My First Published Essay
I’m so excited to have contributed a story to Volume 3 of Cadmium Magazine.
‘The Stories We Tell’
So, I started seeing someone.
No, I mean, not romantically. Professionally. A therapist. I started seeing a therapist.
You see, before we began this global life crisis I was already having a personal life crisis, so, I wanted to seek some casual counseling. It’s just that, I found myself spinning in this same sad circle. Except, before, I was away at school, and the sad circle I kept spinning in was only sad enough for me to think about seeking help. But then COVID happened, and I was home, and the sad circle became quite unbearably miserable. So I booked a consultation.
Apparently therapists want you to tell them plainly why you’re seeking counseling, without the fluff and distance of a poetic twist. So when she asked me why I wanted to start therapy, I gave a big nervous smile as I cocked my head toward the ceiling to look anywhere but into her virtual eyes, and said, “Well… I’m just trying to figure out some family stuff. And… there’s this guy.” You can’t be serious “But! It’s not about the guy, It’s about me! and I… I just want to be… happier?” nice.
She held back a smile as she nodded encouragingly and took notes on what I was saying. I recognized it as the kind of smile that creeps across my face when I’m excited to take on a new project. I felt embarrassed and yet safe, so I came back the next week. And then the next. My therapist and I, we’re really becoming homies and she’s helping me realize where I tend to repeat certain ineffective behaviors. (Say, emotional enmeshment as a form of affection, for example.) This way I can recognize the pattern, understand why it exists, and strategize on how to change it.
This week we started discussing snowballing. Snowballing is this tendency I have to give my actions and the actions of others more meaning than they may have in reality, and convince myself that they are slowly but surely leading to the-world-as-I-know-it ending. What can I say? We all have our things. So she’s telling me about how, if I tell someone a white lie, I don’t have to ruminate over it and avoid that person for the rest of my life out of fear of them thinking I’m “bad”. I’m not completely sold. She assures me that I have the capability to “assess the facts” and “change the narrative”. I’m not listening to her anymore. Instead, I’m ruminating over one particular story in my sad wheel.
***
May 19th, 2019.
My friends have just graduated from college! I’ve spent the day celebrating their accomplishments, but also packing up to head home to New Jersey the following morning. As everyone is saying their goodbyes that evening and leaving campus, I decide I’m ready to leave too. Right now.
Despite the apprehension from my friends and family about getting tired on the road, with it being so late in the day, I decided to pull out of the parking garage of my university and head for I-95. It had been a tough year for me, my 20th birthday was in a week, my first international trip in 10 days, and the whole ambiance just said, “get outta here, kid.”
So that’s what I did. I got the hell outta there. Not even a change of clothes or one last meal. I connected my phone to my car’s Bluetooth, let Hamilton start playing (2 hours and 22 minutes, so I know when it’s over I’m more than halfway home), and set out for the fairly common drive from Boston to Newark.
Fun fact for you: most car accidents happen within 5 minutes of the driver’s home. Well, what am I, if not a statistic?
With Hamilton dead and his orphanage having been established, I had nothing to distract me from the task ahead. Which was favorable, given that the task was to get across the George Washington Bridge at after-midnight during the worst storm that spring (no one said there’d be a storm!!). But I made it. I was scared but I took my time, made it over the bridge, and called my mom.
“Hey, you ok? It’s pouring.” “Yep! Just made it over the bridge, I’ll be home in 10 minutes.” “Ok sweetie. Pull over if you need to. Love you.” “Love you too. See you soon.”
5 minutes go by and I dial my mom again.
“Hey, that was quick. I’ll unlock the door for you-“ “No. I… I’m so sorry-” “Kamillah, what’s wrong?” “I… I don’t know what happened. I was so close. I-“ “Kamillah, you’re scaring me. Are you ok?!” “Yes. I think I’m fine. But the car. I’m so sorry.” “It’s ok sweetie. It’s ok. Are you sure you’re ok? Where are you?”
Where was I? I was so sure of where I was, of where I was going, 2 minutes before that question was posed to me.
As I drove through the last toll between me and the house I’ve lived in since I was born, the rain was steadily pouring and the highway got dimmer and dimmer. (A byproduct of living in a low income black neighborhood where lights go out and never get replaced.) So dim that I couldn’t see I was hydroplaning right into a divider coming up in the middle of the road that would split my engine in half, and cause my car to spin out of control until I finally slammed into the other side of the road, my high beams blinding oncoming traffic.
For a minute, I wondered which would happen first: would the engine fuels leak out and cause the car to explode? Would a cargo truck smash right through my front windshield? Or would I faint from shock and be unaware of which one of the two possible calamities would be the true cause of my death? None of the above, I pleaded, and ran from my car to seek refuge on the very highway divider that had just sawed through my car and my life.
Now, standing in the middle of a dark rainy highway, glasses whipped off my face and nowhere to be found, still in my cute orange monochromatic blouse and suit pants ensemble, I had no idea where I was.
Once I’d apologized to my mom, I called 911.
“Hello, what’s your emergency?” “Hi. I’ve been in an accident.” “Are you hurt? Do you need an ambulance?” “No I’m fine. Just cold.” The woman connected me to a state trooper, who nervously asked me again and again where I was, to which I numbly replied again and again that I didn’t know exactly. While I waited for him to show up, a huge truck stopped next to me. The driver yelled, “You should move you’re fucking bumper from the middle of the goddamn lane! It could cause an accident!” So I did.
Maybe 10 minutes went by before the state trooper found me. When he did, he pointed blinding flash lights in my eyes, and told me through a speaker to get off of the divider and back in my car, that it was dangerous to be standing on a highway. I asked, “But what if it blows up?” He was too far away to hear me, and I remembered that I was black, so I got back in the driver’s seat.
Back at the car, he asked why the car was filled with so much stuff. I told him I’d just moved out of my dorm, and was driving home from Boston. He commented on how long of a drive that was, and how close I’d gotten to home. How predictable it was. I agreed. He said the car had to be towed, and asked if anyone could come get me. I told him my mom was on her way.
While I waited for my mom in the back of the police car, he asked me how Boston was. I have no idea what I said. Once my mom arrived, she stopped her jeep on the other side of the highway, and tried to weave through zooming cars to confirm with her own eyes that her baby girl was ok. The state trooper screamed “Are you crazy, lady?! Get back in your car!” at her, and then “What the hell is wrong with her?!” at me. I told him she shouldn’t have gotten out, and that he didn’t need to yell. That he was escalating the situation. Once the tow truck came, he walked me to my mom, and apologized for yelling. He said he was just trying to keep us safe. We thanked him for all his help.
Once he left, and I was alone in the car with my mom, I took my first deep breath since I’d started hydroplaning 30 minutes prior, and exhaled a violent cry that made my whole body tremor. It lasted the rest of the night. All I could keep saying to anyone through sobs was “I’m so sorry.”
“I’m so sorry for the trouble.”
“I’m so sorry about the car.”
“I’m so sorry I scared you.”
“I’m so sorry I almost died on your birthday.”
“I’m so sorry I didn’t listen.”
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t a better driver.”
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t better.”
I had to apologize, because I’d done something wrong. How else could this have happened? I decided that there was something I did, more even, something I was, that caused the accident.
I am too impulsive, too careless, too stubborn…
***
“Is all this making sense to you? Do you have any questions for me?” asks my therapist, snapping me out of my re-traumatization session. I lie and say yes. When we end the video chat, I open my notebook to start journaling.
“I wasn’t paying attention much in anthropology class this past spring, but that bit about stories is really poking at me now. We discussed how humans have an instinctual drive to create and tell stories. We as a species are compelled to tell stories so much that we evolved to have entire languages with which to share them. Historians spend a lot of time proving that stories at the pinnacles of our nations and communities are not factually accurate. Anthropologists argue that this doesn’t matter. Stories are not simple historical or factual accounts of events that have taken place.
Anthropologists, and now my therapist, say that we must remember that what happened and the story we make out of what happened are separate things that serve separate purposes. Facts are here to inform us. Stories are here to empower us. They say we must be careful of conflating stories with facts. If the story is busy trying to do the job of the facts, it has very little time to serve us as it is meant to, and we can easily end up disempowered and misinformed.
I had created a story of this car accident that I took as evidence that I was unfit- unable, in fact- to drive ever again. I decided that there were flaws about me that caused the accident.
Now I think, maybe, causes and effects are characteristic of stories, not facts. I think facts stand on their own. Maybe the mere act of assigning one fact to be the result of another fact is where I start to enter the domain of stories, and that must be questioned.
I should step back and ask myself: “Is this a fact?”
If the answer is yes, then fine.
If the answer is no, then it’s probably just a part of a story I tell myself.
Which then begs the question, “Is this story empowering me?”
If the answer is yes, fine again.
But, if the answer is no, as I suspect it often is, I must remember that just as I have the power to create and buy into stories, I equally hold the power to change them to better serve myself.
My hope is that I get better at protecting the facts from being subjected to the perversions of stories, and that when the stories are tearing me down instead of building me up, I find the courage to change them.
***
The next week, during our session, she asked if there was anything in particular I wanted to start with.“Well,” I sang happily, “I kind of had a mini breakthrough! I went for a drive this weekend.” She smiled and said “Ok. Great!” with an overtone of encouragement and undertone of confusion. I giggled, knowing this had no significance to her yet. I told her the story, the new story. The one without the shame and guilt. The one that allowed me to get out of my bed on Sunday morning and use the breathing exercises she’d taught me as I pulled out of my driveway and found my way to the open road. I told her how good it felt, to even prick a tiny hole in that sad circle and get back to something I loved.