Chaos is Not Wished Away
By Jessie Pospisil ’25
ENGL 240: Personal Essay
In a lyric essay, the writer works by art of indirection, presenting the reader with a set of disparate particulars and then writing toward a point of connection. For her final project, Jessie opted for this difficult form as a way of communicating the turmoil of life when our schedules stretch us to the limit. Using particulars such as a mattress topper, a Walmart whiteboard, Hawaiian rolls, and the cup holder in her car, Jessie’s writing invites readers to join in her experience. The bare bones of this lyric essay are, at first blush, disparate and could probably stand alone. However, careful readers will note the connective tissue: discomfort, blurriness, distraction, obligation. With the bones assembled into a loosely connected whole, the shape communicates her character’s anxieties about living meaningfully in a world that expects too much. The never-ending struggle to keep the lid on the chaos.
-Dr. Lance Dyzak
Mattress toppers have recently become my worst enemy. Mine in particular, has become more of a mattress slip-and-slide than a topper, and the worst part is that I can’t just take it off and chuck it out the window. I need it in order to find the slightest bit of comfort in my slim stack of a college mattress. The best part? My bed is bunked. Each morning, I wake up and slide straight off, tumble down the ladder, and bust the arches of my feet as I plunk to the floor.
I wish it wasn’t a hassle to realign my mattress topper so it wouldn’t droop anymore
I schedule time for everything: classes, work, dance, eating, homework, study groups, sleeping. I have my schedule written in my room on a whiteboard. It’s a small board, roughly the size of a standard piece of paper. The stupid thick Expo Marker makes it difficult to squeeze everything on the board. Each month I update the board. The first attempt at writing my schedule, I ran out of room so quickly, I questioned how I anticipated my regular handwriting to be the best option. I had to erase the ink and shift things to make it fit.
I assure you, fresh out the box, the board was white. From the smeared ink, the board now looks like a gray board behind all of the black writing. Like when young kids come back after playing hard outside in the summer and you can’t really tell if they’ve tanned or are just dirty.
I wish it didn’t take extra effort to go get a new, jumbo whiteboard from Walmart
Every free moment is marked down on the sliver of space surrounded by other obligations. The twig bit of time left over that is scheduled as “Free” looks malnourished despite the fact that it comes after meals. I don’t leave enough wiggle room for travel distances between events. I rush from place to place. Every action is on the clock, punching in and punching out. Heaven forbid, something wants overtime. I’m working with limited resources.
I wish I could cut something out and have a moment to be free
Each morning, Butterflies in my stomach kick-start my body. Well, what is usually described as butterflies in your stomach. Instead of butterflies being in my stomach, it’s more like butterflies were my stomach, and they all just spontaneously combusted and painted my insides with their insides. This is the result of rolling over a little too close to the drooping edge of my bunk, and the fact that there is no guard rail protecting me from plummeting to my death and smashing against the concrete. As that glorious image plays in my head, I try not to lose sight of the fact that my class starts at 9 am and it’s currently…
My phone fell off my bed.
This is how my body gets the energy to go from place to place all day. Thank you, Lord, for energy that early, but I am still praying you can figure out an alternative for me.
I wish getting in and out of a bunk bed wasn’t so terrifying
On my busiest day this week, I went back to my room in the middle of the day. I tend to go back to my room when I know I should be on my way to another location. I never do anything. I never think about anything. I don’t want to think about anything.
Instead, I stand stagnant in the center of my dorm room eating Hawaiian rolls and breathing manually, until I come to. This situation approaches like shingles in your 50s. It’s never something that is planned. You almost forgot you had chicken pox. At some random time in the day, you feel this itch, a burn, that has you questioning everything you did that day, week, your whole life. A fiery sensation that has thrown off your schedule, swirling you into a haze of questions that you are struggling to answer because what-in-God’s-name kinda rash just popped up on your body. It’s a rash in my mind. I don’t know how to get rid of it. For a good amount of time, Hawaiian rolls and staring at my fuzzy rug are the only things that feel comfortable. I wait until I feel like moving again.
I wish moments that feel frozen in time, actually were
The blasting gush of mechanisms from the engine of a plane perforates your ear drums. A guide yells your instructions. The anxious thoughts run around each other as you try to figure out who convinced you to get on the plane in the first place. Oh yeah, it was you. The sliding door flies open, nothing makes sense. The wind smacks you in the face, throwing you into an overwhelming state. So much to think about and remember. My mind moves until my thoughts catch up and I descend into free fall.
Falling
Falling
Falling
…
As soon as my feet catch the ground, I’m sprinting for the gate, onto what’s next. Next on the schedule, next stage of life, next meal, next day. I put the bag of Hawaiian rolls back on my snack cart and grab my keys.
I wish I didn’t have to wait for my brain to catch up with my schedule
My “emotional support” cup doesn’t fit in my cup holder in my car. The bottom rim is too fat. I continue to forget this fact and put my cup in the holder before pulling out of the parking lot. The first turn I take, the cup falls into the passenger seat, and my arm whips out to try to snatch it before my fruit punch spills out. Thank God for leather seats because I’m never fast enough. I grab the cup as if it is at fault and grunt. I wipe off the wet cup and shove it between my legs to finish the drive.
I wish I didn’t have to use my car’s cup holder, or rather, use my car at all.
My bed tends to keep on trend with everything else in my life. My pillow gracefully slid off the curved edge of my top bunk and squashed my desk that sits just below. I’m an avid Monster Energy drinker, and I enjoy stacking my cans on my desk. My pillow detected my cans, aimed and fired, and scattered them across the room. I wasn’t even sleeping anyway; my brain wouldn’t quit yapping. The crash made me scared to look. At 2am, I slumped off my bunk and flung my pillow back onto my bed. I gathered the cans and rolled them back onto my desk. I climbed back up the ladder realizing I only had 3 more hours to sleep. I laid my head on my pillow and the overwhelming fumes of fruit punch and watermelon Monster welcomed me back.
I wish I didn’t have expend so much energy in the middle of the night
Doing laundry is a frustrating chore in itself. I don’t think anyone will disagree with me on that. I live on the third floor of my building. I wait to wash my clothes until my basket is about to erupt, then I wait until the weekend. I stumble around the hallways as I carry the basket around. The laundry room is in the basement, so I praise God for an elevator.
The elevator bell rings for the third floor
||
I get a little break for my
muscles to scream at me
now that they aren’t
crying from carrying the
basket of dirty laundry.
||
The elevator bell rings for the basement.
I pick the basket back up and continue my treacherous journey. That’s not even the most frustrating piece of exercise. Once my clothes are finished washing, I have to prepare my aching body to move the sopping wet clothes from the washer to the dryer. I have to bear hug the clothes I can carry and rip them away from the clothes I can’t hold yet. When that one pant leg gets twisted around four sweatshirts, I start wishing pants didn’t exist. I have to be anointed with superhuman strength from beyond the realm of the laundry room to yank the clothes out. Once the laundry is finished, it takes the same effort to haul it back to my room and years before it gets folded and put away.
I wish I didn’t have to kill my body carrying laundry around.
In a world where I could teleport,
My problems and time
of chaos would be used
could be remedied more efficiently
Ideally, I would be able to take things with me when I teleport. Why fix my mattress topper, or climb up and down my bunk, when I could pop down from my bed without risking injury? Why put miles on my car or pay for gas when I could think of where to go, and two seconds later, be there? Why kill my body carrying clothes way too heavy to be lifting on my own when I could touch the basket and send us both to the laundry room in a flash? Why waste time traveling from place to place when I can run errands or be at an event in a second? Teleportation would give me the extra time I crave; the time to deal with the chaos that didn’t bother to RSVP and expects to be sticky noted to my whiteboard. If I were able to teleport, would my cycle to keep the lid on chaos ever end? And people wish for super speed or flying or strength? That’s the problem. They are wishes. Teleportation is a wish. Getting rid of chaos is a wish. And despite what people like to say, wishes don’t always come true.