Around and Around and Around

I was at a mock trial competition once and I had to step out of the elevator because it felt too tight. I was 17 and the bodies of our teammates and advisors and parents who had hauled ass to the courthouse at 6:30 am were pressing into every part of me and I couldn’t think about anything except for how many floors remained. The elevator climbed. It opened 4 floors too early. Someone was trying to get on.

I pushed my way out and ran towards the stairs.

It’s the same with porta-potties. Tunnels. Those fitting rooms where there’s no crack of space at the bottom. Revolving doors too.

It is easy to think that walking is a practice that is done intuitively, but ethnographers across the country analyze the way that throngs of people move in tandem, footsteps synchronized as a horde of individuals move in the same direction. Revolving doors have been a gift for these researchers— they look at walking cultures. Who goes in? Who goes out? How many people go in at once? What if you don’t get out in time?

What if you just keep going around and around and around?

ok see but what if i got stuck in there like there would be no possible way i could but what if i mean there’s always a way there’s a way for anything to happen so what if i just go in and it doesn’t do the spinny thing anymore and i’m trapped what then what do i do then how would i get out and what if someone else was in there with me and we were both trapped in the quarter slice and what if our breath fogged up the sides and we ran out of oxygen and then what if we

revolving door:  n.  a door having usually four partitions set at right angles radiating out from, and revolving on, a central vertical axis, allowing large numbers of people to pass through while eliminating draughts.

We are sitting in my senior psychology class and I am 18 and there is a breeze coming from the window on the wall. I am talking to my seat neighbor. Her name is Cleo. We have been good friends for a few years, her English accent a velvet fabric covering the bright light of the classroom. She is excited because her cross country meet is tonight, and she has a chance of taking home some hardware.

When I was 14, I noticed Cleo in the hallway and told myself that I would be friends with that girl. She had on a wool cap and wore a satchel instead of a backpack. She had one of those smiles that makes you feel like the inside of a snowglobe. Hazy.

We learn about a principle called the revolving door syndrome. Cleo lets out a soft “oh” when she hears the name and smiles. “I love revolving doors,” she says but it really sounds like she’s saying, “I luv revourving durs.”

revolving door syndrome: n. refers to the status of a mental health patient and their tendency to relapse. They will get better for a while, and then as soon as it seems they have cleared their illness, will fall back into their ailment.

We learn that more than half of all psychiatric patients are readmitted after being discharged. They have intense repeat crisis episodes and find themselves back where they started, all progress eradicated because of a lack of follow up, inadequate medical monitoring, or just bad luck.

“Oh,” she says softly. “Well I don’t luv that.”

When I am 13 the golden girl kills herself. I find out because my mother is on the phone with her mom and is terrible at keeping her voice down. Time presses against the sides of my skull and I do everything in my power to jump out of my skin but it holds me fast, clinging close, pulling tight. I feel like a prisoner, tears and snot running down my face as I scream let me out let me out let me out. The world stops spinning for a second and I am caught in between here and there in a strange place of now-what. I pull myself out by the rims of my fingernails, blood crusting the sides like the paint she used to keep in her bedside closet.

One year later, I lock the swiss army knife my father gave me as a gift in the drawer beneath the bar. I toss the key in the trash disposal and get yelled at when the pipe tears.

Two years later Cleo’s older sister is yanked out of the middle of the road by some guy and sobs on the curb in front of the only Kroger in town. Cleo gets a call and drives so fast she gets pulled over, the blue lights shining in her rearview mirror. The police car escorts her to the only Kroger in town. She picks up her sister and drops her off at home. They don’t speak. The car door still open, Cleo drives to my house, opens the front door, and collapses in my arms. “I can’t believe she would do that,” she screams but it really sounds like muffled tears and snot blended with terror and anguish because that’s what it is. I hold her tight and pull her close because I know how.

When I’m 19 my boyfriend tells me that he hasn’t felt this dismal in years. We are laying on a couch in his basement, and I’m threading the soft locks of his hair between my fingers, my ear pressed to his heartbeat. His sweater sleeves are pulled over his hands, and he is quiet for several minutes. We breathe together. He tells me it’s hard to want to be alive. His beat quickens, and I blink slowly, listening to the world we’ve created in his chest. I can only whisper, and he moves his head to hear me better. I ask him if he will do anything reckless. He says no, brushing a piece of my hair from my cheek. My eyes close. We breathe together. I do not believe him. How can I?

We break up fitfully, neither one of us wanting to let go.

Who goes in? Who goes out? How many people go in at once? What if you don’t get out in time? What if you just keep going around and around and around?

claustrophobia: n. The irrational fear of confined spaces. People affected by claustrophobia will often go out of their way to avoid said spaces, such as elevators, revolving doors, tunnels, tube trains and public restrooms. However, they also state that avoiding these places may reinforce the fear, and cause an individual to fall into an even deeper fear of small spaces, scared they may get trapped and stuck and imprisoned in a place they can’t

get out of because even though it doesn’t happen all that often what if it did you never know you literally never know you have absolutely no way of knowing at all you

I am 17 in an elevator in the courthouse. Cleo is my co counsel in our mock trial. We will win the trial and she will come over and we will watch shitty rom coms and talk about boys and paint each other’s nails. Now, however, I ask Cleo what she thinks of revolving doors.

“I dunno, ther quite fun I suppose. A noice break from the noise of the wuld.”