Building Walls With Pencils and Order

The way I used to arrange my pencils—by color, then by hardness, with erasers aligned perfectly—it wasn’t about neatness. Not really. It was about building a wall. A small, controllable space in a world that felt overwhelmingly…wobbly. Mom would sometimes say it was “cute,” a little quirk she appreciated. Dad just frowned and pointed out the time I spent on it, like rearranging crayons constituted some kind of personal failing. He didn’t understand, because he hadn't felt things shift beneath his feet quite so often.

My mornings were these carefully constructed fortresses. The way the toast landed butter-side up, the angle of my cereal spoon against the bowl—each tiny detail had to be *right*. It wasn’t about enjoyment; it was a transaction. A ritual performed to appease some unseen force that I knew, somehow, could destabilize everything if I messed up. There was a certainty in order that didn't exist elsewhere.

I remember feeling a low hum of anxiety constantly thrumming underneath the surface. It manifested in a physical tightness in my chest, a need to smooth out invisible wrinkles on surfaces. A compulsion to realign the books on the shelf even when no one was looking. It wasn’t about making things look nice; it was about feeling like I had *something* I could manage. Something solid.

I think that's what it really boiled down to: a desperate need for control. Not in some grand, manipulative way—more of an internal battle against the sense that everything could be pulled out from under me at any moment. My childhood wasn’t… bad, exactly. There weren’t huge dramatic events. But there was always this underlying feeling of unpredictability, a quiet hum of instability that seeped into every corner.

It's strange to think about now, how much energy I expended on these small, seemingly inconsequential acts. Hours spent scrubbing bathroom tiles, meticulously wiping down countertops until they gleamed—it wasn’t cleaning; it was an attempt to scrub away the fear, too. A frantic hope that if everything *looked* orderly, then maybe, just maybe, things would *be* orderly.

The Phoebe Bridgers show…that felt like a release valve of some kind. Seeing my words resonate with people beyond the usual circle—people who understood that feeling of quiet desperation, that need to find solace in something beautiful and honest—it was unexpectedly validating. It felt like I wasn't alone in constructing these fragile towers out of routine and order.

And the writing itself? It’s still a way of creating a structure, but now it’s built on something more resilient than perfectly aligned pencils. There's no control over how people will react or even if they will read at all, yet there's also an incredible sense of freedom in offering up these messy, imperfect pieces and hoping someone finds a connection. It’s terrifying, sure. But so much braver than hiding behind a wall of pristine surfaces.

I still catch myself straightening things sometimes, that almost automatic urge to organize and align. But now I recognize it for what it is—a ghost limb from a younger self. A reminder of the quiet battle I fought, and a testament to how even the most rigid structures can eventually crumble, allowing light in.