On Cockroaches & Co-Dependency

Is there anything more unsettling than a cockroach sighting while you’re on the toilet? Let me save you some time: the answer is a resounding no, especially when it’s not only the first cockroach you’ve ever seen in your own home (despite years and years of living in major cities) and the fucker is bigger than you could have possibly imagined, in just about every sense. Physically, metaphysically, existentially—come on, this is one of the reasons you read this blog.

Remember that iconic Chris Crocker Britney Spears meltdown? That was a mild-mannered, well-presented, almost scholarly monologue compared to my catastrophe. (I’ve included a still from my desperate plea for help shared with the Instagram close friends list, which got a lot of laughs and not much assistance. In retrospect, this is completely understandable.)

All I have to say is God bless my father, my best friend, and my boyfriend—the trinity of saintly men who got me through this tragedy. (And by “tragedy,” I mean “irreparable blow to my delicate ego.”) One taught me the proper method for killing a bug, one offered me a place to stay when my dramatic ass called sobbing, and one facilitated the indispensable realization that I’m about to share with you.

After an hour of hysterically, haphazardly swinging a broom and breaking at least one glass in the process (note: not the way to kill a cockroach), heaving shoes in every which direction (note: potentially effective if you have particularly good aim and impeccable precision, though you will certainly be cleaning scuffs from odd places for the next several days), running to Walgreens sans pants (note: put on pants before running out into the New York City streets in December—no matter how long your coat is), and finally triumphing over the little bastard, it was finally over.

Well, sort of. Once the bug was dead, the real crisis set in.

““It’s what the bug represents!””

I still don’t know exactly why the bug disturbed me so badly—I honestly think that question is one that can only be answered by time and additional introspection. I can say now that slightly under the surface, the bug represents a deeply-rooted issue that I’ve had for the entirety of my adult life: my proclivity for co-dependency. It’s a feeling that I do not enjoy—one that strikes right at the heart of my most profound fear; my fear of being alone. The cockroach unsettled the now familiar apprehension that accompanies co-dependency recovery. It’s the same constant pang of distress that I experienced my first night falling asleep alone after years of sleeping safely in the comfort of a partner’s arms. It’s the stubborn, almost-rhythmic whining of silence that’s deafening after a lifetime spent in a big, lively house with a loud Italian family.

It’s not knowing when it’s going to end, but being sure that on a few different levels, it’s a necessity.

I think it’s kinda funny—if not a bit fucked up—that I’ve spent so much time on this blog talking about the importance of solitude—something I admittedly don’t know shit about doing “correctly.”

“What if this is just how it’s going to be from now on?”

I’ve been learning that breaking my decade-long cycle of co-dependency is so much more than being okay with the occasional “self-date,” of which the scariest part often is, “what am I supposed to look at while I’m eating this gigantic plate of scallops?” It’s, “what if someone breaks into the house and I’m all alone?” Or, “What if I choke and no one can help me?” Or, the one that still sends me to a very bad place, “what if this is just how it’s going to be from now on?”

After a while, I got used to sleeping alone. I grew accustomed though still very conscious of the absence of weight and warmth on the other side of the bed. I like to think of the cockroach as the next step to overcoming my issues with co-dependency: where there was always a brave (or reluctant) man between the creepy crawlies and myself, I was laid out bare. My vulnerabilities were made painfully evident as I discovered all of the ways to not kill a cockroach.

“Maybe, just maybe, this might be “it.” ”

It wasn’t until my darling remarked, “it’s just a bug” that I realized just how significant a moment this particular one was.

It was just a bug—but to me, it was so much more. The buffer’s gone. I have to roll up my sleeves and do the dirty work myself. I knew that once the bug was dead, it meant that one more small battle was won—perhaps the last. Now, I have to put it all together to win the war. To triumph over the “last boss” in my fight against co-dependency: I have to be okay knowing that maybe, just maybe, this might be “it.” It’s not enough to learn how to not be awoken by the soft, bittersweet motions of a partner trying to reclaim their side of the blankets. Killing a big, scary bug for yourself won’t cut it in the long run. You have to be okay knowing you might be alone for good.

Connection is a core human need, one we’re biologically wired to facilitate. We’re a tribal species, meaning from the time we’re conscious-enough, we’re forming connections. With our mother while we’re still in her body, our other close loved ones immediately once we’re outside of it, and others—whether intentional or not—as we grow. We crave oneness and the notion of being a part of something so much bigger than ourselves. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it becomes unhealthy when attachment is what you crave because it’s all you know, which is what happened in my case. This sort of unhealthy attachment became an addition, one that I’m learning how to live without, one cockroach spraying-and-crushing at a time.

“I desperately want to be swept off my feet by a handsome wanderer.”

I was 17 when Ne-Yo came out with what I consider to be a bop for the ages, “Miss Independent.” (Kelly Clarkson could never.) I remember being enthralled with the idea of the “kinda woman that want you but don't need you.” I listened to that song so much that I think it played a significant part in disavowing this unique brand of American Christianity just enough to manifest my current life as a career woman okay with moving to New York in the pursuit of eventual clout and disposable cash. I still think it’s thrilling that I can pay my own bills, cook my own meals, plan trips for myself and somehow make it to the airport with plenty of time to spare, negotiate contracts as good as anyone my age with a similar lack of legal expertise, and now navigate the nuanced difficulties of life-after-marriage. Trust me, I give myself perhaps too much credit for these things. I’m caught though. I want it to be everything I need, but I feel like it’d just be better with another person.

Eventually I confess to a friend some details about my weeping—its intensity, its frequency. She says (kindly) that she thinks we sometimes weep in front of a mirror not to inflame self-pity, but because we want to feel witnessed in our despair. (Can a reflection be a witness? Can one pass oneself the sponge wet with vinegar from a reed?)”

― Maggie Nelson, Bluets

I read a lot about getting over a co-dependent stride and it truly did all sound like any other cultish 12-step program. It boils down to abstinence, awareness, acceptance, and action. I think I may be somewhere between the acceptance and the action. I want to feel witnessed in my despair, I want to know and to be known, but also, I need to know how to work through despair without a witness—in its rawest sense—and I need to know myself as well as I’ve known any partner.

More than anything, I desperately want to be swept off my feet by a handsome wanderer; to be so captivating that someone desires to go along this unpredictable adventure called life with me by their side. Someone just as complex and inquisitive. That’s what I want. What I need though, is to be content with who I am, to develop myself into even more of a person worth getting to know more and more every day, and to find strength and worth within myself. That even if un-partnered, I’m worthy of love. That just because I may be alone, that does not mean that I am un-loved.

“Do I hate it? Of course.”

I’m working on that. I’m building small rituals every day that affirm that love, that allow me to find out who I am and how I love, and then to show that love to myself just as much as I show it to others. Though I’d love to hog the covers again, cook for two, and have someone so dispose of deceased cockroach carcasses, I need to be okay knowing that this increase in “opportunities for solitude” may be more of a lifestyle than a transient era.

Do I hate it? Of course. Am I getting better at it? Hell yeah. The better I focus on growing my ability to give connection rather than simply receiving it, the better off I am, and so can you.

xo, e.m.