Am I dead?

Just a few hours before that question popped into my head, I had been at my storage unit, by myself - per yooge -, & as I moved a box, the table top that danced loosely over my head like a lone Jenga block began to move towards my face. I caught it with one hand & held it steady.

Or did I?

Maybe, just maybe, I had died on the 2nd floor of a Public Storage & my spirit just didn’t know it yet. Maybe, like the Wicked Witch of the West, I now lay on the floor, my feet poking out from under the table as the only indicator that something was amiss. It wouldn’t be the smell. It already smelled of mothballs & piss in there.

It was day 4 of no social media & while I’ve been glad to get away from the falsities that constant interaction brings, my daughters were also away for summer vacation. To say it was deathly quiet is not an understatement. I was in my head, in books, in podcasts, lost in philosophy, constantly moving - one trip at a time - up the stairs, down, in the storage, in the apartment. I think I hardly spoke for days. So, suddenly, in a moment of rest, I stood and wondered, “am I dead?”

Amused by the thought, I shook my head at my own absurdity.

My two best girl friends had been checking in on me so, no - I reprimanded myself - I’m definitely alive. Just maybe listening to way too much Duncan Trussell.

The curious thought came to me not simply because I left social media, but because I left just about everyone. I had moved to an entirely new area, mostly going to a commercial gym by my apartment. The daily interactions I was having at my old gym, even just the familiarity of it, gone. Stripped away on purpose, like clothes that felt soft against my skin but also tighter at each passing day.  I had been feeling suffocated for no real reason that I can think of, and yet, day by day, the monotony both called me & disgusted me. I was hanging on, I realized. To what and for what purpose, I’m not entirely sure. Maybe it was just as simple as it being familiar. Maybe it was slightly deeper. The truth is, that in the constant search for the why, I was subjecting myself to  paralysis by analysis. There was no shortage of answers, to be honest, and none that sufficed.

I can’t know what & who this is meant to create if I don’t let go of the tiny fragments of time that people's faces, salutations, profiles & likes mirror back at me each day.

At some point, a slow brewing epiphany came bubbling up like a volcano; decimating what last remnants of nostalgia I’d clung onto unknowingly. It was like a veil that glitched from white to black, white, black, white….black….fading now into nothing. I recalled that I had stood in front of one too many storage units by now, alone, and perhaps it took an accumulation of these similar experiences but, this time, - THIS TIME - there was nothing from my old life I wanted to hang on to.

I shook my head again. Steading my plant over my window now, I caught a glimpse of my reflection & smiled.

It’s true - I realized; I had died on the 2nd floor of a Public Storage.