I'm not a go with the flow type of person. I mean, I'm the worst at time. I'm late everywhere and I start to sweat and shake when people ask me what time I'm going to be somewhere. I don't look at the clock unless I'm at work. I seriously don't give a shit about time: and yes, it's a serious problem. I've tried to work on it. Not really. Kind of. Depends on the week. 

All I do now is look at time. What time should I start leaving my parents' house to get home so I can binge watch a new documentary. What time should I leave to go help my parents out at the restaurant. Should I even go? What time should I go to bed? I hate it. I hate being inside for 8 hours while counting down the hours until I'm finished with work. I feel punished, but I don't feel comfortable stating I feel like I'm being punished because there's something worse going on. I'm not a relax-at-home type of person. You know when I relax? When I go to bed at night. When I get home from the gym, which is after an 8-hour work day, which is after a night of not enough sleep. That's just how I live. I follow a routine during the week and I like it that way. 

A few years ago, I began going to the gym 5 days a week. I never stopped in the three years I've started making that a part of my life. And no--it's not because I want to lose weight or I want to be in shape or feel strong; it's these things in combination with having one hour to myself where I don't feel like I have to fulfill a goddamn obligation to be part of society. That's my hobby. Writing is my hobby, reading is my hobby, but those haven't been taken away from me. I've taken walks and run in the beautiful metro parks, but a lot of my livelihood and a lot of my mental health is nurtured by an atmosphere of sweaty individuals. I miss that. My whole body misses that. 

But I digress-- I don't want to complain. It's wrong of me. And yet here I am, complaining. I've struggled to confront this conflict because I typically confront my issues by...yes..you've guessed it...going to the gym. I'm a drug dealer when I sweat on the elliptical with my music. I'm an Instragam influencer when I lift weights. If only for an hour a day, and that's all I want: to be anything I want for just one hour a day. But I don't want to complain. Bigger things are going on. There's a reason behind the madness. There's a reason filled with masks and gloves and hand sanitizer. 

I'm in awe of health care professionals, home-schooling parents, anti-vaxxers who keep their dumbass opinions during a pandemic, people who switch their gloves often and the woman who runs past me in the grocery store because I'm violating the 6-feet implementation to get a box of fucking Cheerios. I'm in awe of all of you. It's like you've done this before and you're all so good at it. I'm not. I'm just not. 

It's fight or flight. And I feel like I'm doing both for the first time in my life at the very same time. I fight, usually. But I'm fleeing. I'm hiding and I'm being dishonest about how annoying I find that, and how annoyed I am that I'm selfish enough to call it annoying. I'm annoyed I can't visit my family in Italy. I'm grieving for all the absent funerals occurring in the country I was born in. I'm uncomfortable with how hungry I am and how much food simultaneously has begun to annoy me. I'm not surprised by MLM psychos taking advantage of us all during this unknown time. But mostly--I'm just feeling chaotic that I have no uniform thoughts about it all. Like I said, I like a routine. And like I said, I don't do time. I'm usually pessimistic. So I've forced myself to become optimistic. This'll all end soon. Don't fuckin ask me when. 

I open my dry hands to receive more Purell before I lay my hands on the blue handle of the shopping cart at Walmart and wait my turn to enter the complete chaos of every aisle.
I don't know what I'm looking for: it's not toilet paper or Clorox, hand sanitizer or Dial, 
Not the red Trident I deem most important to chew on while I work from home, and not any more snacks to stuff my face with as I watch the clock go by. Blue masks on otherwise readable neighbors, latex-free gloves on otherwise soft hands, elbows replacing handshakes, exchanging suspicious glances instead of sharing words: Discomfort is Everything Now. And so I take a long walk along the creek, I try to breathe in a normal breeze and let it revive me. A large gust of wind blows across my face and it feels good. A woman walking toward me throws her long arms up and smiles. She thinks so too. We have found ourselves in the breeze. 

"Do you want to get together and play with our American Girl Dolls?" 

The dolls. If you had an American Girl Doll, you knew the excitement you felt when a childhood friend of yours had one too. You knew weekends would be spent dressing your dolls up in their overly-expensive dresses, or brushing their hair with a built-to-break $30.00 hairbrush (which is now 8 dollars, by the way). And you loved your American Girl Doll like the promising little girl you were, observed by the patriarchy and left to domestic chores at the age of 5. 

Every season you'd wait for the catalogue to come in the mail. Pen in hand, you would circle all of the overly priced items you wanted: a yellow raincoat for when Molly *walks* through the rain, a traveling suitcase for all of Josefina's clothes that just doesn't have the same durability as a plastic bag that you will inevitably carry from your house to a friend's, or the IttyBitty twin dolls, creepily staring at you while you peruse the magazine, wondering if you also want the smaller children. Will they be your AG Doll's kids? Sister? Brother?! 

Here's the list of the original American Girl Dolls:
1. Molly McIntyre
2. Felicity Merriman
3. Addy Walker
4. Kaya
5. Josefina Montoya
6. Kit Kitterage
7. Kirsten Larson
8. Samantha Fucking Parkington 

Speaking for myself and anyone with any sort of intuition, all dolls numbered 1 through 7 were kind, spunky, and fun to play with. Number 8, and let me just abbreviate her name as SP because it hurts to type all the way out without some form of PTSD, ruined the friendship all of these dolls could have had. Allow me to explain myself. I only ever read Molly's story and SP's story. I immediately decided that SP would be Molly's enemy. Each time I knew someone with an SP, I judged them and wished to abuse SP. She was the equivalent of the girl your significant other tells you not to worry about. The girl who backhand compliments you in the bathroom at the bar: "Wow, I could like nevevevever wear that." The one who never tells you where she buys her clothes. In her perfectly half-up half-down straight black hair that flows onto her ironed-AF checkered dress, I feel nothing but violence when I look at Samantha. Her beady eyes pissed me off because they stared whenever you did something stupid. And then her stupid blush-colored clutch--UGH. 

I hope I can find some readers traumatized from SP at an early age and who began to see SP's in everyday life. At the middle school dance swaying to Nickelback with your crush, the name on every boy's prepubescent lips. I keep seeing articles and memes about the American Girl Dolls, but no one has formed a powerful militia against this doll. We need to be different in 2020. We must be vigilant, yet powerful. We must continue to fight the Samantha Parkingtons (OW) of the world.