megan, don't be delusional
did you know that carbon monoxide poisoning is one of the leading causes of death for americans every year? second only to being touch-starved.
hello everyone! i am so excited to have my lovely friend meg as a guest writer for “overflow”! please subscribe to this superbly talented and incredibly funny guest writer over at meg’s musings. thank you all for reading and see you next week for a new piece!
3:01 p.m.
I’ve been in somewhat of a creative drought recently. The only reason I even opened and created this document to “write” is because I’m at work and I’m bored and I want to look productive. Everyone else sits at desks identical to my own, which isn’t actually mine but rather one I’m borrowing for the next month. It is suffocatingly sterile and devoid of anything that beckons creativity, perfectly undecorated and lacking in character.
Due to the unstimulating nature of my current environment, I referred to my notes app for ideas. Though it contains a sporadic mix of reminders, lists, and songs I would mix if I was a really good DJ, it sometimes contains a forgotten idea for an opinion that might-could-be elaborated upon further. Upon searching for this secret garden, I find two prospective blog posts Past Me has left a reminder to Future Me to write:
T-Pain is the underrated princess of pop
Virginia has good nature
Okay…
So I can’t really find the energy to find anything else to say about either of these things. Instead, I’ll start by verbalizing what has been occupying my brain-space the most lately:
Charli XCX’s “brat,”
My deep, insatiable, never-ending desire for companionship.
I’m sure if I had more creative energy to expend, I could find a way to find a through-line between these things. Even if it actually does not exist.
Instead, I’m sitting here writing this, trying not to think about the cute boy I’ll likely never see again unless I grow the balls to actually text him; I’m thinking about what I’m going to do when I get off work (stop at the convenience store and drive an hour away to see my best friend); I’m thinking about how I stayed up all night convinced that there was a carbon monoxide leak in my house and I had to stay up to make sure I didn’t die in my sleep—only to find out we have carbon monoxide detectors that will actually alert us of that sort of thing; I’m thinking about how the shape of my face has noticeably changed (at least to me) and not for the better (at least to me);
I’m thinking about how the most interesting thing I can offer at this moment in time is a literal play-by-play of each thought I have as it hits my cranium, in real time.
How different would things be if I was in Boston this summer instead of here in Moseley? Would the work I do be as significant? Would the stories I’d be telling be as important?
Would these things matter if I felt prettier, healthier, more free, more social, and perhaps even seeing the aforementioned boy?
I’ve devoted absurd amounts of my mental capacity to thinking about the dates I might be going on, the parties I might be attending, how I’d dress or do my makeup differently, who I might kiss.
But no matter how much I think about this illustrious alternate universe self where I don’t leave Boston in the springtime, it never feels like enough. I spent the 7 hour car ride to and from Jersey thinking about this prospective “other self”, and I still ached for more time where no one was talking to me so I could drift off into maladaptive-daydream-land. It’s fascinating how quickly thoughts enter and flee my brain when I don’t want them to.
The interesting thing is, I spend plenty of time thinking about things I’d rather not think about at all, like dying of carbon monoxide poisoning in my sleep, or how I liked how I looked better when I was 17.
If I had control over how much brain energy I spend on something, I maybe could dedicate more time to manifesting this reality I so badly yearn for instead of pouring over things that ultimately freak me the fuck out or paralyze me with insecurity.
It’s been barely half an hour since I got back from my lunch break. I’ve gone to the bathroom, made TikToks I’m not going to post that I only want *that one person* to see, answered a call from my OBGYN, and wrote this article. And it hasn’t even been 30 minutes. I’m sitting here, waiting for the 4 p.m. news to start so I can have a little change of scenery and hear about all the murder that’s going on in my hometown. Until then, I’m going to keep twiddling my thumbs and writing shit nobody wants to read.
I think the whole reason I’ve been so attracted to Charli’s new album is because it represents, to me, what that alternate universe Meg is doing right now. The parties, the boys, the dancing. It’s feverishly fast-paced, dizzying, intoxicating, and oh so romantic.
I’d wear cheekier bathing suits. Maybe I’d be smoking a cigarette. With the arms of a delicious man who matches my mad genius wrapped around my waist.
3:32 p.m.
It’s been 32 minutes since my lunch break ended.
At this point I’m just going to keep writing until I physically don’t have anything else to say, or until the 4 pm news. Whatever comes first.
Dream Meg doesn’t have a double chin. She doesn’t have to scrounge for money to buy groceries. She doesn’t sweat like a pig in the heat, because we’re in Boston, so it’s likely not 105 degrees.
I’m ashamed of the amount of times this summer I’ve thought about getting lip filler and breast implants—in part due to the sheer amount of people that have told me I look younger than I am. Like the lady at the coffee shop in Amsterdam: “Let me see your passport. No way you’re legal” (said Dutch-ly). Or the 16 year old lifeguard who blew her whistle at me for being in the pool during adult swim. I am 20.
I’m also utterly disgusted by dating apps at this point. I don’t want a meaningless hookup, or to be assigned someone who vaguely has the same interests as me, courtesy of the algorithm. I want someone I can introduce to my almost-seventy-year-old Aunt Georgeanne who lives in the seaside of Massachusetts and owns an antique store.
Matches from dating apps only somewhat matter if I’m brazen enough to make plans/follow through with them. And even if I do see someone more than once, where is the tension? The cat and mouse? The will-they-won’t-they? It’s obviously not a question of if they’re attracted to me or not, because they swiped on me, so they are. But where’s all the fun in that?!
I want to sit across the table from a beautiful, mustached man, too nervous to maintain eye contact but knowing he’s staring sexually charged daggers into me.
I want to stand close, as in just-too-close-to-be-platonic close, to him at an apartment party, too small for the amount of people that are there, stuffy (but I’m not sweating, because I don’t sweat in dreamland), and smell the beer on his breath when he asks me if I want to spend the night.
I want to live these things instead of reading about them in the middle third of a kitschy rom-com novel where it turns into smut and then goes wholesome again.
All these hypotheticals star the same man, by the way. And he does not live in Moseley, Virginia.
You may ask what brought this on then, since we aren’t even relatively close to each other right now;
He liked my Instagram story.
Like come ON! I know I’m making a mountain out of a molehill. Can you get any more pathetic than that?!
When I told this to my best friend, it warranted a disappointed “Megan, don’t be delusional”.
That’s how you know it’s bad…not only did she just tell me I’m being delusional (I am), it also earned the use of the government name. That part was really sobering.
So here’s what I’ve considered doing:
Texting him to make plans for the next time I’m in Boston and desperately hoping that he says yes and also we continue to chat until then to build rapport
Do nothing
One of these things really terrifies the shit out of me. Because I could get rejected. Or judged. Or worse—left on read.
But one of these things is even scarier. My head knows that, but my heart doesn’t. Because while my fight-or-flight isn’t getting triggered, the alternative would be stagnancy. If getting left on read terrifies me, remaining stagnant kills me.
3:43 p.m.
In completely unrelated news, I’ve run out of Lexapro.
3:49 p.m.
Ran out of words. Goodbye for now.
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