I Spit Hate At Thee, Eye Twitch

I have many personal ailments that have impacted the quality of my life over my many years. Beginning at a young age, I was plagued with eczema and asthma, both conditions exacerbated by allergies. I have broken bones and received deep cuts. I occasionally feel as though my heart is going to explode into a brilliant flash of light. For approximately six years, beginning in 2002, I heard the sounds of crickets and frog song, which was actually one of my only ailments to be beneficial.

But of all these things I accept as reasonable terms for getting to live in this body of mine, it’s the damned eye twitch I can’t stand.

It started when I was working overnights at Walmart. Walmart is an awful job, but Walmart overnight is slightly less awful. Less people, less light, less sleep. But slightly more money, which is critically important when considering these factors. Having risen to middle management in the four-ring shitshow of that corporate spectacle, I found that the stresses I was unable to cope with manifested as a persistent and constant twitching in my eye.

Or eyes.

That is when I finally knew I had to quit Walmart. When the twitch crossed the border between eyes, and they would both start twitching. The entire world fluttering in and out. Unable to walk or concentrate or explain. The double eye twitch tic has to be one of the worst things that can happen to an otherwise reasonable being.

And yet, here I am, years later, still wrestling with the ghost of that Walmart twitch. It sneaks up when I least expect it, during a long tech rehearsal or a last-minute scramble to prepare a slide deck for a show. It doesn’t care about deadlines, about opening nights, about carefully orchestrated chaos—it only cares about reminding me that stress, like a bad roommate, will always find a way back into your life.

I’ve tried to make peace with the twitch. It’s an involuntary spasm, they tell me. Harmless. Just a sign that you’re tired or stressed. As if my body couldn’t have picked a more reasonable signal. A sore neck. A cramp in my foot. A slight headache. No, it had to choose the most visible, disruptive, sanity-shaking tick.

When the twitch comes, I try all the usual remedies: deep breaths, more water, less caffeine. I even rub my temples like an old sage, as if I can will it away through sheer concentration. Sometimes it works, but more often it doesn’t. The twitch is stubborn. Persistent. Unrelenting. It’s the physical embodiment of all the small stresses I bottle up and shove down.

Directing shows is the perfect breeding ground for such twitches. Long hours, high stakes, a million things to remember and a million more you’ll forget until the last minute. It’s a constant juggling act, with flaming torches and fragile egos in the mix. And through it all, there it is—the faint flutter at the edge of my vision. A tiny flag of surrender my body waves when I refuse to let the rest of me give up.

I hate the twitch, but maybe I hate what it represents even more. A reminder that I can’t do it all, that the body I’ve been saddled with has limits. That stress will find a way to creep in no matter how carefully I try to avoid it.

Still, I keep moving forward. The shows go on. The projects get done. The family gets raised, with all the love, laughter, and occasional chaos that entails. Through the late nights, the school runs, the endless bills, and the fight to carve order out of this world's relentless swirl of madness, we somehow hold it all together. The twitch, for all its malice, is a passing thing. But when it’s here, I spit hate at it. I rage against it. Because it sucks the joy out of life. For reals.