Compulsion

I.

I always took my shoes off. I left them by the garage. Under the coffee table. At the bottom of the stairs. They slipped off within ten seconds of me entering the house. I curled my knees against my chest on the couch and felt like I was home. Like this was home.

But I started to mourn. And I mourned something that I knew was gone months prior. Months before I lose something, I start to mourn. I mourn before I know I will lose it. I mourn before I start to question if I might lose it. 

If it was gone by August; I started mourning in November.

Now, I always keep my shoes on. My feet stay flat atop the floor. My back remains straight, not touching the chair. I ready myself to leave. Run. Fly. Escape. 

Abandon?

II.

My mom kept a hummingbird feeder on the back porch of my childhood home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Just one cup of sugar and four cups of water. If I was a hummingbird, I too would travel to my house to get a taste. 

The earliest birds started to stop by at the end of winter. My mom would notice them through the kitchen window and call out for the family.

“Look!”

I’d rush to the nearest window and peer outside. I marveled at their speed and laughed at their lack of an attention span. It seemed like they would only take one sip, and then they were gone. It was just a brief glimpse of their green and red feathers, but no other bird compared. 

From March to September, our sightings remained consistent. My mom always noticed them first. I’d hurry to get to the window to see them before they flew off again. And then in September, they were gone. Fall and winter brought cardinals and sparrows––I missed the hummingbirds.

III.

I carry around all of my anxiety in my stomach to the point where I stop eating because the nausea has taken over. I’ve tried every technique that the therapists and counselors and teachers and mentors recommended I try.

I trace a box on my thigh in hopes that maybe––eventually––it will start to help. I go up for five seconds, breathing in. I go across, holding my breath. I go down, breathing out. And I go across, holding my breath. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. I pray that it will start to work if I just get to ten repetitions of this drawing. Sometimes I try fifteen. Sometimes I try twenty. If it’s worked for other people, why won’t it work for me?

I intentionally notice the world around me. I look for five things that I can see. Right now––I see a picture frame from 2021 sitting on my bookshelf, a sunscreen bottle that I didn’t use yesterday, the laundry I haven’t folded in the corner, the ceramic frog my cousin gave me for Christmas, and an old letter on the floor. I feel around for four things––my two-week-old bedsheets, my teeth gnawing against the inside of my cheek, my nails scratching a nonexistent itch on my forearm, and a wet hair tie on my wrist from my too-long shower. I listen for three things––the constant humming of the air conditioning, the desperation behind my typing, and the footsteps above me of the people that I don’t have the energy to be around right now. I sniff for two things––nothing. And one thing I can taste––toothpaste after I zoned out for five minutes and forgot I was brushing my teeth. But I’m still nauseous. 

The only technique I have found to work is to make a mental list of everything that I am grateful for. It’s a temporary fix, because then it reminds me of everything I have left behind. Everything I have run from. Everything I have flown from. Everything I have escaped. 

Everyone I have abandoned.

IV.

Is it possible to mourn for years before you even know what you are mourning? Is it possible for it to be unconscious?

V.

I lived in the same brick house until I was eighteen. The same neighborhood. The same commute. The same people––my parents, my sisters who were fourteen and sixteen years older, the neighbors, and the kids at school.

But I never stayed still––I moved bedrooms three different times. My first bedroom––when I was born up until I was ten––overlooked our cul-de-sac. My mom laid with me when I couldn’t sleep until she promised, “I have to go to the bathroom. I’ll be right back.” Every time, I begged her to stay with me. I always fell asleep before she returned; I know now that her leaving was on purpose. I shouldn’t have begged her to stay; she knew what was best for me. 

My second bedroom was my sister’s, Melissa. I moved in once she got married and moved to Baltimore. It was directly across the hall from my first room, but it was huge. It was originally two bedrooms, but my parents decided to keep it as one when they were building the house. I decided we should paint it teal (like every ten-year-old girl in 2011) and have polka dots everywhere. My excitement for the change masked my sadness for what I had lost. I knew why Melissa left. And I knew why she went so far away. It was just so far away from me. 

When I was sixteen, I decided I wanted to move into my other sister, Ashley’s, room in the attic. I would have an entire floor to myself. I painted the walls gray instead of the red that Ashley liked. We turned one wall into a chalk wall for my new, high school friends to come over and leave me messages. I liked having my friends over, but I sometimes wished that I was the one sleeping over so I could control when we said goodbye. 

By the time I was four, both of my sisters were out of the house and in college. It being just my parents and me was all I knew. I learned to play Barbies and Littlest Pet Shop by myself. I’d create long stories about them in my mind. I talked for them in my mind. I was coming up with new plotlines in my mind. It was quiet. It was always quiet in my room. 

My sisters came home for weekends and holidays. My sister went to college just fifteen minutes away, so she’d come home more often than Ashley. For years, until I was in middle school, I latched myself onto their legs, begging them not to leave again. Every time, I knew it was hopeless. But what if they had stayed? It felt like they had gone so far from me.

VI.

Instinct plays a role in the decision to migrate––it’s in their nature. 

The hummingbird spends its winter in Central America or Mexico––far from our home in North Carolina. During migration, their hearts beat up to 1,260 times per minute and their wings flap 15 to 80 times per second. In preparation for migration, they gain 25-40% of their body fat before taking flight over land and water. They fly alone and low––without their families. 

I imagine my mother’s sugar water prepared them well for their journey. 

I imagine my mother’s same love prepared me well for my leaving.

VII.

I show my anxiety in my fingernails. A childish habit of sucking my thumb turning into biting my nails every second I sat idly. It’s an unconscious habit of mine to rip off any loose piece of skin and to peel off the clear paint every time that I originally put on because I thought just maybe it would help me finally quit.

I’ve been hiding my hands from everyone since I was in 6th grade. I remember tracing the words of hymns in church with my nail pressed against the paper and my palm facing up––just so no one saw. 

“Stop!” my mom called out every time she noticed, ripping my fingers away from my teeth.

I never apologized; I just stuck my hands under my thighs.

The month before I left North Carolina for Colorado, I sat at dinner with my parents overlooking the Cape Fear River, wondering if I was making the right decision to leave. I placed my hands on the table in front of me when my dad grabbed my hand.

“I didn’t know…” he started. He couldn’t finish his sentence before I yanked away. “I didn’t know you were a chewer.”

“She’s done that since she was little,” my mom said, so I didn’t have to. 

I told myself it was okay––migration was soon. My instinct was correct.

VIII.

It takes 1,590 miles to fly directly from North Carolina to Mexico. It takes 1,570 miles to drive from North Carolina to Colorado.

I took nine months to mourn my leaving. To drink as much sugar water as possible. To say goodbye to my home. Migration was just my instinct––something that I couldn’t fight. 

I am compelled to draw boxes on my thighs. I am compelled to find five things I can see, four things I can touch, three things I can hear, two things I can smell, and one thing I can taste. I am compelled to remember what I am thankful for but also what I have lost.

I am compelled to stay until the flowers start wilting and instinct takes over. 

But just like the hummingbirds, I am compelled to eventually return to the sugar water feeder, to my mother, to my sisters––to home.