I’m Not a Lake or a Cathedral; I’m a 24/7 Diner

9:37 p.m. AWST. I’m staring at my computer screen, the whole thing tiled with the usual Pinterest mosaic and the ghost of a Word document for my boss. She wants me to refine her papers so they sound like native English. English is her second language, but tonight I can’t even think in my first. The familiar taste of American whiskey and Coke coats the back of my throat. It tastes like parties where I felt ignored, the bunching of fabric beneath scratchy blazers, my body leaned against that girl’s piano as I listened to that shocked British intonation: “You’d better not do anything like that to anyone again. Promise me that.”

I remember him saying it through tears at the bus stop. The old one that ferried nurses and doctors to the hospital and dropped perspiring students at the university. The same one where I’d sat next to T a handful of times, before he decided I wasn’t worth it anymore and slipped into the night without a trace. That night smelled like heavy rain and the fluorescence of a bubble-tea shop. It held three pairs of footsteps: mine, T’s, and my youngest brother’s. My brother dragging behind, too young then to grasp what high school would eventually do to him. Tonight he’s at home with our slightly older brother, sniffling and gasping through another summer flu. Always in the summertime. My family never gets sick in winter.

This morning I groaned into the humid sheets and rolled toward my phone. I answered a call half asleep, heart thumping in that erratic, dream-state way. I felt the bitterness in my voice and said the words anyway. None of it came close to expressing how I actually feel. Usually, with the people I let close, I feed my own anxieties into my judgment of them and split before I realise I’m doing it. I didn’t split this time. I understood the situation. I stayed. And the disappointment sat colder, deeper… beyond anything I could articulate. Paired with the university rejections slipping through my inbox this week, the whole universe feels slightly misaligned. I like to think I try my best, sometimes even go above and beyond, but I rarely get a return on anything I’ve invested. The stasis feels permanent. In the kitchen the toaster still reeks of smoke and charred bread. I should really clean it.

I’m going to Quebec in less than five days, and not in the way I imagined. I’m going alone. Thirty hours in transit, reminding myself step by step that I am the only person I have. I need to stop gripping pipe dreams that whisper something incredible is about to appear. It isn’t. I can’t fault my friends, but whenever I reach toward romance, something shoots me in the foot. I’m never the first choice. Or if I am, it’s conditional. I become a prop, a LinkedIn headshot dragged around as comedic relief. I laugh nervously in circles of Arts students and try to say something shocking so that my presence feels justified. Or I think something is pure, something is promising… and it dissolves instantly. I can’t feel anything for anyone anymore. Just the numbness of being alone.

I picture myself at the end of the year, graduating with that cap and the cape lined in ruby red, and enduring. Four years of endurance. And more after that. It never stops.

In Quebec I’m planning things I wouldn’t normally do. I’m not a sports person, but I’m tempted to see ice hockey in person. The last time I went on a ghost tour was years ago in Adelaide with my dad, so maybe I’ll see the haunted sides of Canada instead. Today I bought new slacks, a cardigan, and one of those odd bubble-textured jackets. I still need to break in my boots. Maybe later. The remnants of souvlaki and whiskey are still simmering in my chest, heartbeat racing like those days before my thesis submission when I accepted a panic attack on the floor as if it were weather. Sometimes it feels like I’m resigning myself to permanent dissatisfaction. I can’t find joy in myself. I wish I could. Maybe the plane will shift something. Maybe I just need an airport read.

If I were a location, I’d be an American-style 24/7 diner. Not an ivy-covered building or a lake with swans. A diner that glows red and white through the night. Checkered floors. Hot coffee, bacon grease, buttered pancakes. The clink of a waitress’s heels on vinyl. Businessmen preparing for dawn shifts sitting beside vandals grabbing a 4 a.m. bite. The cough of an old man in the back booth. Imperfect but open, always open. My dad is right: Australians try too hard to imitate diners and always fail. Somewhere near NYC, but across the border, there must be a diner like me. I want to try poutine.

Here is the truth of being 21, or maybe the truth of being alive at all: nobody is coming to save you. Nobody except yourself. In the spirit of solipsism, you can’t even be sure anyone else is real. So why rely on people? You can keep believing altruists walk among us, that someone will take you under their wing because they want to keep you warm, but unless you’re my dad or my youngest brother, that isn’t my experience. Trusting people is risky because they’re not inside your body. They don’t feel how fast your heart beats or how badly you want things. They’re scared of being too much while never being enough. You’re not excited by anything, not even uppers, and rarely downers. You sit eating Krispy Kreme at 1 a.m., glaze cracking on your calloused fingers, staring at the blank TV like you’re waiting for it to change channels. It won’t.

I think my Honours supervisor might like to hear from me. She got sick earlier this year and then fell silent. I’ll email her on Monday. I won’t mention how crushed the applications process is making me. I’ll pretend to have my head up. It’s a miracle I finished this year at all. But what else was I supposed to do? I’m desperate to be accepted somewhere not for prestige but to escape this city. I have people here, but I’m terrified. I don’t want to go outside. Everyone is interlaced and interconnected and I’ve been weak in ways I don’t want anyone to smell on me. I don’t know if that feeling will change even if I move. Maybe I’m sentenced to a hermit’s life. Maybe the November snow will wake something in me. People don’t really care about me, but I care about them, and it makes me sick. I wish I didn’t. The things I care about aren’t even useful.

I’ll start packing on Monday. Later in the week I have another interview, then drinks with friends. I need to stop drinking, but I can’t. It feels like the only logical response left. Before, I threw myself into work, but now the work is gone. The only other option is self-sabotage, which I’ve dabbled in enough, but even that feels tired. People already dislike me. I don’t need to convince them. “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” is playing in the background, taunting me. It’s very easy to take your eyes off me. I would even recommend it.

I used to be able to act like things were fine. As a child I spent years wanting to be an actor. That’s where the terrible, haunting memorisation skills come from. Now I use them to smile through interviews and hold conversations with strangers. Now I just keep trying. Now is all I have.