The Art of Puking in Public Restrooms

There is an art to puking in public restrooms. To start, you must wear average, boring, unrecognizable shoes. If you work in an office building, you must alternate which floor and restroom you use. In the event you run into another person more than once, you must gently pat your stomach and wink.

You will overhear lots of conversations while waiting for other women to clear out of the stalls, mostly pointless office gossip and raunchy stories of Bumble dates. Water doesn’t hide the taste of vomit and gum is like a lint roller for your mouth— picking up all the leftover puke-particles and sour tasting spit. You have to space out your sessions just right, or else coworkers might ask if you’re feeling okay.

If you spend six full months perfecting your technique, you will master the trade. Then, on the exact day you’ve got the whole thing down, you’ll get fired, escorted out of the building, and everything you’ve learned will go to shit.

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It was the beginning of March and my life was ending before the world even had a chance to catch up. The scrawny woman from HR said something about numbers and quotas, and building security walked me to my car. I drove home, bouncing between very violent and very sad thoughts. I did not call my husband or my mother or my sister. I got a Diet Coke from the McDonald’s drive thru for one dollar and eight cents. I had a gift card leftover from Christmas and did the math quickly in my head: I could sustain 22 more drive thru diet-cokes before having to cut into my personal funds.

I don’t remember much about getting home or explaining things to my husband. I don’t remember much of that entire week, really, other than the hangovers. I stayed in my bedroom, huddled over my laptop, searching for jobs that didn’t exist and skimming articles about overrun hospitals and Italy’s death rate. I would recharge my laptop twice before my husband got home and forced me to shower.

The following month was an odd blend of control and lack of it, a weird purgatory that I began to find comfort in. I’d always felt the need to control my life (and those involved in it), and the burden it had on my life grew over time.

I don’t remember when I started making myself sick— it was sometime in my early twenties. It started as a reaction to stress and the habit gew over time. It was never a method of weight loss and I wasn’t bulimic. There was never a good explanation other than my bouts of depression and type-a personality, so I never did anything about it. The dentist said my teeth were in good shape and I went to each of my cleanings.

My husband worked a light construction job— my career in corporate marketing, as preliminary as it was, had always allowed us to keep our heads above water. Without that security, our bank account shrank and our marriage became primal. He ate ramen for lunch so I could monopolize the cold cut drawer. He picked up extra shifts and I washed dishes when the sink was too full to ignore. On days I had the energy, I would water down the body wash and laundry detergent so he didn’t realize how low we were running.

Six o’clock became my witching hour, the only part of the day I felt normal. I’d grab whichever book I was pretending to read and make my way to the porch. By eight, I would be three cocktails in, breathing in the purple-grey air. When the sun set, I’d plug in the string lights that attracted the beetles and mosquitoes, and I’d hurry inside the moment one touched my skin.

Spring feels like an ironic time for the world to end. Feeling sad in winter makes sense. Feeling sad in spring does not.

On the second month of being unemployed, I knew it was time to start looking for work, despite the solace I found in being unimportant and peripheral. It may have been the act of looking for work that felt significant, or the credit card bills that were threatening. As I scrolled through the job boards and LinkedIn posts, I became desperate— clicking on any “one-click apply” button in my path. With two degrees and the student loan debt that accompanied them, I knew “warehouse receptionist” wasn’t my saving grace.

I’d show up at interviews in my corporate office attire— my token I-Just-Graduated-and-Need-To-Look-The-Part Jimmy Choos from 2015, resume printed neatly on woven cotton paper that I couldn’t afford, lint rolling every visible piece of fuzz in the parking lot before puking and popping in a piece of gum. I was never concerned about prepping for the interviews. I could turn on my charm in the blink of an eye, shedding any nerves before leaving the car. Small talk always came naturally to me. My husband would joke that I could hold a conversation with a lamp post (and he was right, I could). But despite my charisma and qualifications, I received very few call backs. After the fourth interview, I could identify the exact moment I’d been rejected. The interviewer would look down at my resume, shift their feet and mutter, “I’m afraid you are overqualified for this role.” It was always sympathetic but never said with conviction or certainty, which gave me just enough false hope to be let down a second time.

At a certain point, my husband expected me to come home with bad news. He is a sweet and gentle man (the opposite of me, who is forceful and harsh). I was taking more than I gave him, and my despondency was wearing him down. Once I said, “I got the job,” with a long, theatrical pause before finishing with, “just kidding.” It was cruel of me, but I needed to see the light in his eyes, even if it were just for one moment.

June was filled with more disappointment and nights on the porch. I became obsessed over finances, watching the fluctuation of the stock market and imagining what I’d do with other people’s money. Then, one warm Tuesday morning, I received a call.

The job offer was too good to be true— a referral from a previous colleague— with a salary I couldn’t comprehend. A Texas-based tech start-up needed a marketing director, and I could move to Austin or work remotely from my home in New York. Bonuses were performance-based and given quarterly; benefits covered everything from paternity leave to unlimited paid time off. The rest of the call was interview-style, and it took me a few moments to get into character. I was offered the job on the spot, and asked them for a day to process. I threw up.

The following morning, the local library called— I’d applied for a small “community-engagement” role to help boost their awareness. The woman who had interviewed me was a short, round woman who resembled one of the garden gnomes my mother collected. Kind eyes but a stern demeanor, and I couldn’t help but picture her cooking breakfast in a cast iron pan.

“This is Eva, Meryl’s assistant at the Carney Local Library,” the voice said. “I’m calling about the Community Engagement position. We would love to offer you the position!” She talked a bit more in a sweet, soft voice, informing me that they’d be sending details of the offer over via email.

The salary was insulting compared to the offer before. The hours were exactly 40, from nine in the morning to five in the evening each week. The library was 35 minutes from my house, and I’d have a small office with a computer that, in Meryl’s words, “may be the same age” as me. There was a break room where I could store my lunch, if I wanted.

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It is January, and my therapist says she has seen progress. Meryl has a cat named Floyd and he is orange and absolutely hideous. She walks him on a leash down the library aisles. The bathrooms at the library are public and busy but I wear bright colored shoes anyway. My husband smiles at me when I pull in the driveway.