The insecurity will only build and get worse, until it converges on infinity, until she can’t take it anymore, and until presence diverges from existence. She is not there.