My Week of Rest and Relaxation

On trying to get better in all the wrong ways.

I don’t know how it happened—maybe I was burnt out, or perhaps it was one of those rare occasions when nothing worthwhile was happening anywhere—but one night, I found myself in bed at 8 PM. Sober. As I turned over in my sheets I made eye contact with a dust-covered copy of My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Otessa Moshfegh.

All year, recommendations of the novel had spread through my social scene like a cold. Whether it was strangers at a party, men in my bedroom, or friends whose eyes hadn’t grazed a book in years, everyone seemed eager to tell me “Dude, you’re gonna fucking love it.”

So, with the help of Rachmaninoff and Hydroxyzine¹, on a quiet night before summer burnt into fall, I finally picked up the book. Thus began the quietest week I’ve had in years.

For those who don’t know, My Year of Rest and Relaxation is about an unnamed woman living in New York City between 2000 and 2001. Overwhelmed by her loathing for the world, she embarks upon a project: to sleep through an entire year. She abuses prescription medications to enter near-comatose states, blacking out for entire days at a time. Bills are left on autopay using her dead parents’ money. She deceives her psychiatrist. She hates her best friend. She’s troubled by the memory of her ex-lover. She’s miserable. She’s cruel. She’s real.

We agreed with one another.

Her project was my fantasy. After years of binge-drinking, neglecting the needs of my body became second-nature: I’d frequently wake up in random homes, starving and aching, covered in new scabs and bumps. I had forgotten what it meant to have a quiet weekend indoors. To have a conversation sober. To eat more than one meal a day. I desperately needed to spend a moment alone.

My therapist agreed. Week after week she’d tell me, “Remember to take care of yourself… Thinking about difficult things won’t hurt you.”

“But what if it does?” I’d respond.

Moshfegh’s novel was my roadmap to solitude. I kept my phone off, enjoyed the warm tungsten of my room and floated through my apartment like a ghost in loose linen. I’d lie in bed at 8 PM, pop a hydroxyzine, light some incense, and read until my eyes withered shut. Numbness crept through me like a shiver. Heavy breaths faded into shallow ones. The low-hum of my A/C droned. My dandelion root tea steeped cold.

I’d go to work and come straight home. My manager would offer me some whiskey. I’d close my eyes and shake my head, “No, I can’t. I just took my medication. If I drink, it’ll fuck me up.” She’d shrug and chug, and the hours would float by. I was too tired to say “yes” to anything.

As the novel progressed, the parallels between the protagonist and I drew too close for comfort. She mistreated the people who loved her. She’d plead for the attention of those indifferent to her. She’d puke up pink liquids she didn’t remember swallowing. She’d black out for days, finding scattered evidence of encounters she couldn’t recall. She’d awaken in the middle of the night to her ex forcing himself inside her. She’d lay still. She’d go back to sleep. She’d hope—just as I did—that she’d wake up as someone better. Someone new.

In my week of rest and relaxation, I wrote two essays, slept 15 hours a day, spent $0, and felt every cell in my body purge itself into something clean. Solitude brought me to sobriety, and sobriety brought me to the realization that I wasn’t living the life I wanted to live. In my journal, I scribbled out goals for the the following month. I promised myself that I’d be a better friend. Listen more. Drink less. Say kinder things. Lock myself away when I began to slip. If I didn’t have a job, if the novel hadn’t ended, I probably could’ve stayed in my room for months. But eventually I had to hit the final page.

The day after I finished the book, I went to work. I took my pill. There was a bottle of Chignin white in the fridge. I wrote for a while. Customers trickled in once every thirty minutes or so. My foot wouldn’t stop tapping. I guess I wasn’t tired enough.

I thought about all the fun I missed out on when I spent my week alone. I thought about all the things I accomplished in just one week—and how much more I could do if I tried again? I thought about all the times I woke up with new bruises, new people, new mistakes. I thought about the cruelest things I ever said. I thought about all the things my body let me sleep through. I didn’t want to think anymore.

“One glass won’t hurt.” I kept writing for a while. Poured a glass. Helped some customers. Poured another glass. Stopped writing. Finished the bottle.

By closing time, I had two whiskey shots and five Old Styles in my body. My manager had come in, she held back tears with Evan Williams in her hands. “I’m a cold mean bitch on the outside,” she kept repeating, “but it’s all for defense.” She made an X with her forearms. “I’m a softie on the inside.” I closed my eyes and nodded my head.

Someone texted. I ended up at Cole’s Bar. Had shots. Blacked out. Took more shots. Asked my friend if I could blow him.“I’m great at head,” I apparently said.

I woke up on the couch—no memories, a broken laptop, a card game scattered across the coffee table. There was an empty Taco Bell bag deflating in the corner. My knee was swollen. I wrapped my hair around my fingers to stop my head from spinning.

“Don’t let them see you cry” I remembered my manager stammering before I left work, “it’s a sign of weakness.”

I walked over to the fridge. The Brita filter was empty. Half-a-shooter of Skyy Vodka rolled around one of the shelves. My mouth was cotton. I smacked my lips. The low whirring of the fridge melted my brain. My week of rest and relaxation was over. I had woken up, and everything was the same.

1. Hydroxyzine is an anti-histamine prescribed for anxiety attacks, insomnia, and mild allergies. “Xanax-lite” I often refer to it as, since when I asked my psych for Xanax he laughed and said, “Let me give you this instead. It’s like Xanax, without the memory loss.”