J-emine's reflexionando

Nothing seemed really real. Sleep, walking, it all collided into one gray, monotonous plane ride through the clouds. I didn’t talk to myself in my head. There wasn’t much to say. This was how I knew the sleep was having an effect: I was growing less and less attached to life. If I kept it going, I thought, I’d disappear completely, then reappear in some new form. This was my hope. This was my dream.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

One of the two books that I picked up at The Moon bookshop in January. The kind lady at the bookshop, suggested that one reads this book during a monthly cycle. I didn’t ask further – nor did I heed her advice. What I did do was read it during a week, where I had one of the most intense week at work, found a need to hibernate from the world and keep my dark thoughts to myself.

Ottesssa does a wonderful portray of pre-9/11, the delusions and absurdities found in the city and clouding in on the pervasive topics of self-care/ wellness of today, with the narrator being in the centre of it all – whilst worldly events unfold before her , and all that she cared about was the amount of chemical reaction she needed to draw her into her sleep- state.

Her solution is to put herself into chemical hibernation for a year. “Neuroproxin, Maxiphenphen, Valdignore, Silencior, Seconol, Nembutal, Valium, Librium, Placydil, Noctec, Miltown,” she recites, running down her arsenal. (A few of these drugs are invented, as is Infermiterol, a substance that induces three-day blackouts, during which the narrator’s personality blossoms and fades.)

OTTESSA MOSHFEGH’S PAINFUL, FUNNY NOVEL OF A YOUNG WOMAN’S CHEMICAL HIBERNATION by Jia Tolentino https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/ottessa-moshfeghs-painful-funny-novel-of-a-young-womans-chemical-hibernation

The transition of the narrator’s rebirth through an art experiment and the impactful global event (last event – mentioned in the book), which led the narrator to the finale of realization of how lucky she is to be alive (at that juncture). Sometimes in this age of magnified self-care notions, I like to believe – no amount of experiment will triumph thorough awareness and understanding of self.