Dear Vincent, I made it two days writing my daily goals on fuschia post-its and sticking these on my refrigerator.

Tuesday, November 20, 2018

Subject: I spent all weekend listening to podcasts about loneliness. 

Dear Vincent,

This photo is called,

“I spent all weekend listening to podcasts about loneliness. 

I’m not sure I will ever stop waiting for someone to come and save me. 

It will be hard to get through the winter without micro dosing on LSD.”

Love, Erica. 

I spent all weekend listening to podcasts about loneliness. 

Thursday, November 22, 2018

Subject: Full Moon + Purple Heart Emoticon

Dear Vincent,

Happy Full Moon!

I am sorry for being so co-dependent. 

I bought a new journal yesterday. It is purple. Though I’d prefer without lines, sometimes what you want does not exactly match your life. For example the sweatshirt I wanted to wear today smells like stir fry and so it’s a no go. 

Love and best wishes,

Erica. 

Tuesday, November 27, 2018
No Subject

Dear Vincent,

This morning I went to see a social worker. 

My kitchen floor was perfect. 

Then I threw the empty bowl of strawberry yogurt. 

This picture is called, "I am quitting professional help in 2019." 

Love, Erica. 

I am quitting professional help in 2019. 

Wednesday, November 28, 2018
Subject: I made it two days writing my daily goals on fuschia post-its and sticking these on my refrigerator.

Dear Vincent,

I made it two days writing my daily goals on fuschia post-its and sticking these on my refrigerator. Today is the six-year disappearance of a girl from my hometown named Emma Fillipoff. She was 26 years old and she vanished barefoot into the night after a 45-minute conversation with police officers in front of a hotel. In 2015, I did an extensive blog series based on my interview with her mother, who used to be my grade six French teacher. Since I wrote the blogs, we learned approximately five to seven new details, but we still don’t know where she went. Knowing what happened to Emma Fillipoff is right up there with knowing what you think when you open these emails, and if you delete them, or put them in some special Erica folder. It’s perhaps very likely you don’t even bother to read them, and this is quite heartbreaking, if understandable.

Where is Emma Fillipoff (One)
The Search for Emma Fillipoff, Video Podcast with Kimberley Bordage (Concise and  Up-to-Date Collection of Facts)
Emma Fillipoff is Missing, Podcast by Jordan Bonaparte (I am interviewed in Episode 7)
Help Find Emma Fillipoff Facebook Group

Yesterday I needed a sandwich and a nap as early as 11:11 a.m., and I found this discouraging, and I found this unacceptable. My body did not forgive me for having chocolate almonds for lunch the day before, on a day that involved a relatively extensive work-out, three hours of cleaning and walking from just north of your windowless office all the way to the Atwater library. The night was insomnia, with fragmented stress dreams about other people’s dust, and vinegar scarcity, and screaming fights with my sweet and dainty mother who reminds everyone else of Mother Teresa. The day was, pretty much zero access to the rational part of my brain, though I did a rather good job translating an article about leather made out of pineapple leaves. The client said I was trop hot.

The Social Worker made a list of six things you can do for six months, and this is supposed to help you feel better. The six things are: exercise, eat well, sleep well, meditate, take your pills, go to therapy. Pills and therapy seem like a no-go, meditating has mixed reviews, I do not seem able to consistently excel at eating and sleeping, and 27 years later, exercise seems to have lost its potency. The Social Worker used the example of her thyroid, which is no longer inside of her, and she will have to take a pill every day for the rest of her life. I said that there is no official emotional regulation equivalent of a thyroid that they can say I am missing, thereby giving me a pass to take pills every day for the rest of my life. And I feel like anti-depressants are a scandal of our times, and that no one told you how they would impair your nervous system forever, and that they inevitably lose their effectiveness, and before you know it, you are a tiny and shrill and haggard and volatile sixty-four year old, taking handfuls of Zoloft and never able to sleep. When I am sixty-four, it’s unlikely I will get to be tiny.

The Social Worker asked me what my ideal situation would be. Without the looming threat of monumental rages, and perhaps the low-grade chronic mourning of lost potential, three point five out of five days of my life could be acceptable. And I wish I got to have more sex. And I wish someone would accept me and be there for me even when I am wacking myself in the face and launching an empty bowl of strawberry yogurt across my perfect kitchen floor. The shards went everywhere.

You have disappeared and this was always the agreement, and it would be the same with other therapists too, but I am finding it very difficult to accept and I am finding it very devastating. Maybe I should throw the medical records into the Lachine Canal. The invoice came on Monday and it only cost $15.13. There was some sort of discount and also there were only 58 pages. Sounds like you are more succinct than I am. I wonder if your handwriting is terrible.

It feels very difficult to take personal responsibility for your life and your feelings without drowning in shame and regret. Or to give yourself a break without feeling like you’ve fallen short, once again and forever.

After the fact, I can see how my meltdowns are saying, Look at me, I can’t do it. Let me off the hook. After off the hook, I wake up on the couch with alarm bells in my throat, tears behind my eyes, and a mixed hangover of stress and grief.

Three things I’m craving are

-for someone to cradle my heart and/or my skull for several hours a day for several months in a row.

-for someone to tie me up and fuck the shit out of me

-for you to write back, hey Erica, let’s go have a sandwich and/or

Dear Erica, I see you and I’m sorry that you’re struggling. I did everything that I could and I truly wish that had been enough. You are stronger and braver than you think you are. I will think of you kindly every time I clean out my refrigerator which will be at least one to five times per year. Love Vincent.

Now I have to finish a translation about the microplastics that break down every time you put your synthetic jeggings in the washing machine, and the plastic seeps into the ocean and into all the fish and we get a chunk of plastic every time we eat fish, and this is running havoc on everyone’s estrogen levels. I hope you have a wonderful Wednesday.

Love, Erica. 

These Synthetic Jeggings
Possibly the Highlight of November, if not all of 2018
Hand-wash only

Friday, November 30, 2018

Subject: Grat List

Dear Vincent, 

One time I wrote you a gratitude list, and it went like this. 

I’m grateful for, by Vincent

-Erica’s sweatshirt that smells like stir fry. 

-the four orgasms she had on Tuesday, November 6, all before 8:30 a.m.

-her excellent crooked do -it-yourself haircut

-her co-dependence.

Best wishes for a life-changing weekend!

Love, Erica.

End of November Vincent Email curation. If you're wondering if I actually send these emails to Vincent's inbox, the true and honest answer is, for the most part, yes.

Vincent and Friends will almost definitely be delighted to know that my list of 19 goals for 2019 include composing my very last letter to Vincent. Three out of five days I feel almost ready.

In the meantime and always, please send your heartfelt emails to me and/or to Vincent at the secret email address ericaschmidt85(at)gmail(dot)com.

May you find solace in fuschia post-its and strawberry yogurt and washing your sweatshirt that smells a little bit like stirfry. May your hearts be light. Love, Erica.

Happy New Year! Love, Erica.

Follow Erica J. Schmidt on Facebook
Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
I Let Go

Bodhisattva Business Ventures:

Deep Cleans by Erica J. Schmidt (@deepcleanswitherica)

Instagram: @deepcleanswitherica

Dear Vincent, There is more love on the wall than there are Vincents, and than there are fucks.

Dear Vincent, Dot dot dot. Sentences trees never feel.

Dear Vincent, The best would be if I heal my knee, and maybe also my personality before irreversible climate change sets in.

Dear Vincent, You are not the only person I write letters to.

Dear Vincent, I forgave myself for not being Lena Dunham.

Dear Vincent, 

I have a saying that goes, Aren’t professional boundaries a bummer.

Also, Most people’s lives are a total disaster. Their lives and their Tupperware drawers and the corner at the side of their beds.

Also, the permafrost is melting in Siberia. 

Years ago, I forgave myself for not being Margaret Atwood. Today I am forgiving myself for not being Lena Dunham. I always thought I’d excel at being a Lena Dunham Sort of Person. But listening to an interview, it all sounds rather strenuous. She just detoxed from benzos, and she had to get a hysterectomy. Beyond cervical orgasms, I don’t have much need for my uterus, and yet, I’m glad I still have one. 

So I don’t get to be Margaret Atwood, or Lena Dunham, or have a cervical orgasm, and I’m forgiven. 

Photo Credit equals The New York Times. 
Thanks a bunch NYT!

Likely your professional boundaries are
More of a bummer 
than mine. 

The other thing I want to say is, Lena Dunham named her uterus Judy.

One brutal Tuesday morning last February, I decided I wanted to cut my life off at 39 years, 4 months and 19 days. But now I’ve decided I’d like to be alive when Oprah dies. This might be hard, since I could see Oprah sticking herself in a freezer, to be awoken in the year 2222. Her century-long dreams will be a deep green regal forest, and when she opens her eyes, she’ll feel so grateful, and she’ll know so many things for sure.  

Everything is Green. Love, Oprah
Photo Credit equals the Oprah Magazine, as shown in eonline.com. 
Gee thanks!

"Erica," says Margaret Atwood. "Where are you?"

It’s 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, November 4, 2018. Almost like I’m a normal person, I slept in until 6:13, even though it was Daylight Savings day. Fall Back. The star of my life’s most beautiful blogging fairy tale used to hate that. I’m in the middle of taking a shit. On the stove, the espresso pot is starting to bubble, and then off goes the smoke alarm. All my neighbours likely hate me. After the espresso, I bailed on my exercise routine, and my thighs seemed 1.5 cm. too wide on either side. The menstruation app announced the end of my fertile window. It was a dramatic Sunday morning rage, and I felt like I’d wasted the day. 

When I have insomnia, sometimes I listen to Oprah, and this is only a mildly embarrassing thing to say, and I’m still saying it. I always remember the episode when Elizabeth Gilbert told Oprah that every day, she gives herself a quest. For example, writing down the story of her life onto six index cards, or dragging herself out of the house and not coming home until she finds something beautiful and one time she saw a parade of elephants, maybe in front of the bank. She thought this was beautiful, not thinking of how much elephants in America tend to suffer. 

Anyways, my Sunday, November 4th quest was going to be

1) Buy an irresponsible lunch at the bulk food store.
2) Make an offering out of the massive hardened plasticene erect dick I’d made at Authentic Movement Class. 
3) Maybe try and buy jeggings since mine have holes in the pockets and holes in the crotch. 

In fact, the massive hardened plasticene dick did not get born at Authentic Movement Class. 
In the beginning, the plasticene transformed from a sharp brown rectangular prism, into a non-descript blob, interspersed with little dents from my fingernails. Our Authentic Movement teacher always tells us, Soyez les cadeaux que vous êtes, which means, be the gifts that you are, and she encouraged us to make a spontaneous sentence to go with our plasticene.

My spontaneous sentence was, 
Most people, if they were me, would have given up by now. 
I did not exactly mean this about the plasticene. I meant giving up about everything else. I did not give up on my plasticene.

When I got home, I moulded the generic non-descript blob of plasticene into a massive and exquisite erect penis, which stood next to a vagina type fold that got cradled inside a soothing-looking canoe-shaped brown bowl. All of this hardened into something vaguely permanent.

Now I am trying to remember what happened to the vagina type fold that got cradled inside a soothing-looking canoe-shaped brown bowl. There was no sentence to go with it. It was supposed to symbolize me feeling cradled and held and safe. I can’t remember what I did with it. 

As for the massive erect cock, I’d wrapped it in tissue paper and placed it in a small silver Simon’s bag from when I bought all brand new underwear, and the dick was ready for its perfect offering, and the bag rested at the bottom of my living room closet which is vaguely and scandalously unruly. 

Preparing for my Sunday, November 4th quest, I opened the Simon’s bag and beheld, the massive cock had broken in two. Now the offering would not be quite as perfect or as exquisite. Still, I remained committed to my quest.

As fate would have it, on Saturday, November 3rd, I had about 45 too many minutes to myself which led me to Google your name, plus the street my friend said you lived on according to reliable and top-secret sources. 

As fate would have it, Google had an address to go with the Vincent!

The address did not match the neighbourhood my friend said you lived in. She was kind and wise enough not to give me the exact number. But I decided that just in case, after my irresponsible bulk food store lunch, I would drag ass to the house with the silver Simon’s bag and the broken and massive

My responsible bulk food store lunch was soothing small plastic bags full of chocolate covered strawberries and almonds, unsalted but roasted no-peanut mixed nuts, and those weird corn chippy flaxseed crackers that likely cause immense turmoil to all your estrogen levels. 

The irresponsible bulk food store lunch cost five dollars and 35 cents and took me about three and a half minutes to eat. 

The Vincent House was just south of Jean Talon and east of the market, and not on the sunny side of the street. With aspirations of discretion, I crossed to the sunny side and looked up to the second floor of the shaded brick duplex. 

Against vast odds, the door opened! I hoped hard, but it was not you. The Other Vincent was taller, younger without a beard and with a tiny girlfriend. Other Vincent and Tiny Girlfriend walked down the stairs and over to a small grey Honda, and drove away. I laughed pretty hard for a pretty sad day, and did not leave the broken dick there. 

You must be so pleased that I forgave myself for not being Lena Dunham.
My friend Caroline’s reading a book called Zapped, and the book says all the Wifi is fucking up everyone’s sperm count, and essentially we’re all getting microwaved.

Faithful to my quest, I walked approximately 5.2 km all the way down to the Bay, and the jeggings did not look spectacular, but I still bought them. Two days later,  I would exchange them, and struggle to make peace with the way my thighs appeared wrapped up inside of them, and by the time I made this peace, they ripped in the crotch, and I might spend all of November buying jeggings and then, taking them back. 

I left the big broken dick on a bench underneath a burgundy umbrella somewhere near Place des Arts metro. The broken dick could be called,

What is your low-grade calling? Where is your testosterone?
Or else,
Some undying love is better off living a short life.

I have a saying that goes, You can’t fuck up a Sunday morning.
Also, The more sane I feel, the more my spine seems crooked. 
Also, You’re so beautiful. Hating yourself is so stupid. 

Love, Erica. 

So Mondays without Vincent is having a little reprise. Please feel free to send your own imaginary letters to Vincent or to me at ericaschmidt85(at)gmail(dot)com. 

10 000 Years of Buying Jeggings

Follow Erica J. Schmidt on Facebook
Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
I Let Go

Bodhisattva Business Ventures:

Deep Cleans by Erica J. Schmidt (@deepcleanswitherica)

Instagram: @deepcleanswitherica

Not That Kind of Girl

Dear Vincent, 

If Oprah does not invite you to sit in her decadent plushy green chairs in the middle of the Oprah Forest to discuss your beautiful soul’s beautiful hero’s journey, it’s possible this might be a blessing. It’s possible you might just be spared.

Love, Erica.

Dear Vincent, 

Elizabeth Gilbert says that, every time you have sex with someone, some small part of you dies.

The permafrost is melting in Siberia

Performative Crying in Alleys

I ended things with my illicit and elusive texting boyfriend. I am feeling a great loss. Folks, these are our times. Grown-ups mourn deeply for their canned virtual pen pals.

30 is the new seventeen and a half.

L-O-Fucking-L. Except I cry the massive tears.

“Everything alright?” my roommate asked.

Everything was not alright. Now there was nowhere to send my ecstatic sentences about emollient and foaming skin creams, bald baristas, melatonin hangovers, performative grilled cheese sandwiches and the saggy jeggings I wore to Butt Club. Who else would make out with me on the monkey bars every three to seven weeks?

Last September, when I began to grace the Mental Health Spectrum with my presence, I took up crying in Montreal alleyways.

But now I live in Mile End. The neighbourhood is way too cool for crying in alleys. Everyone is so busy and cool with their Mercedes and Espressos, their Wedgie Jeans and their Kale Salads.

“I’m good, but I’ve just been so busy.” That’s all anyone ever says. They’re so fucking busy. And tired. Nobody cries in the Mile End.

“That’s not true,” said my roommate. “Mile End is the perfect place for crying. Go ahead. Give Mile End a good cry.”

“I think you could make crying in alleys cool,” the Boatman told me after learning of my devastating break-up. I gave it a go.

Performative Crying in Alleys, by Erica J. Schmidt

In the garbage on St. Dominique street, I found a roll of sparkly wrapping paper. Now there will be glitter everywhere forever. Some of the paper had gross brown stains on it, so I ripped that part off. The way the paper fell, it kind of looked like a flag. My illicit and elusive texting boyfriend used to always wave virtual Erica flags for me. You’d think that a glittery flag would be better than a virtual flag, but within minutes, my face and hands were covered with glitter. Assaulted by sparkles and streaky streamy tears. I went to Clark Park to see if I could dump the glittery flag onto some of my friends’ children.

 

 

“No way is that thing going anywhere near my house,” said my friend. Nobody else wanted it.

I put the glittery flag in the Clark Park garbage can. That was the end of my performance.
The End.

Finally I finished the 5-Day Creative Recovery Challenge.

The Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Follow me on Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
I Let Go by Erica J. Schmidt

Five Days of Creative Recovery

Day One: Kleenex
Day Two: Performative Grilled Cheese
Day Three: Deep Unyielding Depression, Part Two
Day Four: The O's in the Tôtô have Hats