Ope Pardon, No. 25: Theatrics

If I am being honest with myself — and you all — I am terribly fond of theatrics. Particularly of the nostalgic, melancholic and frankly melodramatic variety.

I adore a Fresh Prince moment in an apartment recently emptied of all furniture.

I live to swirl some bourbon around an enormous slowly melting cube of ice.

Rain? On a Sunday? Fetch me a mug of something warm and find me in the nearest window nook.

I truly wish I could tell you I wrote this on the floor of my newly-barren old apartment, but I did not. While I am — this is true! — surrounded by boxed-up belongings and if you opened all my cupboards you would find them empty, the scene leaves something to be desired. If I was stage managing this moment, there would be fewer items around me in general; the mood would be less cozy. It would probably be raining.

In any case, I am nonetheless reveling in the theatrics of several life and/or calendar events aligning to transpire, somewhat by design, in the same week. A break-up, a birthday, a move. (No haircut on the books just yet.)

A week ago, the man who is no longer in my life asked me if I was sentimental and or sad about moving apartments and I responded with an incongruously enthusiastic yes.

I cannot wait to move, as my current apartment is falling apart around me and my spirit is broken by the number of things that are, well, broken, however, I am also deep in my feelings about leaving the place I have spent, more or less, my entire time in Paris thus far. I have a lot of memories here! This place has been good to me, even if it’s recently come to my attention that I have not actually had heat for the two years I’ve lived here. (Long story.) I am also, of course, very sad about leaving my peripheral proximal pals.

A couple days after that conversation, I told a friend that I actually love the part of moving that involves packing all my stuff up into bags and boxes and at first she was surprised but then we both realized it made 100% sense that I would love an activity that was the physical and literal manifestation of the nostalgic, melancholic and melodramatic act of taking stock of your life. It’s theatrics.

(To be clear, I do not like the part of moving that involves the actual moving of items from one location to another. Mortification at being seen in such a vulnerable helpless moment (my personal theory) turns me into an actual monster to friends and family who try to help me (a historical fact) and I would rather pay for movers (who neutralize the shame and thus keep the creature at bay) than to make my loved ones cry.)

(I would like to digress further here for a moment and complain about TV: I truly believe that moving is one of the worst represented activities on TV and in movies. Not that it necessarily needs to be well-represented. I understand that the logistical realities of moving are not something anyone, viewer nor creator, really wants to waste valuable screen or story time on, but the frequency with which it is used as a plot device in sitcoms, romcoms, and even dramas, 9 out of 10 times finding dramatic resolution in the fact it is a SUDDEN DECISION and then also IMMEDIATELY RENEGED is deeply upsetting to me. WHERE did all their stuff go. WHO is moving it. WHAT about the lease. Characters are always deciding to move in and out of various dwellings willy-nilly and I can’t stand it.)

(This is almost as upsetting to me as the plot device whereby we are told it is ROMANTIC for a man to BUY A WHOLE HOME for his partner without even once mentioning let alone discussing it. I would love to be gifted (fully paid-off!!) real estate however you cannot tell me that saddling your partner with a 20-year financial obligation and calling it a demonstration of your love after you just had a serious, relationship-threatening fight is a green flag. Buy flowers! Cook dinner! Share some deep-seated trauma that explains why you couldn’t previously be honest about whatever you were fighting about! All better options than a surprise mortgage.)

(Okay. Back to me reveling in the theatrics of moving.)

While you may see nothing more than the mildly annoying task of going through all your shit and garbage, I see the opportunity to imbue said shit and garbage with (admittedly often unwarranted!) meaning and feelings, and well, just generally the opportunity to be emotional and sad and I — this is a topic for another time — simply love 2 b sad. I love to, in the style of John Goodman, lie on the floor and listen to sad songs. (Like I said, theatrics.)

Surely one could connect this affection for stage-directing and/or scheduling my life for maximum dramatic heft to so-called main character syndrome. (Though as someone whose theater kid DNA is tech and not performer, I am not really one to broadcast my theatrics, which I understand to be the subtextual criticism of main character syndrome.) Or maybe it’s my Aries sun — astrology, too, is a profoundly dramatic way of processing life.

But it is pleasing to my organization-inclined mind and just from a momentum point of view, to be able to group changes together. To tie them up with a nice bow and call it something trite like a new chapter.

The first time I learned about trigger stacking it was from a dog trainer. Jack had gotten aggressive at a groomer, despite never having problems there before. The trainer explained that when several stress-triggering events happen in succession, it can exacerbate the stress of each individual event, such that a single event that in isolation would not be anxiety-inducing becomes stressful in this context.

This makes sense, it’s why I cried when I saw a puddle the other week or why we have so many expressions about the metaphorical weight of straws.

Also: A (human) therapist once reminded me that even when they are positive life events, big changes technically still register to your body as stressors.

I know that life doesn’t really work in clean breaks. My leases will overlap and my future apartment is, by intent, basically in the same neighborhood, so I will be back and around. My birthday is today but I won’t celebrate it for two weeks. I may have timed one conversation to manufacture clarity and a fresh start, but thoughts and feelings are not so easily ruled by the dates. As much as it may appeal to me to frame these changes as the end of one year and the start of another, it’s not really that simple.

Still, perhaps I am intentionally trigger stacking for the theatrics of it. I have found it equal parts stressful and simplifying that I can frame what are frankly quotidian things as significant, largely because of temporal coincidence. Much like for Jack taking a car ride, seeing a cat and going to the groomer in the same day, the timing of recent events has made each feel more dramatic and intense, seemingly more profoundly affecting than it might feel on its own.

Except, blessedly, instead of having a panic attack and moaning like the cow noise maker toy I got in Switzerland when I was 8 (that’s what Jack sounds like), I am mostly just very excited to see what this spring has in store for me.

(Of course the allegoric alignment of the season change is not lost on me either — I love it.)

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P.S. Succession! I have thoughts but none that I am ready to share yet beyond the fact I am really enjoying the scene partner pairings this season so far. Tom and Greg are obviously top tier, but I feel like spending some much time with the siblings without their dad has been very rich as well. I do miss Gerri though.