Things I wish I could tell people: a 2:25am confessional essay in a mostly unedited stream of consciousness mode

Because the people yearn for tea about the author's personal life at times, apparently

Photo by Patrick Untersee on Unsplash

Things I would say to my therapist:

Exhaustion

I am exhausted

I am exhausted by nearly everyone and everything

Exhaustion

Exhausted by the compulsion to do the right thing

Exhausted by the need to think everything through carefully

Exhausted by my inability to turn my brain off even temporarily

Things I would say to my computer:

Tabs

Many tabs

Too many tabs

My brain is like a browser with too many tabs

There is no poetic way to say this

Things I would say to cats:

Please stop bringing me corpses and entrails (of mice, not men)

Please stop fighting with each other

Please stop the cuteness overload otherwise

What the fuck are you yowling for

I can’t interpret these meows

Why isn’t this cat meow interpretation app working

God you guys are so fucking cute

I love you so much

I’m baby

Things to do or shop for pending ongoing / TBA Ani don’t forget these put on a notification:

Baking soda

Bag repair - Handbag repair, will using bag or handbag as a keyword help me remember more distinctly?

The global intelligence crisis is deeper than we could have even perceived

Every time someone sincerely asks Grok to think harder instead of thinking themselves -

It deeply, deeply unsettles me

Things I would say to that one interviewer at Pricewaterhouse Coopers who asked me if I could write a report in Dutch:

Of course I can, but why would I? Why is it relevant? We both know our rhetorical future Dutch colleagues would insist on doing it themselves as they are native speakers

You’re asking me to clarify what professional fluency in Dutch means?

I’d tell you in het Nederlands maar je hebt geen idee

Je kan de taal niet spreken

Waarom?

Want je bent een fucking idioot

You speak Afrikaans and you haven’t bothered to learn Dutch

We know it’s not about the language

We both know it’s because you’re scared of me

We both know it’s because you’re attempting to rattle me

So yeah, there is your answer

At the end of the interview, you told me I remind you of your chaotic friend because I bought a large backpack to a day of interviews between two teams

You have no idea what chaos is but you want to dress it up under the label of executive presence

You want a performance? I’d give the best damn show you and your clients would ever see

That’s why you wouldn’t hire me

It’s because you know I’d have outshone you easily

I wish I could remember your name but I can’t because you are so insigincant

Ani note to self look this guy up on LinkedIn out of spite and I bet he never left:

Oh dear god I was right

Congrats Mr. Sr Risk Manager to Risk Director

You have still never left the same role in the same company in the same lifestyle the past 15 years

Pity

Jesus

Why is a random interview from forever ago on my mind

Ah yes because I need to face the music about everything else I’m putting off -

Build a structure, build a structure

Motherfucker, I am trying

I’ve been trying for years now

You have no idea what I’ve been through

You never will

Things I would say to myself in the past if I could go back in time:

Ok maybe, just maybe

Hear me out

Should have married for money

Should have given it a shot

I had plenty

But nah wasn’t interested in a person’s soul

Passed if that was the case

Never understood choosing someone for the sake of not being alone

I could have been an NBA wife, damnit

Now we’re here writing

Things I would say to do on my to list:

Charge the vacuum

Put back laundry

Do laundry

Take trash out

Where is that one missing sock

Glasses - lens replacement

How do I open this window

Registration

Insurance claim

Instacart subscription cancellation

Email

Respond to that email

Respond to this email

Send emails

Did the AI agent save the emails in the draft

Why did my tokens run out so fast

This is fucking useless

What am I doing wrong

Things I would like to say to inanimate objects:

Water in the sink is too hot

Water in the shower is too hot

I hate shitty water pressure

Chairs without backs, bar stools, why, why god why do they exist?

My posture! My posture! My shoulders hurt, goddamnit

Fuck stubborn eyebrow hairs

Fuck natural detergent and cleaning products. Would much rather get cancer from whatever is in Lysol or Clorox or whatever

Fuck everything, fuck all, fuck this, fuck that

Feels good to say it in writing

Expletive, expletive, expletive

Things I would like to categorize but cannot but need to write about somehow in some way to give it some space from where it is in my head in the list of one thousand and one now a thousand and five fires I haven’t yet put out:

(Redacted)

Help (redacted)

City advocacy

Federal funding

(Redacted agency)

Call friend

Call old friend from high school

The kind of good person who repairs society

The kind of person you want to win

Please run someday

I’m so serious

Things I would say to friends, bureaucrats, randos:

The Italian friend - with these calls – without having scheduled it, having assumed it a week ago

My guy, you cannot keep doing this shit with a 9 hour time difference I swear to god man, this is impossible you run a company in Europe it’s not an emergency room

I’m mad because I miss you and this has nothing to do with the time difference or you being Italian

I miss you, I miss you, and that’s what I’m going to tell you when we figure this call out and you tell me how hard hiring for your new engineer has been because all the dumbfucks are using Copilot to lie cheat and steal their way for your fintech app

Just like in the homeland, mamma mia

I miss you a lot and it has crept up on me, it has everything to do with picking up in one country and leaving everyone behind to build something new

It’s time to build - again

Things I would say to bureaucrats, randos:

The public servant stalls (a 4th time)

Someone’s having a bad day because of their client

They don’t know, how would they?

The best laid of plans for infrastructure –

Why are we even having this conversation right now when you know nothing about who is involved

Things I would say to (redacted)::

Happy to see you

In a way yes

In a way I don’t know you

In the way I haven’t seen you for years again until this evening

Are we supposed to pick up and pretend everything is the same again as where we last left off?

Things I would say to (redacted):

This was a momentary lapse of reason

I will do what I have to do

Also:

What the fuck is wrong with you

You had every possible advantage in life and in society

You are throwing it all away

With time comes more ick

With your current associations, I don’t see any way forward

With everything as it is, I have nothing to say to you that I’d say

Have you ever considered for a moment what it may be like to be me in this situation?

Have you ever considered what it feels like for me to have information out of nowhere volleyed at me like an air assault about the priors and how redacted, redacted, redacted, redacted, redacted

Have you ever considered what it may be like for me to wonder if I am categorized as a habit or circumstance or habit of circumstance

Have you ever considered what

Redacted redacted redacted

Have you ever considered that I never fucking redact my writing and for the first time I am out of courtesy

Thrilled to have joined by proxy a group I never signed up for

Thrilled to - redacted redacted redacted

I’m not thrilled, can you tell? Subtlety is not my forte

You have no idea who I am, you have never seen me angry, few people do and when it happens

Well

It went from destructive to a detonation through demolition away from everyone

I’m proud of that part, proud of the fact that my anger is still a part of me and now in a productive and conducive and healthy way like the part where I say to the void:

Though I could put on a bit and pretend to be someone else and say all the right things

Unfortunately darkness is not an aesthetic for me because darkness is my being

And paradoxically that is where the warmth comes from because warmth is what you make when there’s no light coming from anywhere else

And that is why the thing I would say to you if I ever would

I’ve thought about what to say, how to say, it but I haven’t thought about what it’ll cost me because I don’t think about the cost calculus because you don’t even read my writing probably

Say I lose access, become a person who cannot be tolerated, naming the thing others won’t

Prepare yourself, Ani (she says to herself writing in the 3rd person)

You decided in advance that you’re willing to pay that price because more important things are at stake

Fucking great

I’m thrilled

Thrilled

Yes I am too earnest for some people and no it does not faze me

I just don’t care for it, I’d rather be expending my thoughts on a bike ride philosophizing and navel gazing and whatever

I feel compelled to do the right thing here because I am

Fallible but it’ll be fine in the end

This is irrelevant, I just don’t like things weighing on me

Things I would say career wise:

Pick a lane, pick a lane, pick a lane

If I could have picked one, I would have picked one by now already, motherfucker

Things I would say in general:

Sleep on it

See how you feel in the morning

Always good advice

I don’t even think you’ve ever even read my writing

If you’re reading this, it’s too late

Things I would say to BBC news:

Please stop assaulting me with headlines reminding me it’s been four years since Ukraine was invaded

The other day I found out that bar in Amsterdam finally closed

It was one thing that they got rid of the swing where I sat

It was another to put a nail on the coffin in ending the existence of that liminal space where I met someone I thought I may have built a life with at some point

Almost fell in love

Really came close to it

I hope he’s doing well

Whenever I meet someone with his name, I internally note it

Cringe!

Things I would say to a diary if I kept one but this is similar enough and people are voyeurs who love to read the filthy stuff especially apparently:

I am aware of discrepancies in the storyline

This is also known as lying, though some call it image management

I understand that someone who is not telling the truth is the same person who will not tell the truth to you

The fucking duplicity of being charmed

Goddamnit

Things that have no place in this essay whatsoever but this isn’t an essay, it’s just a list of things and thoughts:

Thesis, counterthesis, result (new result?)

Dialectic, argument A, argument B, synthesis is argument C (not a conclusion)

I remember the lecture on post-modern literature some spring day in Rolfe hall, the classroom was on the second floor, it’s one of the uglier buildings on the UCLA campus, but this professor I had a huge crush on had an office not too far away so it made for a nice opportunity to hope to walk by and fangirl

After that lecture I called an ex who had moved back from some midwestern state because I was completely over learning about critical theory and horny

We went out for a beer, he had changed his name from (redacted) to Al to integrate with the cornfed

Then he spent the entire night talking about Trump

That’s when I knew he’d win

This was in January 2015

I have always been a visionary, I guess

Things I would like to say to the concept of Motherhood with a capital M:

No idea. Is it ever happening? I don’t know, mixed bag, I’m not ready for that

It’s been on my mind, not something I take lightly

“The floor is lava!” - giggling, the author’s 3 year old daughter sends unexpected pangs to my ovaries.

This too is a psyop

I swear to god all of this is

Men in my DMs, I don’t want to have your children, sorry (not sorry)

Things I would like to say to myself:

You broke your ribs in a biking accident in 2024 and your health has changed in ways ever since then that befuddle you.

You are putting off a doctor’s visit

If we’re being honest, you have been putting it off for years.

You worry you might secretly have some cancer or something.

You look up how to say things, the right things, the right way, for the right reasons, for the right motivations, for the right thing to do, even though all of this is wrong to begin wit

It is wrong for you to spend time on, wrong decision making to begin with, wrong time, wrong place, wrong person, wrong people, wrong thing, wrong actions, wrong set-up, wrong situation, wrong behavior

God, I love Depeche Mode, always have, always will

Things I would say to Canadians:

WestJet destroyed my luggage entirely,

Stop lagging with the response

Eh?

Things I would say to Canadian road signs:

Bridges iced

Vision limited

Oh Dear (Deer Crossing)

Please slow down

These road signs of yours are a little too on the nose for my liking when I’m driving through your country and thinking about everything

Things I would say to dogs:

Ya basic

Ya sloppy

Cats win

Things I would say to my readers:

Share my writing with the most interesting people you know and ask them to share it too because I’m timeboxing if this thing whole writing works out or not and I’m done dealing with flaky editors for essay pitches, fuck that shit, I need connections, introductions, and all the divine help and intervention of people who genuinely want me to succeed. I especially think I need to connect with a literary agent/representative or editors who champion my kind of writing across registers

Things I would say to Nikita Bier:

Fix your fucking direct messages bro goddamn

Things I would say to strangers on the internet:

You know I’m a human being behind the screen too, right?

Things I would say to my to-do list:

I am running out of spaces for lists of things to do and to sort

I am running out of countries to go to and so I drive at night sorting my thoughts