I started reading The Shining in tandem with my friend who lives in New York because neither of us have read a Stephen King novel and I am really struggling to get through it. It is such a boy book. It is so sad and dark and long and I suppose that’s what I should have expected but I like to read in bed, and reading The Shining before I fall asleep has made my dreams stressful and is messing with my sleep because I keep waking up in the dead of night with the sense that there is a spirit in my room and I haven’t even gotten to the part of the book where they leave for the haunted resort.
I haven’t had a nightmare in a while (thank you Wellbutrin!) but had one the night I started The Shining. I was out of town last month and have been struggling to return to my routine, so I have not been logging my dreams as I usually do and I do not remember what happened in this nightmare but it was scary and in the morning I woke up with a deep sense of dread that I haven’t experienced in years.
I felt dread for the first time when I was in second grade. My mother had just been diagnosed with cancer, and in response I had a nightmare that she disappeared and my father remarried a robot (Smart House) who I did not like. I kept yelling that I wanted my mother at the robot and eventually she tried to drown me in the ocean under the guise of teaching me how to swim. I screamed and cried so hard in the dream realm and woke up half crying, leapt out of bed and ran for my mother. I had not yet had the experience of a dream so vivid that waking up to reality is confusing. When I woke up my tiny seven year old brain thought that there was a chance a robot had really taken my mother’s place. I found her and told her about my dream through tears and though she tried her best to comfort me I was horrified to find that the dread did not leave.
It felt like a black hole spinning and dilating in the depths of my bowels, a violent and aching longing for nothing in particular, that hung around for about two decades. It was always at its deepest and darkest when I showered. I had a crying fit after almost every shower from age seven to at least age ten. I have a clear memory where I am looking in a mirror while my mother blow dries my hair and I am weeping, wailing over and over that I am ugly, and both of my parents have no idea why and frankly, neither did I! It was so much more than just anxiety. I think the vulnerability of having to be naked while doing a chore was difficult for my adolescent, pubescent brain to comprehend and work through the feminine disdain I felt for my changing body. A friend of mine in college shared with me that she had also always felt dread while showering, and described it as feeling as though her “stomach is lonely,” and there was nothing we could do to make it go away except wait.
I think the more I make peace with and take care of my body the less angry it is to be keeping me alive. I used to want to escape it desperately; I spent most of my teenage years wishing I was someone else entirely. I feel so sad for my teenage self when I think about how much hatred she felt for herself constantly, and for truly no reason at all. Being a teenage girl is impossible and every woman that survives it deserves a medal of bravery.
I don’t remember when I became free of dread, I really can only confirm that it’s not something I feel often if at all anymore (save for this one Stephen King-related instance), and certainly not in the shower, which is now a sacred and holy place for me to be naked and in community with water. Naked women belong in water. Nothing makes me feel closer to God or the Universe or Source or whatever than being in the ocean completely naked. If it were socially appropriate and not dangerous, my next birthday party would be a nude gathering of my favorite women in the dead of night where we hold hands in the ocean under a full moon.
Anyway, I do not know if I will be able to finish The Shining, though I do not like to give up on books.1 I read the worst book I have ever read2 earlier this year cover to cover because I must finish the books I start. The Shining isn’t even bad—I’m sure it’s probably a masterpiece—it’s just like, so exhausting to be stuck in the psyche of a mentally ill man. Men are addicted to malaise and they are obsessed with dread. It’s boring. Just get a therapist! Everything is going to be fine if you just decide it is!
Unless it’s a book by Emily Henry. I wouldn’t even call those books. They are elongated fantasies written by artificial intelligence. I can’t prove it but I am one hundred percent sure those books are written by AI or a virgin or a virgin using AI. I personally have too much pride as a writer to do that but good for you Emily, get your bag diva!
Ripe by Sarah Rose Etter. It has the most beautiful cover and I did pick it up because the cover is pretty. I have never before learned a lesson in such a literal way.