New Year’s Plan

For when the worst has happened.

I think too much about shrinking—not that kind. This isn’t about being thin. It’s about being three inches tall. If, for whatever mad scientist, Alice in Wonderland reason, I was shrunken down to a miniature version of myself, would Morticia eat me? Would she eat me or would she recognize my scent and sounds? Would she toss me in the air like a mouse or let me curl up and be the little spoon with her? Is this a sign that home has become too much of my world?

I went on a date, but I didn’t like the sound of the guy. I liked what he said but just not how he said it. I wouldn’t be able to stand it if he started his own podcast. It was the most west coast voice I’d ever heard. You know how the people from the east are all fast-talking? I feel like I’m mentally slow when I talk around them, like my brain is sloshing through mud to get the point across, and I felt like this man was even slower than that while we were on our date, but he told me that he’s working on an urban fantasy series with six books in it and already knows what happens in the story. Can you grow to love someone if you start out not liking their voice? What if it’s the result of a medical condition, and you find out you’re being a judgmental dick? Doesn’t matter. The heart doesn’t want what the heart doesn’t want.

I like to think that our love is strong enough that Morticia would know that no matter how small, it was still me. That she loves me beyond my ability to pour her a bowl of crunchies, that when we look into the other’s eyes, our bond is sealed. But if she would bat my tiny body around until my heart stopped, whose doorstep would she leave me at? Would she bring me to my own door as an offering to myself? Would she wonder why I never came home again, stare out the window, wait to see me open the front gate so she could run to the front door and make her little chirping noises? It breaks my heart to think of her like that, not knowing that she is the reason I’m never coming back.

Is there a name for this feeling of imaginary heartbreak? It reminds me of when Karli would see an ugly picture of herself and imagine it as someone else. You know one of those photos where the shutter captures a version of your face so contorted that it becomes unrecognizable? She says those pictures make her sad—devastated, not for herself because she’s beautiful, but for the version of her in the photo, as though it’s not her but some unfortunate-faced girl she feels sorry for.

I just realized that my entire family hasn’t agreed on a meeting place for when shit goes down, our houses are buried under water, or fire or snakes or whatever is coming and our phones no longer work and no one’s phones work because the internet is broken and Humans are over. We don’t have a geographic location where we are all going to meet which means we are going to waste a lot of time and energy wandering to and fro. This is all just to say, meet me at Boney Mountain with snacks. We’ll make a shelter out of those stacked boulders at the top and come up with our next steps from there.