Inventory
“Diet” by Kellie Swensen
Inventory
Megan Handley
Inspired by Carmen Maria Machado’s memoir In the Dream House.
Inventory. Making lists in elementary school of all your figurines in some order that makes sense to only you: an inventory. Ariel, Belle, Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Jasmine. That was the order. In high school when you cover a sheet of all the things you must do to be the student you have to be for your family, your friends, your future—an inventory. That day, you sit in the doctor’s office and eventually another doctor’s office and another doctor’s office and even, one day, a therapist’s office, and they all give you a similar checklist—an inventory.
The lists are often scored. Which doll is the best? Which essay should you start first? List them by due dates, pick the highest. Which college should you apply to first? Rank them by preference, choose the highest. At therapy, your inventory score is high, which, in this case, is the opposite of what you would’ve wanted.
The room is small, yellow. There is a shelf with a lot of stress toys, books—big books that are probably filled with a lot of lists, you think. The therapist is writing down notes as you give her the inventory of the beginning of your life: I have Crohn’s, I have a boyfriend, we are happy, my family is nice, I like to read, I like to make videos.
She sits across from you, this person whose job description is to look at someone and form it into an explanation, some sort of diagnosis or breakdown as to why your mind works the way it does, a definition for the unseen but so strongly felt.
She looks down at your form, a pencil tracing and counting the little boxes you’ve marked. She furrows her brow. She looks up. She asks you who you are. Who am I? Aren’t you supposed to tell me? No, she insists, no. Who are you outside of who you love? Take inventory, she says.
You are stubborn; if you’re doing the dishes and someone asks you to do the dishes, you’ll stop doing the dishes. If you had the time, you’d learn every hobby that you can buy at Michaels. Once, during a time when your thoughts were too fast, you drove thirty miles away, as if to catch them, only to end up crying in a different parking lot. You love to sleep, and taking a nap is always on your to-do list. Dreams fascinate you. Though your love for them runs deeply through your veins, you wish you could be more open with your parents. You love musicals. A strong orchestra chord makes your chest tighten and your arms lighten like nothing else in the world ever has. You secretly wish you could be more like the girls on Instagram who pose with sun-saturated skin and big sunglasses, even though you know they’re all hiding. You got a concussion from hitting your head against a table in a fit of laughter. You constantly compliment the people you love and tell them you love them just in case that voice in the back of your head that says you could lose them at any moment is right. You hate when people are dishonest. You love deeply and loudly. You’re so sensitive that sometimes when you throw something on the floor, you have to apologize. You’re passionate about a lot of things, which is the only thing that makes you content to be housed in your own mind.
How do you score that? You don’t, she says. This doesn’t make sense to you. You were hoping therapy would give you more homework, a small task or list that would make it all make more sense.
When you’re stressed, you make a list; you write down each and every little thing going on in your life in the hopes that making it physical will somehow make it easier to comprehend. When you can’t focus, you doodle or draw or scribble. Suddenly, your life is weighed down by inventories. Each hour, you’re thinking of making another inventory. Another list. Something to lay it out in front of you and tell you where to start.
When will you realize that you’re doing it again? Is this not an inventory? Are you waiting for the score?
Inventory. Making lists in elementary school of all your figurines in some order that makes sense to only you: an inventory. Ariel, Belle, Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Jasmine. That was the order. In high school when you cover a sheet of all the things you must do to be the student you have to be for your family, your friends, your future—an inventory. That day, you sit in the doctor’s office and eventually another doctor’s office and another doctor’s office and even, one day, a therapist’s office, and they all give you a similar checklist—an inventory.
The lists are often scored. Which doll is the best? Which essay should you start first? List them by due dates, pick the highest. Which college should you apply to first? Rank them by preference, choose the highest. At therapy, your inventory score is high, which, in this case, is the opposite of what you would’ve wanted.
The room is small, yellow. There is a shelf with a lot of stress toys, books—big books that are probably filled with a lot of lists, you think. The therapist is writing down notes as you give her the inventory of the beginning of your life: I have Crohn’s, I have a boyfriend, we are happy, my family is nice, I like to read, I like to make videos.
She sits across from you, this person whose job description is to look at someone and form it into an explanation, some sort of diagnosis or breakdown as to why your mind works the way it does, a definition for the unseen but so strongly felt.
She looks down at your form, a pencil tracing and counting the little boxes you’ve marked. She furrows her brow. She looks up. She asks you who you are. Who am I? Aren’t you supposed to tell me? No, she insists, no. Who are you outside of who you love? Take inventory, she says.
You are stubborn; if you’re doing the dishes and someone asks you to do the dishes, you’ll stop doing the dishes. If you had the time, you’d learn every hobby that you can buy at Michaels. Once, during a time when your thoughts were too fast, you drove thirty miles away, as if to catch them, only to end up crying in a different parking lot. You love to sleep, and taking a nap is always on your to-do list. Dreams fascinate you. Though your love for them runs deeply through your veins, you wish you could be more open with your parents. You love musicals. A strong orchestra chord makes your chest tighten and your arms lighten like nothing else in the world ever has. You secretly wish you could be more like the girls on Instagram who pose with sun-saturated skin and big sunglasses, even though you know they’re all hiding. You got a concussion from hitting your head against a table in a fit of laughter. You constantly compliment the people you love and tell them you love them just in case that voice in the back of your head that says you could lose them at any moment is right. You hate when people are dishonest. You love deeply and loudly. You’re so sensitive that sometimes when you throw something on the floor, you have to apologize. You’re passionate about a lot of things, which is the only thing that makes you content to be housed in your own mind.
How do you score that? You don’t, she says. This doesn’t make sense to you. You were hoping therapy would give you more homework, a small task or list that would make it all make more sense.
When you’re stressed, you make a list; you write down each and every little thing going on in your life in the hopes that making it physical will somehow make it easier to comprehend. When you can’t focus, you doodle or draw or scribble. Suddenly, your life is weighed down by inventories. Each hour, you’re thinking of making another inventory. Another list. Something to lay it out in front of you and tell you where to start.
When will you realize that you’re doing it again? Is this not an inventory? Are you waiting for the score?