Everything Happened | vol. 244

Everything I packed to impulsively stay at a Red Roof Inn one mile from home

Depression is boring. The pulverizing fatigue and the looping tape of self-talk about how you’ll feel this way forever.

So sometimes when I get a new flavor of mental illness, it’s a little thrilling. Like that Oreo-flavored Coke Zero. A few weeks ago I started feeling like I didn’t exist. A strange existential limbo where nothing mattered, I didn’t feel sad about it, but also I needed to lope into the woods on all fours like some biohacker guy afraid of seed oils.

To what can I attribute this?

I don’t know. If I can be honest, I am tired of being curious about the shifting fortunes of my body and mind. Sometimes I want to make a binder about all the stuff I’m supposed to be monitoring just to pull it out of my head. I guess this is why people get married. I am grateful that when I do things that run counter to my own health, Nick acts as nurse for me in the aftermath rather than resenting my carelessness. I can’t say I always do the same for him.

I was working from the kitchen table, because for a few weeks I could not walk into my “office.” The room felt haunted to me, like a crime had happened there. This meant I worked less efficiently because I don’t also set up a second monitor for my little “away games.” And while I was sitting there at the table, I knew for a fact that I could not stay in my house that night, that I would not die but maybe burst into flames?, and so I booked a room at the Red Roof Inn by the YMCA. The distance from my home to the Red Roof Inn? 0.6 miles.

Then, I texted Nick that I had to stay at a hotel that night and I already booked it. He was not surprised. I had spent several days prior practically grabbing him by the collar and telling him that something was seriously wrong with me, a Cassandra on behalf of myself, also Cassandra.

When he got home with the kids, I put the following things in my backpack and fucked off to the Red Roof:

1. Millennial water bottle covered in pieces of flair

2. Prescription toothpaste because my teeth starting turning to chalk after pregnancy

3. A book I picked up from my local on a recent mental health errand because it claimed to be a thriller and was set in coastal Maine. (My review: you can always tell when the author is a boomer woman or a man of any age writing women because every female character is wringing their hands about diet or making weird leaps re: the inner life of fat characters, and that kind of took me out of it, but over all, would cast Julianne Nicholson as the small town cop trying to find the missing girl in a limited Hulu series)

4. Retainer, not because I’m a Good Girl about my teeth (though I am, I got Invisalign in my 30s and I’ll be damned if I squander my investment) but because it functions similarly to mouth taping for me and it forces me to breathe through my nose and wake up somewhat rested

5. Bendy joint I’ve been working on for a few months because I am the kind of stoner who literally forgets I like weed for weeks at a time and then I remember and enjoy my singular puff on the front porch before giggling to myself while doing the crossword 3 inches from my face and falling asleep with my phone still in my hand

6. Matches because who can ever find a lighter

7. Burt’s Bees tinted lip balm

8. Electric toothbrush, no idea the brand, Nick bought it for me, again my teeth are dissolving

I didn’t pack any clothes because I wore my gym clothes to sleep in, because I was planning to work out the next morning at the Y. I did not do that.

This particular hotel is where my parents stay when they visit because it’s tight over here, even before we had a third kid and a big dog in the mix. They were horrified at our offers to give up our bed to them and we were horrified at their offers to rest their 70-year-old bones on the tiny busted IKEA fold-out in a room with dodgy HVAC. I think everyone prefers it this way; at day’s end, we all get to retreat to a separate space and there’s no morning traffic jam with 7 people and one shower.

But I hadn’t ever set foot in their hotel when they’ve visited because it wasn’t a destination. No continental breakfast available to unleash my children upon, no pool whose vibes we could tank. Recently, they had started complaining about the quality which I found irritating. Was there subtext? Were they trying to make me feel bad about not being able to accommodate them? Was there some unspoken expectation that some day Nick and I would grow up and buy a new construction house with a smooth driveway and no broken toys in the yard and so many bedrooms we had to get hobbies to assign the rooms a purpose? Why were my parents, the type of people so committed to not making a fuss that they will quietly eat around a big coarse hair found in their restaurant entree, suddenly so particular?

Well, it’s because the hotel sucks. It took ten minutes for someone to show up at the front desk to check me in. I didn’t mind, as you know, I was in no rush, no place to be. She did act as though I was ruining her night. Her speech was not unslurred.

The hallway lights flickered as I made my way to the stairs, because I waited for the elevator long enough to wonder if it was working. My plan was to get high, take a shower, and either watch bad network TV or read my book until I fell asleep.

To my surprise, the window had no screen and wasn’t locked, so I was able to sit on the air conditioning unit and smoke out the window with ease. When I realized the smoke detector was fully dangling by a wire and had no batteries in it, I stopped being so deliberate with my exhales and just enjoyed the fresh air.

The shower didn’t get hot and had only intermittent pressure. I hadn’t planned to wash my hair but I wouldn’t have been able to rinse shampoo out of my dense mop for shit. I was relieved that there was a bath tub at all because so many hotels have done away with them in favor of a zero-entry shower-only setup. Big Anti-Hedonism at work, if you ask me.

I know many people find it gross to use a hotel bathtub, and that ain’t me, babe. I buy shoes at thrift stores, you know? However, this one was not going to be worth my effort. It would take an hour to fill, I wouldn’t be able to get most of my frame submerged, and instead of replacing the cheap vinyl tub liner as it became damaged, someone had just puttied over the holes in grayish patches.

I made my way to the bed, got dressed, and right away found a channel playing 9-1-1. Nick discovered this show recently when he was at a hotel for a conference and was so amused by it that when he got home, he bought the episode he had been watching so we could finish it together. I believe the premise of that episode was…what if your smart home WAS TRYING TO KILL YOU. What a peculiar moment in culture to be able to “discover” a major network show that has been on the air for 7 years and has two entire location-based spin-offs.

Ryan Murphy eat your heart out

I had barely texted Nick to be like “9-1-1 is on!” before I was too sleepy to watch it, do puzzles on my phone, scroll on my phone, or read my book. So I just went lights out around 9:30, very early for me. I slept fitfully, and not only because I was thinking about the dangling, empty smoke alarm casing. It was not at all the hotel sleep I had imagined for myself, which was more like Cinderella’s bluebirds tying an eye mask on me, causing my heartrate to slow enough to be technically dead for ten hours.

It was painful to have to go away, as I had always (secretly!) prided myself on building a life, or lucking into a life, I didn’t need to escape. My kids are in minimal extra curriculars, we don’t have a commute, our standards for provisioning of meals and housekeeping are ghastly. My real life, the time I’m not working, has always been pleasant, often fun, even or maybe especially when I’m playing 4D chess with my toddler over resisting teeth-brushing or boiling headlice out of bedding.

But something in the structures gave out in the last few months. I found myself mad at everyone all the time for getting in my way. I would “ask questions” phrased in a way to make people feel bad on purpose. My life was supposed to be on track to be easier—kids growing up and becoming more capable, less reliant on adult intervention, Nick’s job changes on the horizon, a clearer, more joyful path in sight—so why was I literally stomping so much in my own house. Who stomps?

Maybe it was a hack to stay at a hotel that was shitty, because I almost didn’t stay the whole night. I almost drove home to get into my bed and fall asleep to the whir of Nick’s CPAP machine in my ear, me clinging to the edge of the mattress as Polly scooted my body out of range with her small, imperceptible movements.

I was happy to return home in the morning, a little embarrassed of whatever fugue state forced my exodus. The big kids were already on the bus when I walked in the door and Polly was eating her breakfast in preparation of being delivered to daycare. The house had not been cleaned in my absence, because frankly, no one there is afraid of me. It smelled like dog, because, dog. I was glad to be there.

When the kids got home in the afternoon, Desi politely asked after my stay. “So how was your break?” I couldn’t remember if in my scramble out the door the previous night, I had described it that way, a “break,” or if Nick had provided that phrasing on my behalf.

I don’t remember how I responded, but I’m sure I said it was great because I needed it to appear purposeful. Optics.

It was necessary, but not great, and I don’t have an appetite to do it again anytime soon. For me, it’s only fun to watch 9-1-1 if I’m with someone else. And I live with four people, which has always been the point.

yr mate,
Evie
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