Hey, hello. It’s me.

Hey, hello. It’s me. No how-to guides to loneliness, no haunted houses. Just me. Feels weird. My therapist recommended me to write in my own voice. Well, not recommended, she posed a question where I filled in the gap. It works a lot like that between us. “Have you tried to write in your own voice?” she says. No other field talks like that. Who says, “Have you tried doing that in this way?” Shit, when I think about it, this sounds much better than how all my professional interactions worked so far. “Fix that immediately, delivery is tomorrow.” I should delete what I just wrote and give her more praises. Well, no, this is free-form writing, I will keep going. No time. I just feel that to write in your own voice, you should have some importance to the world. Who wants to know my cycling thoughts? My mom? My mom would probably like this if she knew how to read English. I’m safe.

I just hate the anarchy of writing with no plan. Existence is already a wave of chaos washing over our little shitty and precarious lifeboats; why would I bring turmoil to my cozy blank page? I just don’t operate well without structure. The other day a delivery guy came to my place. Most times when a delivery person arrives, they hold the buzzer for, I counted last time, around seven seconds. That doesn’t sound like much, but stop for a second and calculate it in your mind. One-one thousand. Two-one-thousand. Three-one-thousand. Four-one-thousand. Five-one-thousand. Six-one-thousand. Seven-one-thousand. Fuck, it’s a long time. My dog goes bananas; I feel that one second more and he would vomit his heart. I’m not good with dog anatomy, but I think that vomiting your heart is in the realm of possibilities for a small dog. My tiny one-bedroom shakes. It feels like a fire drill inside my skull. So, after a couple of times hearing that. Yes, I order lots of take-out. Ubereats has free delivery right now. Don’t judge. Let’s go back to the point. This time I decided to face the next guy.

I’m ready to do it. He knocks on the door. It’s hard. He is smiling and wearing one of those weird Bluetooth headsets in one ear. He is too nice for confrontation but I’m ready. There’s a point to this story; I just don’t know it yet. I open the door and say, “Thanks, but you know, usually when you buzz, you hold-release. Hold-release. Two seconds. Three tops.” He is taken by surprise. His routine consists of hand bag, get out. He looks at me puzzled, his Bluetooth earpiece still dangling from the forward propulsion that is usually accompanied by the same speed backward motion, from the momentum of the first movement, that takes him back to his vehicle. “I need to be quick,” he answers, confused. “I know, but if you hold-release, that’s two seconds. You wait four seconds. If nobody answers, hold-release again. That’s a total of eight seconds. You’re losing one second and avoiding dog epilepsy,” I explain, stumbling through my words. He is not listening to me anymore. He looks annoyed. While I was telling this, he looked back at the elevator twice. He wants that elevator. That safe trip back to his car, those minutes of silence. I’m not done. He moves his head up and down, agreeing with me. I know he didn’t agree with me. He will seven-second the next house for sure. I don’t want to be a buzzer vigilante. That’s not my mission in life. I don’t want to create an online petition and share it on Facebook so I feel good about myself. Why am I so bothered right now? I want to keep talking. I browse through my mind really fast to see if I can find any argument that would persuade this person that this is a good thing. That’s what people do. Humans have unspoken courtesy rules, to go through life. Nobody holds for seven to eight seconds. You hold-release. That’s the rule. He is already gone, just a shadow curving into the elevator. Should I write a review on the app? “He doesn’t hold-release. One star.” Is anyone going to get it? Am I the only one who thinks that’s a thing? You have three attempts. Hold-release. Wait. Repeat two more times. That’s your window. Anything more than that is mayhem.

So, what’s my point? Do I have difficulties functioning in social situations? Yes, but that’s not the point. I just don’t feel comfortable doing something without any sort of framework. I still sit in the same chair and on the same side of the dinner table that I sat the first time I used that chair and that table. I can only function if I establish rules and parameters, even if they are only blurry resonances in my mind. That’s why it’s so hard to just write from my own perspective, with no predetermined coordinates. You will end up with a text about the Ubereats delivery guy.