Done Adulting Vol. 1 Ch. 101

Jamie spent the next morning at daycare with his earphones in doing laps around the field. Everyone else was wearing a jacket, while he had changed into shorts and run until everything he was wearing was wet. When he was done, he snuck behind the building at the back of the field and turned the hose on himself, glad the water was still on and freezing. The cold water took away the nausea from running too hard for too long. Soaked and dripping, he approached April, who’d been watching him with worry.

“Can I use the quiet room for the rest of the day,” he asked.

She smiled sympathetically and led him inside, asking him to stand on the doormat while she went and found a towel and got his change of clothes. She came back and dried him off enough to keep him from dripping too much on the floor, and he walked in front of her to the quiet room. She helped him out of his wet clothes and into a dry diaper and clean onesie and shorts.

“Do you want to take a nap?”

“Not right now. Maybe later.”

“Well, it’s almost lunch time. I’ll bring you your nap mat in case you change your mind.” She took his soaked clothes with her, more worried about him. Having run for so long and not wanting to close his eyes, sitting on the carpet alone, she knew something was wrong; anybody would.

Jamie laid back on the plush carpet with his earphones back in and tried to think of a reason he’d been so upset and short-tempered lately. Every little thing seemed to irritate him, and now, on top of that, he was irritating himself and feeling guilty for having been such a jerk to everyone around him.

He made a mental list of the things that were on his mind. The first was Cheryl’s impending visit. He wasn’t exactly sure when that was, and he wasn’t sure if Amanda had told Becky, or even if he had said specifically to Amanda when Cheryl was coming. He wanted to see her, but he didn’t know what they were to each other anymore, and he didn’t know how he’d present himself to her. One of the few friends he’d ever made, he feared she would judge him, reject him after seeing who he was now. It fed his anxiety, thinking what he should hide, if he even could, about his new lifestyle.

His new lifestyle. He’d left with a sense strength; not strong enough, as he saw it, to continue the life he was leading but strong enough to believe he was in control of himself, could take care of himself, rely on himself alone, was emotionally independent, and was able to meet his obligation to not forget those he left behind. He didn’t feel very strong now; he did feel emotionally dependent. And he didn’t feel he’d done a good job at all of meeting his obligation to remember, itself the least he could do having already abandoned the much more tangible obligation he had to the people who thought they could count on him. He didn’t think on any of it very often anymore. That made him feel selfish, that as things got better for him he forgot about others. Nor did he like the feeling that he wasn’t behaving like the Jamie who had arrived or even like the Jamie of four months ago.

It wasn’t just that he was letting himself be taken care of but that he had given up almost all responsibility for managing his emotions, was allowing the distance between himself and regressed littles to unacceptably narrow to the detriment of all the reasons he didn’t want to be regressed in the first place. Jamie reasoned that was what had set him off at the mall the day before, all those tensions and anxieties that had been silently simmering below the surface of his mind erupting because he was already in a bad mood and condescending strangers presumed to care for him. He lashed out without meaning to, he thought, to make the point loud and clear to them and to himself that he could take care of himself, could be bored by himself, could be irritable and angry with nobody else’s help. He escalated every time they didn’t listen not because they were rude but because each time they ignored him, it was an implicit assertion that no, he couldn’t take care of himself, couldn’t even sit quietly without the intervention of some amazon who meant well and in meaning well was all the more condescending. So in turn, he was all the more aggressive because an ugly display of anger and the shock value of his words were all he had at his disposal to show them and himself that they were wrong, weak weapons that only served to prove that while he may not be helpless, he was powerless.

And behind it all, he wondered, if his tantrum wasn’t cover for another insecurity, that if they’d been there, he likely would’ve sought exactly that kind of attention from Amanda or Mel or Becky, confirming the daycare attendants were right that he couldn’t take care of himself. And if that was true, he subconsciously told himself, then he was right to feel angry with himself above all others for letting himself so easily, so it seemed in unfair and dishonest retrospect, set aside all the thing he had once valued in himself with no real fight at all.

Sussing all that out on the carpet of the quiet room didn’t make resolve the inner tensions in a therapeutic breakthrough moment. It just made him feel tired and upset for too many confused reasons, one of which was resentment that Cheryl’s visit, his fear of her seeing the way he was, perhaps even judging him for forgetting his promises, had unsettled an equilibrium he was close to content with. Every time he was close to content with it, some event or remark however minor seemed to unsettle it. He didn’t blame the events or other people for that; he blamed himself for not more tightly controlling his emotions and reactions, for letting those events and remarks unsettle him. And he felt guilty for resenting Cheryl knowing she didn’t deserve it and should be happy about her visit; one more bit of happiness his mind stole from him.

And not that it had anything to do with his tantrum, but a third thing that from time to time weighed on him walked into the quiet room holding a nap mat and baby bottle: Ella.