It's Been a Pleasure, Noni Blake

by Claire Christian

I get up with such stealth and quiet precision that I pull a muscle in my neck.

sign my name, Noni, and add xx to suggest an illusion of cool about the whole thing. But I am not feeling cool. Not even a little bit.

I haven’t been able to distinguish any kind of feeling apart from numb for the longest time, but this feels good, this feels like an improvement.

I feel calm, and this makes me anxious.

Because the most intimate relationship I’ve been in for the last eighteen months has been with my own loneliness. A relationship full of wishes, what-could’ve-beens, not doing laundry, crying randomly in the liquor store, letting my roots grow out a little too far—to the point where it was obviously not a style choice. Missing my dog and my previous life.

He’s the epitome of a good human: smart, considerate, polite, passionate, thoughtful and so loving.

It was one of the best kisses of my life—the kind of kiss that feels like so much more than just lips pressed against each other. The kiss had history, possibility, passion and bellies full of cheap beer and abandon swirling around in it all at once.

I realize that the biggest thing that has happened to me as I’ve gotten older is that I’ve started to shut up and listen to that voice, that instinct, that knows best.

I don’t like answering the phone. I have monthly subscriptions to things I never use because the only way you can cancel them is via a phone call.

watch those documentaries about animals and sugar and empathy and the chemicals in plastics and manifesting your desires and I get sucked in and vow that I’m going to change my life and be better, but within hours I’m sucking up caffeinated sugar-stacked beverages through a plastic straw, eating a doughnut and using all of my supposed power to manifest a car park close to the entrance of the shops because I don’t want to walk too far.

I have always been somewhat surprised that people like me. Like that. That people want to have sex with me, are attracted to me. I don’t feel likable in that way.

You’re lucky he wanted to fuck you. You’re not exciting at all. What’s so special about you? You’re entirely unlikable. Unfuckable.

When I left the house, I’d felt nervous and excited, like things could change. Like I could be different. Like I could act on whims and be a sexy woman. But I haven’t changed at all.

I’d stayed in my pajamas all day and left the house only to go to the McDonald’s drive-through. The whole drive I cursed the happy families on their way to their Sunday activities, the couples looking deeply satisfied from their morning sex and coffee, people with plans and places to be.

It’s so fucked up that it takes a tragedy to make us act—to put what is most important into perspective.

I pace around my tiny kitchen, giving myself a pep talk worthy of the climactic moment in a sports movie.

I’m happy being relatively unhappy.

can tell that she doesn’t care what people think, but that she cares about people.

I never know what to say when people tell me that they’re sad about what happened. I feel a weird mixture of gratitude for their empathy but also a fiery rage, because it seems as if there’s no way they could ever understand what happened, and so perhaps they should just fuck off with their misplaced feelings.

I walk into the café all too aware of the clothes on my body and the makeup on my face. The clothes and makeup that I had spent hours agonizing over, for the very specific reason that I want them to look like I had not spent hours agonizing over them.

I remind myself that I’m fine. That all I’m doing is going on holiday. I think it’s because it’s a change, because I don’t know what this next bit looks like, because I’m scared. Scared of fucking it up. Of the unknown. Of being happy. It feels selfish. It feels indulgent. It feels like I’m a fucking idiot for being upset about going on holiday and focusing on doing what feels good.

It’s okay to feel safe, Noni, I tell myself. Inhale. It’s okay to feel happy. Exhale. It’s okay to trust your instincts. Inhale. It’s okay to make mistakes. Exhale. It’s okay to feel safe. Inhale. Exhale.

I’m trying to be happy and it feels like it works sometimes, and then other times it feels like such an effort, you know?”

“Oh, darling, that’s life, that’s grief, that’s being human. And there is a hole. There is a hole in your heart, or your life, or however you want to look at it. That baby, she is a hole, which you’re never, ever gonna fill. You’re just gonna get better at living with the hole,”

We’re doing this because when we hug, it pumps oxytocin through our bodies and we feel better, we feel more connected.

I realize I’ve been using other people as my biggest pleasure center my whole life. To validate me. And I’ve been letting their acceptance or rejection of me dictate my value.

would never tolerate the things I say to myself if someone else was saying them. I disregard my feelings. I don’t value my desires. I don’t nurture myself. I’m mean. Holy shit. Pleasure isn’t a person. It’s personal. And I need to work out what it looks like to me.

Please let me get my shit together. Please let me be cool. Not even cool, just act like a normal person. Please let this be a good idea and not be shit.

I like that he has manners; it says a lot about him. Though I also feel a slight pang that him having manners is a turn on for me, because how fucking low does the decency bar have to be for men?

I realize I don’t even know how to get laid on purpose. Every experience I’ve ever had had been after a long buildup or a complete accident.

He seems so together. It makes me feel so untogether.