i wrote this in my journal, (yes, i have a journal now) and i’ve never hand-written anything with the intention of typing it up but i’ve had writers block so i wanted to try something new. i will try to keep the same format as it was hand-written, so if you see something crossed out, that is why. okay, love you, and thanks for being here - xo
Where do you go?
This week, a therapist asked me where I go when I disassociate.
“Where do you go?” she asks almost instantaneously. I had never been asked that before, and so, I didn’t have an answer, or rather, I didn’t have one prepared. “I don’t know… I’ve never been asked that before.” After some thought, I replied, “I guess sometimes when I’m overwhelmed, my brain takes me to a place where there is a version of myself who is waking up on an early summer morning, in a nice house, the house smells sweet, but not musty, the air is light, the room, the kitchen, is spacious not empty, and I’m making a coffee.” probably a matcha or a herbal tea but it felt pretentious to say that. “That’s where my brain goes when I am overwhelmed, but I don’t know if that’s where I go when I dissociate.”
“I guess you’re not really present so you wouldn’t know.”
“exactly,” I respond.
I start to think about this version of myself in my bright kitchen. It’s not even the kitchen of my dreams, but I appear happy nonetheless. The kitchen of my dreams is some shade of green, my reference point is usually “Emma Chamberlain’s kitchen in her Architectural Digest video, but not quite, maybe darker green tiles.” Green is my mother’s favourite colour. Back in 2015 at her funeral, my father ordered these bookmarks to give out, with her face on it, and they were green because “that’s your mother’s favourite colour.” I wouldn’t have the kitchen green because I associate my mum with the kitchen, that feels problematic, but because I too like green, and it happens to be my mother’s favourite colour. Causation Correlation does not mean causation.
But in my happy place, in my imaginary world where I sometimes go, my kitchen is not Emma Chamberlain-esque green, but plain white. It’s basic. Nice to look at but merely functional. Somehow and somewhere in my subconscious, what I crave, is the basic. Even in the formation of this scene in my brain, what causes me to go there perhaps isn’t the nice, big house with the big (but importantly, functional) kitchen, it’s the mundane. Being happy with the mundane. The matcha or the herbal tea. Which both happen to be green. Maybe my love of green is subconscious too.
I never really pay attention to the scenes that play in my head. As a screenwriter, I’m used to random thoughts or prompts leading to the formation of scenes in my head. Some of them I keep note of, others I discard. For example, at the end of summer I went on a mini-trip with some friends to the sea. I couldn’t tell you where we went but it was around 40 minutes away from Bournemouth. After we had finished frolicking in the water, I started getting images of a woman, fully-clothed, and drenched, coming out of the water, at dawn, and walking from the shore, through the little town, past some shops, and to the car. I say ‘the car’ but I mean ‘her’ car. Oh and she’s bare foot. And her car is a Winter Blue 1969 Ford Mustang. Although I haven’t described it very well, the scene is very specific in my head, yet it has no meaning. I don’t know why I go there.
I often wonder if other people have places where they go in their minds. ‘Maladaptive daydreaming’ some call it, but I like to tell myself that it’s actually the gift of being an intuitive, super clever, very in-tune, visually gifted filmmaker aspiring filmmaker. I like to pretend that what I see isn’t a by-product symptom of a brain that needs mending but rather the burden of a god-sent gift. Am I joking? I’m not too sure, but I do know that this way of thinking is incredibly egotistical. But perhaps self-adulation is requisite to survival? Similarly, to how the image of some-me in a nice, bright, white kitchen being acts as a place of refuge, perhaps a big part of life is telling ourselves that there is a bigger, greater, better version of ourselves out there and all the trials and tribulations we face is just a means of getting there. If we can convince ourselves that this present reality isn’t the one where we are our ‘real’ selves, then it perhaps gives us a reason to hold on, and that things we go through, our torments and our troubles, have a purpose.
Perhaps the question isn’t “where do you go?” but “why do you go?”
Why are you in such a rush and why are you going?
“Perhaps the question isn’t “where do you go?” but “why do you go?”” Oooh, that HIT. For me, when daydreaming I constantly have future me in mind. At my desired career with my desired person or people. Always thinking far ahead. Probably says a lot more about me than I’d like lol, but I’m going to be thinking about this for a while and investigating why I go where I do! 🫶🏾 beautiful x