No One Belongs Here More Than You

by Miranda July

People tend to stick to their own size group because it’s easier on the neck. Unless they are romantically involved, in which case the size difference is sexy. It means: I am willing to go the distance for you.

It’s not your fault. Perhaps this was really the only thing I had ever wanted to say to anyone, and be told.

You seem incredibly faraway to me, like someone on the other side of a lake. A dot so small that it isn’t male or female or young or old; it is just smiling.

His sons will all be beautiful and strapping royalty, and my daughters will all be middle-aged women working for a local nonprofit and spearheading their neighborhood earthquake-preparedness groups. We come from long lines of people destined never to meet.

I would almost call what she does sexual abuse, but she’s my younger sister, so there must be another word for it. She’s over the top. That’s all I can say about her.

That is my problem with life, I rush through it, like I’m being chased. Even things whose whole point is slowness, like drinking relaxing tea. When I drink relaxing tea, I suck it down as if I’m in a contest for who can drink relaxing tea the quickest. Or if I’m in a hot tub with some other people and we’re all looking up at the stars, I’ll be the first to say, It’s so beautiful here. The sooner you say, It’s so beautiful here, the quicker you can say, Wow, I’m getting overheated.

I fantasize about starting over and eliminating the film of dragginess that hangs over me.

This person mourns the fact that she has ruined her one chance to be loved by everyone; as this person climbs into bed, the weight of this tragedy seems to bear down upon this person’s chest. And it is a comforting weight, almost human in heft. This person sighs. This person’s eyes begin to close, this person sleeps.

We wetted each other’s blouses and pushed our crying ahead of us like a lantern, searching out new and forgotten sadnesses, ones that had died politely years ago but in fact had not died, and came to life with a little water.

We had loved people we really shouldn’t have loved and then married other people in order to forget our impossible loves, or we had once called out hello into the cauldron of the world and then run away before anyone could respond.

I looked at Pip and for a split second I felt as though she was nobody special in the larger scheme of my life. She was just some girl who had tied me to her leg to help her sink when she jumped off the bridge. Then I blinked and was in love with her again.

We wish we were something that needed nothing, like paint. But even paint needs repainting.

Would she understand that time had stopped while she was gone?

If she left, I would become mute, like those children who have witnessed horrible atrocities. No one would understand me but those children.

I was never good at jumping in, letting go of one element and embracing another. I could stand there all day, letting the other kids go in front of me forever.

Everyone knows that if you paint a human being entirely with house paint he will live, as long as you don’t paint the bottom of his feet.

Perhaps the boy would be sent to jail for lying to me. I looked at his amazing tennis shoes and knew he would be able to handle it. I, on the other hand, have never been able to convincingly wear athletic gear, and prison life would kill me.

We learned to be discreet. It helped that nobody really cares about anyone but themselves anyway. They check to make sure you aren’t killing anyone, anyone they know, and then they go back to what they were saying about how they think they might be having a real breakthrough in their relationship with themselves.

I don’t believe in psychology, which says everything you do is because of yourself. That is so untrue. We are social animals, and everything we do is because of other people, because we love them, or because we don’t.

But, like ivy, we grow where there is room for us.

Some people need a red carpet rolled out in front of them in order to walk forward into friendship. They can’t see the tiny outstretched hands all around them, everywhere, like leaves on trees.

Past a certain age, they give up on the name games, which is regrettable for someone like me who loves anything that involves going around a circle and saying something about yourself.

Ellen turned to me first. It often happens this way, because I am large. Smaller things flow toward larger things, and in the case of oceans and rivers, the smaller thing becomes one with the larger thing.

People just need a little help because they are so used to not loving. It’s like scoring the clay to make another piece of clay stick to it.

I laughed and said, Life is easy. What I meant was, Life is easy with you here, and when you leave, it will be hard again.

For how long can you behold another person? Before you have to think of yourself again, like dipping the brush back in for more ink. For a very long time; you didn’t need to get more ink, there was no reason to get anything else, because she was as good as me, she lived on earth like me, she suffered as I did. It was she who looked away and pulled the sheet to her chin.

Suddenly, it was very late, and from where I was sitting, I could see the dust starting to reunite on the TV. I would probably never dust the TV again; I wouldn’t have a reason to. This made me feel so violently sad that I got a cloth and began dusting it right then and there,

My feeling then was that I had drunk too much orange juice and the acid was destroying my stomach and maybe the rest of me, too.

After she left, I stood in the middle of the living room and decided it was okay to stand there for as long as I wanted. I thought I would eventually get bored, but I did not get bored, I only got worse. I was still holding the dust cloth, and I knew that if I could let it fall, I would be able to move again. But my hand was built to hold this dirty cloth forever.

I cried in English, I cried in French, I cried in all the languages, because tears are the same all around the world.

Have you ever wanted something very badly and then gotten it? Then you know that winning is many things, but it is never the thing you thought it would be. Poor people who win the lottery do not become rich people. They become poor people who won the lottery.