Claustro-Positive

I have always been confused by the smell of trains–how, like hospitals and school gymnasiums, they have an identifiable scent. They smell staticy–stale but steril–it’s the kind of smell that reminds you, relentlessly, where you are. Not bad, exactly, just too strong. 

I was on my way to visit my sister who was living in New York for the summer. It was 2016.

She was taking a class at Columbia and working for a park conservancy, I had just been dumped. I was staying with her for six nights–five days. 

I had always loved the city, and not in a “small town girl with big dreams” kind of way–New York made me feel satisfyingly insignificant. I liked being surrounded by strangers and enclosed by buildings. 

My boyfriend calls this my “claustro-positive” behavior–my fondness for small spaces–containment. It’s changed as I’ve gotten older, but I still seek out the smallest possible places for myself. It still feels like plugging up holes–sealing myself off from potential exposure.

When we were younger, my parents, sister and I would visit my Uncle in Brooklyn. He lived over a bodega, on the top floor. It was six flights of stairs with a suitcase—my legs burned when we got to his door.

I loved the stairwell, and the way the sirens didn’t mind when we were sleeping. I loved the buzz of the bathroom light and the day old bagels wrapped in cellophane. I loved how much light got in through the blinds and how it never got too dark to see. I felt contained, a feeling that–until then–I hadn’t known. I loved his shitty apartment, and can still sketch it from memory. 

At 19, pimply and pretentious and freshly heartbroken, I was ready to feel that again.

My sister worked during the day, so I would ride the train with her, walk her to her office, and keep walking until she was done at five or six in the evening. I felt very mature–going to the Met alone, sitting on a garden bench, eating a sandwich whose contents I couldn’t pronounce, spotting hustlers selling candy and not falling for it–I felt very adult, very delusional.

It was this summer that I learned to love walking to pass time, and it was this summer I got sick.

After returning home, I became fixated with containing myself–making myself smaller. By winter I’d have dropped out of school, gone to treatment—

If I met 19 year old me today, I would dislike her immediately. I’m positive I was insufferable–a true little shithead with zero emotional intelligence. Still, I’d like to walk with her—to tell her where to step. What to watch out for.

That there’s plenty of places she’ll fit.

Now, my uncle lives in an old, Victorian house and my sister lives on the beach. When I visit them, everything feels wide open.

Now, I’ve walked hundreds of miles in a beat up pair of Danskos. I’m still very much an insufferable shithead.

That’s all I think. I’m tired and it’s very late.

love you. Be good to each other.

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