Immensity

Listen to this essay, as read by the author.

Immensity

7:04

I cross paths with a poem. “Tree,” by Jane Hirschfield, ends with the line “Softly, calmly, immensity taps at your life.” This sentence catches in my throat. My shoulders hunch. I am not sure why I feel tears welling. I reread the words. “Immensity taps at your life.” Immensity is the universe. Tap tap. Immensity is God. Tap. Immensity is all the things I am supposed to be doing with my life, this one life, that I’m not doing. Tap tap tap. And suddenly I am in the midst of an honest-to-goodness existential crisis. 

Midmorning, the day after this one line has gripped my chest, my anxiety is interrupted when one of my partners texts: “I’m sorry I haven’t been very communicative lately. I’ve been kinda depressed and smoking weed. I don’t need you to do anything, just letting you know where my head has been.” I read the text and nod. I already know his quiet has had nothing to do with me. I even know he’s been using weed again, based on what brief messages he has sent. I think maybe he tells me when he slips up as a sort of penance. I think maybe he is waiting for me to give up on him. I tell him I already knew. Thank him for confirming. I tell him I’ve been wrestling with my own anxiety since we last saw one another. 

“I’m here, if talking would help.” I text, and then immediately follow it up with, “And I’ll be here when you’re ready if being alone now is better.” 

He replies, “Thanks. And the same applies to you if you want to talk about what you’ve been wrestling with.”

I look at that invitation. I am not sure you mean that. I am so much. I am having a legitimate existential crisis because of a poem. But I promised myself I wouldn’t shrink anymore. I promised myself I wouldn’t make myself smaller for other people’s comfort. If he can’t handle this, if he can’t handle me, better to know now. 

I send him the poem. I tell him “I do feel immensity tapping. And I don’t know what it wants from me, but I’m pretty sure whatever it is, I am inadequate to the task.” I am not enough for immensity, and I am too much for this brilliant, beautiful, depressed man who can’t stop smoking weed. 

He assures me I am not too much. I close the messaging app. I am in my head. I want neither his silence nor whatever he might say right now. I soldier on. There are tasks to cross off the list and errands to run and messes to clean. I forget about immensity. I forget about being too much. 

Until I remember. I am driving east on Northern Parkway, on my way to pick up my kid from middle school dismissal. But what does immensity want from me? I don’t know what I am supposed to do. Oh god. I’m probably supposed to do something big. Or important. I get into the right lane to turn onto Charles Street. But I’m tired. I’m so tired. I am working so hard. I do not want to work harder. I stop at the light at the school entrance. And who the fuck sends their existential crisis in a text? The light turns green and I make my way onto the campus of my daughter’s school. I wipe my eyes before I get to the middle school pick up lane. She gets in the car and tells me a story about a boy in her math class. 

At home I get back to work on my computer. I set up a marketing email. I clean up my task manager. I schedule a social media post. I do the dishes. I make dinner for my daughter. I read essays to prepare for a class I’m taking. My partner texts: “How are you doing?” Immensity taps. I swallow down the reaction. I don’t want to face it. I still don’t know if I believe he wants my immensity. I reply, “I’m soldiering on. How are you?” I ask if the depression or the weed came first—chicken or egg? He admits, “I’m not sure what compelled me to go to the dispensary but I’m sure it was to escape some anxiety or depression.” 

I realize my overfunctioning is the same: To escape some anxiety or depression. I keep that insight to myself.

I attend zoom class—memoir writing. We are workshopping second drafts, but I am not on the playlist tonight. I offer suggestions, compliment sandwiches. I liked this. I wondered about that. I liked this other thing. My comments seem well received. 

I log off of the zoom and stare at the screen. I’m tired. I’m so very tired. I have more I need to do. Upload the next podcast episode, tend to the dog. It is recycling pick up tomorrow, but my can is frozen in place. I empty the kitchen receptacle anyway. 

At my daughter’s insistence, I get ready for bed. Immensity taps as I settle under the covers. It was undoubtedly tapping earlier, but I was too busy to hear. That is how I escape. 

If I trusted Immensity to catch me, I would quit my job. I would focus my professional energy on work I want to be doing, not work that pays the bills. Money is a shared delusion but I don’t know how to wake up. If I trusted Immensity to meet me, I would write all the time. I would work to find an outlet, a platform, an agent. 

Tap tap tap. 

What do you want from me? Tap. I don’t know what you want, and I’m afraid once I know, I won’t be able to do it. Tap tap. I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong gal. Tap. I’m afraid. I fall asleep like that, talking to Immensity: Is fear keeping me from hearing you? I awake still asking questions: what does your tapping mean? 

Immensity is God and God is tap tap tapping on my life. But I have had this conversation before. God does not make demands the way I imagine. Every time I have worried I have disappointed God, it has turned out to be my own perfectionism that was disappointed. Maybe that is true again? I reread the poem. This time I am struck by the adverbs that describe Immensity’s tap: softly, calmly. My shoulders lower. The tap tap tapping is not an imperative at all. It is a reminder: I’m here. I love you. I’m waiting for you to remember that.