Ghost Girl and the Other Inconveniences of Being Alive – Part II

Further Reports from a Life Still in Progress

Read the first part of this mico-chapbook here.

VI THE WOMAN I THOUGHT I’D BE BY NOW

. . .

15. I Was Supposed to Be Further Along

There is a woman I thought I would be by now.

I have been carrying her around for years.

She is not particularly specific. I couldn’t tell you exactly what she does for a living, what her kitchen looks like, or whether she has finally learned to buy the correct size of fitted sheet. But I know she is doing better than I am.

She has made decisions.

She knows what she wants.

She has a reasonable amount of money in the bank and doesn’t experience a small unexpected expense as a referendum on her entire future.

She has finished things.

This last quality is especially irritating.

I have unfinished things everywhere. Ideas, plans, projects, books I began with tremendous confidence and abandoned somewhere around page forty. I have a collection of possible lives that would be impressive if they could be assembled into one actual life.

Instead, they sit around making me feel vaguely accused.

The woman I thought I’d be has none of this trouble. She has become the sort of person who knows where she is going.

I sometimes wonder what she thinks of me.

Then I remember that she doesn’t exist.

This should be comforting.

It isn’t.

I have spent so many years trying to catch up with a person I invented that I have begun to suspect she was designed specifically to keep me running.

Every time I approach her, she acquires another qualification.

A better body. A better job. A better wardrobe. A passport with more stamps. A finished manuscript. A more interesting life.

She is a moving target with excellent posture.

I would like to fire her.

I would like to stop reporting to a woman who has never paid rent, experienced disappointment, or had to decide whether an expensive purchase could reasonably be classified as an investment.

But I don’t know what happens when I stop trying to become her.

I have built a considerable portion of my identity around the belief that I am not there yet.

What if there is no there?

What if I am not a disappointing draft of a better woman?

What if this is the woman?

I look around for a moment, as though somebody might object.

Nobody does.

Which is not the same as feeling convinced.

16. The Life I Nearly Had

Sometimes I miss a life I never lived.

This is an inconvenient kind of grief because there is no actual event to point to. Nobody died. Nothing was taken away. There is no date I can put on a calendar and no sensible explanation for why I occasionally feel homesick for somewhere I have never been.

It is the life I might have had if I had been braver at twenty-three.

Or richer at thirty.

Or less concerned with what people thought.

Or more concerned with what I thought.

In this other life, I imagine myself doing something interesting. I live somewhere with beautiful old buildings and a small café I can walk to. I have work that uses my mind. I wear clothes that look as though I chose them deliberately. I am not constantly postponing my own existence until conditions improve.

I have given this woman excellent lighting.

She is always photographed in the late afternoon.

I never imagine her with a toothache, an unpaid bill, or a mysterious noise coming from the refrigerator. Her life contains atmosphere rather than administration.

It is a very attractive arrangement.

It is also fraudulent.

I have no idea what that life would actually have been like. Perhaps I would have been lonely there. Perhaps I would have made different mistakes. Perhaps the beautiful apartment would have had terrible plumbing.

The woman I might have been has been spared the indignity of becoming real.

She never had to find out whether her plans would work.

She never had to live with herself.

I envy her for this.

I envy a fictional woman the freedom of having no consequences.

Meanwhile, I am here, with the life that did happen. It contains things I wanted, things I didn’t want, and things I couldn’t possibly have predicted. Some of it is good. Some of it is difficult. Some of it is so ordinary that I barely register it until it has already passed.

I keep looking sideways at the life I missed.

I wonder how much of the life I have missed while looking.

This is the sort of question that makes me want to go and do something dramatic.

Instead, I make coffee.

I am beginning to suspect that coffee has been present at every major crisis of my adult life and has yet to offer a single useful opinion.

17. I Have Become Difficult to Impress

I used to be impressed by almost everything.

A woman with an interesting career. A woman who travelled alone. A woman who seemed to know what suited her. A woman who could walk into a room without spending the next twenty minutes wondering what her face was doing.

I watched people and assumed they possessed some information I had failed to acquire.

There were rules, presumably.

Somewhere, a person had explained how to become a woman who was comfortable in her own life. I had missed the meeting.

Now I am older, and I have become difficult to impress.

Not because I have grown especially wise. I want that understood.

I am difficult to impress because I have started noticing the machinery.

The carefully arranged photographs. The casual mention of a purchase that costs more than my monthly groceries. The effortless woman whose effortless appearance appears to require a considerable number of products, appointments, and strategically timed photographs.

I notice these things, then feel mean for noticing them.

Perhaps the woman really is happy.

Perhaps the coat really is worth the money.

Perhaps she has simply found a way to live that works for her.

I don’t need to turn every woman I envy into a fraud. That would be a miserable hobby, and I already have enough of those.

Still, I am tired of mistaking appearances for evidence.

I have done it with other people, and I have done it with myself. I have thought that if I could just look a certain way, earn a certain amount, finish a certain project, or become sufficiently interesting, I would finally feel that my life had begun in earnest.

I keep moving the requirements.

This is how a woman can spend years being almost impressed with herself.

I would like to be impressed by something else.

A good sentence. A beautiful building. A meal that tastes better than it has any right to. The fact that I can still be interested in something without needing it to improve me.

I would like to see a woman enjoying herself and simply let her enjoy herself.

I would like to buy a coat without imagining the woman I could become inside it.

I would like to look in the mirror and see a face instead of a performance review.

These are modest ambitions.

Naturally, I have already begun worrying about whether I can achieve them.

VII THE PRIVATE BUSINESS OF BEING A WOMAN

. . .

18. My Face Has Become a Public Document

There are mornings when I look at my face and think it looks like mine.

There are other mornings when I look at it as though it belongs to a woman whose file I have been asked to review.

The lighting is never neutral. The mirror is not a reliable witness. A photograph taken from the wrong angle can ruin an otherwise perfectly serviceable afternoon.

I know how ridiculous this sounds.

I also know how much time I have spent looking at myself.

Not admiring myself, exactly. More like inspecting a property that may have developed structural problems.

There is the skin. The hair. The small changes that arrive without an announcement. There are the things I can improve, the things I can disguise, and the things that will eventually require me to develop a more philosophical attitude than I currently possess.

I have no objection to beauty.

I like beautiful things. I like a good lipstick. I like the feeling of putting on something that makes me look the way I want to look. I enjoy the little transformation of it.

What I resent is the suspicion that I am never entirely off duty.

Even when nobody is looking, I have learned to look at myself.

I can be alone in my bathroom and somehow feel observed. I can enjoy a perfectly good day and then catch sight of myself in a window and begin a review I had not intended to conduct.

It is a peculiar way to inhabit a body: to be both the person living in it and the person constantly assessing its presentation.

Sometimes I wonder what I would do with the time if I stopped.

I could read. I could write. I could go for a walk and look at the actual world instead of checking my reflection in shop windows.

I could stand in front of the mirror and see that I am tired without deciding that tiredness has made me unattractive.

I could allow my face to have a day.

The trouble is that I have become attached to the possibility of improvement. Improvement gives me something to do. It suggests that the answer is waiting somewhere, perhaps in a bottle, perhaps in a new routine, perhaps in a version of myself I haven’t quite managed to produce.

It is difficult to surrender a project when the project is your own face.

I put on my lipstick.

I look again.

For a moment, I like what I see.

Then I leave the bathroom before I can ask it to prove anything.

19. The Extraordinary Expense of Being Presentable

Being a woman is expensive in ways that do not always appear on a bank statement.

There is the obvious expense: the clothes, the shoes, the hair, the products, the appointments. There is the cost of replacing things that were perfectly good until the culture decided they were no longer quite right.

Then there is the invisible expense.

The time spent deciding what to wear. The time spent regretting what you wore. The mental arithmetic of whether something is flattering, appropriate, too young, too old, too much, not enough.

The small negotiations with a body that refuses to remain a stable set of measurements.

I have stood in front of a wardrobe containing plenty of clothes and felt that I had nothing to wear.

I have bought something new because I wanted to feel different, then wondered why the new thing had not made me different.

I have kept clothes for a future version of myself who has never once appeared on schedule.

Somewhere in my wardrobe there may be an entire woman waiting to happen.

She has excellent trousers.

She has never been late.

I would like to meet her, although I suspect she would find me exhausting.

The strange thing is that I genuinely enjoy getting dressed when I am not treating it as a problem to solve. I like fabric. I like colour. I like the tiny pleasure of putting on an outfit that feels like a decision rather than an apology.

I want that pleasure without the accompanying audit.

I want to wear something beautiful because it is beautiful, not because I have successfully concealed every sign of being a human being.

I want to buy something inexpensive without feeling cheap and something expensive without feeling reckless.

I want to leave the house without conducting a final inspection that would satisfy a customs official.

Mostly, I want to stop confusing the work of looking presentable with the work of being a person worth looking at.

I have a suspicion that these are two different jobs.

Unfortunately, I have been doing them both at once for years.

20. I Am Not Always a Good Woman

I am not always a good woman.

I am sometimes jealous.

I can be uncharitable about people who have things I want. I can hear about somebody else’s success and experience, before I have had time to correct myself, a small ugly sensation that has nothing to do with their deserving it.

I can be generous in public and resentful in private.

I can want to be admired while pretending I don’t care whether anyone notices me.

I can want attention and then become annoyed when I receive it.

I can be disappointed in someone for failing to understand me when I have made absolutely no effort to explain myself.

I have expectations of other people that I would find unreasonable if they were applied to me.

There. I said it.

I don’t particularly enjoy admitting these things. I would prefer to think of myself as thoughtful, kind, interesting, and possessed of a reasonably developed moral character.

I would also prefer to be thinner without doing anything about it, which gives you some idea of how much I enjoy wanting things that conflict with reality.

The problem with trying to be a good woman is that the definition can become rather crowded.

Be generous, but don’t be foolish.

Be confident, but don’t be arrogant.

Be attractive, but don’t appear to be trying.

Be ambitious, but remember to be grateful.

Be honest, but not unkind.

Be independent, but remain pleasant to be around.

And whatever you do, do not reveal the less flattering contents of your mind. Someone might discover that you are not the finished moral product you have been presenting.

I don’t want to make a virtue of being unpleasant. I don’t want to excuse cruelty by calling it honesty or selfishness by calling it boundaries.

But I am tired of the idea that being a decent person requires never having an indecent thought.

Sometimes I am envious.

Sometimes I am petty.

Sometimes I wish someone else’s good fortune had happened to me.

The feeling arrives. I don’t have to invite it to stay for dinner.

Perhaps character is not the absence of ugly feelings.

Perhaps it is what I do after I have had them.

I would like to be a kinder woman.

I would also like to stop pretending that kindness means I have never wanted to throw a small, imaginary brick through somebody else’s very successful life.

VIII THE THINGS I WANT BUT CANNOT ADMIT

. . .

21. I Want to Be Extraordinary, Unfortunately

I would like to be extraordinary.

I know. It is an embarrassing thing to admit, particularly when one has spent years trying to appear sensible and grateful.

But there it is.

I would like to make something that matters. I would like to write something that makes another person stop what they are doing and read it twice. I would like to have an idea that is entirely mine and see it become something real.

I would like to be recognised.

Not universally. I am not asking for a statue, although I would not object to a tasteful one.

I would like evidence that I have done something with the time I have been given.

This is where the trouble begins.

The desire itself is perfectly ordinary. People want to make things. They want to be good at something. They want their work to travel beyond the private room in which it was made.

But I have managed to turn the desire into a verdict on my worth.

If I succeed, perhaps I will finally have proof that I was right to want more.

If I fail, perhaps I will have to admit that I was never particularly special.

I understand that this is an absurd arrangement.

I continue to participate.

There is a part of me that wants to create for the pleasure of creating, and another part that would like the creation to be admired by a panel of people whose approval would permanently silence every doubt I have ever had.

The second part is very demanding.

It has a clipboard.

It would like to know the audience size, the reviews, the prize money, and whether anyone important has noticed.

I try to write with it standing over my shoulder.

Nothing good happens.

I don’t want to give up wanting to do something remarkable. That would be dishonest. I don’t want to pretend that recognition means nothing to me when I know perfectly well that it does.

I want the work to be good.

I want it to be read.

I want to be proud of it.

And I would like, if possible, to stop making every unfinished page a referendum on whether my life has been worthwhile.

I sit down to write.

The page is blank.

The woman with the clipboard clears her throat.

I ignore her for approximately four minutes.

Then I begin.

22. The Fear of Being Ordinary

There is a particular kind of panic that comes from suspecting you may be ordinary.

Not terrible. Not unsuccessful by any objective measure. Not a person who has ruined everything.

Just ordinary.

A person who wanted more than she managed to do. A person with some talent, some good ideas, a few interesting experiences, and a collection of things she meant to finish.

A person whose name may not travel very far.

I find this thought strangely difficult to tolerate.

I don’t know what I think I am owed. The universe has made no promises to me. Nobody signed a contract guaranteeing that my life would become impressive if I tried hard enough.

And yet some private part of me has been waiting for a revelation.

A moment when everything comes together and the confusion of the previous years becomes a necessary prelude to something extraordinary.

I would like the suffering to have been narratively useful.

I would like the detours to turn out to have been essential.

I would like the things I have not yet done to be waiting for me at the end of a long corridor, arranged in a satisfying sequence.

Life is not especially interested in providing a structure.

It gives you a Tuesday.

It gives you a bill.

It gives you a small opportunity you may or may not recognise, and then it carries on.

There is no guarantee that the years will culminate in a moment when everything makes sense.

I find this rude.

I have spent so much time imagining a future self who would explain the present to me that I have almost forgotten to ask what I actually enjoy.

Not what would impress me.

Not what would look good from a distance.

What I like doing when nobody is going to award me anything for it.

I have a few answers.

They are not all grand.

Some of them would look unimpressive on a biography.

I am not ready to surrender the desire to matter. I suspect I never will be entirely.

But perhaps I could stop demanding that every small pleasure justify the space it occupies in my life.

Perhaps I could write a poem without asking whether it will become important.

Perhaps I could have a good afternoon that leads nowhere.

Perhaps I could be ordinary at something and still be allowed to enjoy it.

I would like to try.

I would also like to be extraordinary.

Apparently, these negotiations are ongoing.

23. I Don’t Know What I Want Until I Can’t Have It

I am often very clear about what I want once it becomes unavailable.

Before that, the situation is less straightforward.

I can spend weeks considering an opportunity, finding fault with it, worrying about the timing, and deciding that perhaps it isn’t right for me.

Then it disappears.

Suddenly, I understand its importance.

I want it with the conviction of a woman who has just discovered that the last train has left the station.

I become passionate about the thing I was uncertain I wanted yesterday.

I can see its possibilities now. I can imagine how well it would have fitted into my life. I can identify all the ways in which I might have made it work.

The mind is a remarkable machine for manufacturing certainty after the evidence has become irrelevant.

I have done this with opportunities, places, plans, and versions of myself.

I have mistaken hesitation for wisdom.

I have mistaken fear for intuition.

I have also said no to things I genuinely did not want, which is why I cannot simply decide that every hesitation is a mistake.

I would prefer a more convenient system.

A small internal bell that rings when I am about to abandon something important for a reason I will regret.

Perhaps a message on my phone.

Dear Ghost Girl,

You are currently confusing the discomfort of trying with the certainty that this is a bad idea.

Please reconsider before making any permanent decisions.

Unfortunately, I have not been issued such a device.

I have only myself, and myself is not always a reliable source.

Sometimes I know what I want and don’t want to admit it.

Sometimes I want the idea of something more than the thing itself.

Sometimes I am simply tired and would like everyone to stop asking me to make decisions.

I am trying to learn the difference.

I haven’t learned it yet.

For now, I am suspicious of any desire that becomes urgent only after the door closes.

I am also suspicious of the part of me that feels relieved when it does.

It is possible to spend an entire life confusing the safety of not choosing with the freedom of having chosen.

I would like to know which one I have been doing.

I suspect the answer varies.

This is not the answer I wanted.

IX THE BUSINESS OF BEING ALIVE

. . .

24. I Have Spent a Lot of Time Preparing

I have prepared for my life with extraordinary seriousness.

I have made plans. I have thought about what I would do when I had more time, more money, more confidence, more energy, more certainty.

I have considered the conditions under which I would finally begin.

The conditions have become quite elaborate.

I would need a clear head, a reasonable amount of uninterrupted time, an appropriate level of motivation, and a general feeling that the world was not about to become difficult.

I would need to know what I was doing.

I would need to feel ready.

I would need to be the sort of woman who did not have to prepare so much.

This is where the system begins to collapse.

I can prepare indefinitely for something I am frightened to do. Preparation gives me the pleasant sensation of movement without requiring me to risk an outcome.

I can research a place without going there.

I can organise a project without completing it.

I can buy the notebook, make the list, arrange the desk, and imagine the satisfying day on which I finally become a woman who gets things done.

The notebook is beautiful.

The list is excellent.

The woman remains theoretical.

I have a suspicion that I am not waiting for the right moment.

I am waiting for a version of myself who will not be frightened.

She has not arrived.

Perhaps she is delayed. Perhaps she has taken another route. Perhaps she is simply an invention I have been using to postpone the unpleasant experience of beginning before I feel ready.

I don’t know.

I do know that the years have continued to pass while I prepared.

I have prepared for better circumstances, and the circumstances have changed without consulting me. I have prepared to be confident, and confidence has proved unwilling to appear on command.

I have prepared to enjoy my life.

This is the most ridiculous part.

I have made enjoyment into another thing I must qualify for.

There are days when I can see the absurdity of it clearly.

There are other days when I reorganise a drawer instead of doing the thing I actually want to do.

I am not offering a solution.

I am simply recording the evidence.

The notebook is still beautiful.

I think I will use it.

Not because I am ready.

Because I am tired of buying notebooks for women who do not exist.

25. A Woman Alone With Her Thoughts Is a Difficult Neighbour

My thoughts and I live together.

The arrangement is not always harmonious.

They make noise at inconvenient hours. They bring up things I thought had been settled. They insist on discussing the future when I am trying to sleep and the past when I am trying to enjoy myself.

They have no respect for working hours.

I can be having a perfectly pleasant afternoon when one of them arrives with a question.

Are you happy?

Not now, I think.

But are you?

I was having a cup of tea.

That isn’t an answer.

I know.

I have tried to establish some boundaries. I have read things about being present. I have attempted to observe my thoughts without becoming involved.

This works for approximately thirty seconds.

Then I begin evaluating how well I am observing them.

Even my attempts at peace become opportunities for self-assessment.