I tried on my bat-mitzvah dress and decided that The Sims no longer serve me

My Thanksgiving week at home

Greetings from my festive flatulence 😁

Writing to you from my mom’s house in Massachusetts where I spent the week of Thanksgiving. This house is my childhood home and also where I kicked off my COVID lockdown experience. On March 15, 2020 my mom called me from a gas station at 7:30am to tell me she was coming to collect me from New York and bring me back home. She had a full tank of gas and was on her way. “I saw the graph, the lockdown is coming” she said. Of course I thought I’d be with my family for a “fun” two weeks—a month at most. A snow day feeling! We all know what happened. I spent six months with my two younger sisters, my mom, her three fully-grown golden retrievers, and wearing a rotation of the three pairs of sweatpants and four sweaters I brought home. I dipped into my mom’s wardrobe in the summer months and got back into The Sims. It was lovely and special and I treasure it and it was also complex and haunting. All to say, my connection to this house is all the more deep and layered.

Every time I go home, my body kind of gets out of whack (in the most beautiful way). It’s my own doing. I’m away from the foods I usually eat, I get lazy and less on top of my Metamucil regimen which leaves me constipated, and my sleep schedule is absolutely ruined—often passing out at 9:45pm and then being jolted awake at 5:50am by my mom in a verbal battle with her Alexa.

Mom: “Alexa, stop. . .Alexa, alarm off . . . Alexa, set alarm for 6:20.”

Alexa: “There is no alarm set for 6:20am”

Mom: “Alexa set alarm for 6:30”

Alex (my sister, not a typo): “Moooom, what are you doing!?!”

I’m mostly bloated and always eating. My mom is dairy free and gluten free (the IBS in this family runs deep and is eroding us all) so there are always funky new snacks around to sample. Cauliflower rice cakes this time! I’m typically anti cauliflower rice because it’s fart shavings, but these were shockingly good and inspired many a snack bowl:

Most comforting of all, my room hasn’t changed much since I left for college and I’m very grateful for that. It’s grounding to be surrounded by old notebooks and figurines and my cork board with movie ticket stubs, old birthday cards and Wonderball wrappers pinned to it. A visual timeline.

Hidden in my closet however, are where the darker memorabilia live: my old dresses.

Each dress carries vivid memories—mostly their own unique stories of insecurity or self-loathing and some with pit stains to show for it! I keep that door closed. This visit though I noticed a small triangle of blue sticking out of the closet door, waving at me, inviting me to say hello.

I tried on my bat-mitzvah dress.

Pulling it up I hear the voice of the tailor that made those shul-friendly alterations and additions. She was an older woman with an awesome Italian accent and an enormous mole on her mouth which made me feel like she wasn’t judgmental. She never poked me with any pins and after my bat-mitzvah I went to her often throughout the rest of middle school to get my pants hemmed. And by pants I mean the true business casual slacks I was buying from Express or Anne Taylor or Bebe sometimes. There was a strong corporate for teens trend that took hold in the early 2000s—i.e. blazers and pin stripes. Chilling.

For a soothing come down from the bat-mitzvah dress extravaganza I settled into bed with a bowl of Chex cereal and The Sims. Chex tastes much worse than I remember but I think that’s mostly because I use almond milk now instead of regular one or two percent. Almond milk makes most cereal taste bland and warm? unless the cereal is sugary enough to cut through the wateriness of it all and in this case it made the Chex pretty nauseating. I ate the soggy mess anyway because I was bored and almond milk in cereal is simply my life now. I have to be selective about how and when I choose to give myself acid reflux / severe constipation / diarrhea and I reserve my IBS for cheese:

When I play Sims I black out. I am sucked into a hole where time does not exist and when I emerge my eyes sting, my back hurts and I’m parched—as if my entire life force goes into bringing my Sims into existence. This particular Sims session I started playing around 6pm and when I came to it was 11pm. I was exhausted and disoriented but I forced myself to finish the Sim I was creating: one Olive Whitlin (no idea where that name came from) with a wellness aspiration (my sister got the Sims 4 spa pack and they can be yoga teachers). She had an an all cream wardrobe and a perfect “modern zen” beachside home. Olive is toxic. I lulled myself to sleep as I browsed rugs and plants that would perfectly round out her living room and drooped under the covers once I found the perfect ottoman. A wave of shame washed over me. Here I am taking care of Olive, not even putting a television in her home so she can be committed to her mind and body and what am I? Nothing??? (Olive’s FOIL in middle school terms).

I sprung up out of my covers with determination and resolve, grabbed my laptop and uninstalled the game. Tomorrow is a new day.