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It wasn’t until the third midnight in a row of washing and ironing my ragged bedsheets that I realized that I was probably going insane again.
It always happened this way, with this slow creeping thing stalking me across parking lots and hiding under my bed, never making its presence known until it had already sunk its fangs into my neck. Even during the few clear weeks I had between episodes it was always there in the background, hiding in the creases of the perfectly starched clothes that I line-dried in the moonlight. For some, insanity smells like musty old carpets and rotting food. For me it smells like laundry soap.
My lunacy usually took one of two forms: Down and Up.
Down waded hip-deep in junk and trinkets bought half-off at Goodwill, with little walking trails carved into the rubble like ancient goat paths on a mountain. She sat on the couch amid forgotten piles of freshly-washed clothes and cried over the vacuum cleaner lying abandoned in the middle of the floor. Gravity settled deep in her bones, turning them to lead. She huddled in sweatpants on the balcony and watched the stars turn at night, dreading the walk to the mailbox to drop off the rent the next morning.
Up had no such qualms. She wore her tightest dresses and her highest heels, flirted mercilessly, and drove too fast. She drank too much and floated from paycheck to paycheck, riding the high of inhaled cleaners from her surgically-sterile apartment. Three days without food or nonalcoholic drink was easily accomplished; a habit that always left me calling in sick to work when I regained control.
When the episodes hit I would dry-swallow over-the-counter pain pills in twos and fours. It didn’t really do me any good, but I kept at it like a holy communion. It was the only reliable way I had to mark the passing hours. They would get away from me if I didn’t have something to look forward to. I had to buy jumbo bottles of the stuff every two weeks along with whatever happened to catch my fancy as I passed through the aisles. Beer, lemons, coloring books, a roasting pan, two bulk bottles of Excedrin, multiple declined credit cards; it’s pretty easy to spot a crazy person in a grocery store.
One February night I pushed my little cart across the grey-beige tile of the twenty-four-hour grocery and pharmacy, trying to puzzle out the pattern of the squeaks made by the left front wheel as I circled the produce. I had almost paced my way onto the equation when a polo-shirted employee approached me, my filthy hair and cocoon of ratty t-shirts and hoodies making his nose wrinkle. He told me that if I wasn’t buying anything I’d have to leave. I was making everyone nervous.
My face twitched into a grin and I agreed before snatching an orange from a display and heading over to the checkout. They’d closed down the self-checkout, that godsend to the shy and socially anxious. Instead I took my fruit and handed it to the blue-haired tropical fish running the register on lane three. He stared wearily at me as I paid in nickels and dimes and shuffled out the door.
Despite being the only one in the parking lot, I beeped my car’s alarm for the fun of it. It echoed against the building like the sound of a chittering swarm of bats. Hopping in, I started the engine and didn’t bother to turn on the heater; the cold kept me slightly more clear-headed than I would have otherwise been. I had been swinging between Down and Up for a month, never staying with either one long enough to satisfy their needs. They each clawed madly at the walls of my mind for attention. I was never sure whether I wanted to redline the car down the highway or crash it into a tree.
I missed the exit for my apartment. Upon realizing it I determinedly missed the next two and stared blankly ahead at the empty road. I wasn’t sleeping, wasn’t eating, and had already done the laundry four times this week. I didn’t really need to go home. A random left turn put me on a massive four-lane highway, speeding past light-splashed signs reading Houston and Galveston. I sped up.
It took me three hours to get to the coast. I raced the moon, trying to keep it at my back, as I tore down stretches of pavement, only slowing down for suspicious overpasses that looked like they might house speed traps and, once, a gas station. At the end of the highway the island shone like a strip of marble laid in the ocean and all I could think was: go. Go.
A quick check with my phone revealed that a stretch of shoreline between mile markers one and five was open to the public. I headed down the access road and took a parking spot atop the seawall. The wind was blowing quick and cold, almost knocking me off the fortress-like embankment holding the water at bay. I dragged myself down the steps by the handrail and onto the beach, sinking ankle-deep in dry sand that weighed down my shoes. I had to abandon them halfway to the water.
It was only the tiny speck of rationality that remained in me that prevented me from going very far in. Up wanted to run along the shoreline and shriek and shout at the expanse of ocean available to us, while Down wanted to walk out into the silver-green foam and drown in it. I compromised and waded in up to the middle of my calves as my feet went painfully, beautifully numb.
Letting the freezing water soak my jeans, I rooted my toes into the smooth surface of the underwater sand and stared up into the sky. It was a hare moon. I pushed out a breath, the wind stealing it away before it could steam. On the inhale I fixed my eyes on the moon’s face and let the icy light eclipse my vision, blanking out the half-formed thoughts skittering through my head.
For just one blissful moment, I was free.