The Over-Educated Nympho

If someone walked into my apartment for the first time, she would think two completely different people lived here.

The kitchen table is covered in neat stacks of white binders, thick textbooks, and four different colored highlighters. Post-its peek out the sides marking important pages. It is silent except for the sound of the coffeemaker. A lovely young woman sits in a metal chair (purposely uncomfortable to prevent falling asleep) and studies like the good ruthless ladder-climber she was raised to be. What a fine young professional! Clearly she is responsible and orderly (the closet is organized by color for fuckssake) and arranges all her toiletries on the counter by order of use in the morning. Her shoes are always polished and her hair smells nice. Let’s call her Victoria.

Then walk into the bedroom, where the other girl lives in a world all her own. Let’s call her Vix.

In the corner is a plush wing-back chair. It was once nice, a valuable antique! the mother gushed. She doesn’t know the dogs left matching teeth marks on it. Three side tables are covered in spirals, books, a single piece of pink Bubbleyum bubble gum, a dozen pens with the wrong-colored caps, men’s magazines dog-eared and marked up (its called fucking research, bitches) and always the previous night’s coffee mug.

There is a red sticky tab stuck to the neck of the lamp. The table it sits on is covered in a thick layer of white post-it notes, each of which is covered with scrawled handwriting running in all directions and occasionally onto the table. Peeling away the layers of post-it notes, she writes out her latest thoughts–the precursor to peeling off the day’s clothes before slipping into bed.

The bedroom is Vix’s domain. Not just because of its sexual nature, but because the surfaces are soft, the lighting is soft–and a hard girl softens up in her haven of books and solitude. With a single lamp on, she spends hours every night writing. She puts off dinner over and over, just one more paragraph– until it’s 10:30 at night and her stomach is growling over the music and two televisions.

She doesn’t notice the huge pile of laundry even though she steps over it in the hallway to reach the bedroom. She’s so deep inside her own head that she doesn’t notice the phone ringing or the dogs whimpering to go out. She only acknowledges the messy apartment with a scoff. She has better things to do than clean. Like study Maxim while sitting back in her beloved armchair in mismatched socks and glittery Superwoman underwear.

One has a filing cabinet at work covered with bright green ferns and flowers. The other only recently noticed that her cactus died. Judging from the state of wrinkliness, the cactus has probably been dead for months.

From the looks of it, these two roommates couldn’t be more different. It wasn’t always like that. They remind me of two best friends who moved into the dorm and after a semester of living together arranged their course schedules so they never had to be in the same room at the same time. One smugly told me once “I haven’t seen the bitch in a week. It’s fantastic.”

It looks like it won’t be much longer before Victoria and Vix reach that point of leaving catty post-its for each other on the bathroom mirror. You used the last tampon. BUY MORE.

Sure, Victoria is the bright-eyed one you want to introduce to your parents, “Look, Dad! My friends have a good influence on me! We talk about our dental plans over non-alcohoic beverages!” but Vix is the one you want to get to know during one of those great conversations that can only be had at two in the morning while sitting outside in your pajamas wondering when life got so fucked up.

I don’t want to see two such different sides to myself. I don’t want them existing in different rooms with the doors slammed closed. To a certain degree it’s natural to have many different personas that come out as appropriate, but to this extent? They are both me. Both have always been there, just never before with such conviction. Now so much is brewing, so much anger and resentment. They yell at each other you’re holding me back! this isn’t what I wanted! you’re screwing everything up! I HATE YOU.

How can two such different people exist in the same apartment at the same time, let alone in the same head?

So what now? I’m not worried so much about the careers–I’ll be fine one way or another–but I’m scared as fuck about the growing distance between the two personas behind those career choices. Victoria and Vix once lived together peacefully. Although different, they were complementary. At first the contrast brought out the best in each other, then somewhere along the way the complements became opposites, and now it’s only a matter of time before a mean-ass nasty chick fight erupts.