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She has an enormous tank in her office with a fat, slow turtle that paddles and paddles, paddles and paddles, barely making any headway. I watch that poor f***** all the time, I could watch him for hours and days, I find him so incredibly patient at a task that ultimately means nothing...
In Part One, at the rehab center, Charlie undergoes counseling with Casper, who encourages her to talk about her trauma to heal from it. But Charlie finds the very idea of talking overwhelming, as she is still trying to piece together what happened to her and reassure herself that F****** Frank cannot reach her there. At this point in her life, talking, thinking, and feeling all seem like endlessly reliving a trauma that is likely to recur at any moment. Charlie finds comfort in the turtle, knowing that other living creatures endure the same sort of endless, meaningless cycles that she does. But she also finds the turtle’s efforts discouraging since it will never get past the walls of its tank, just as Charlie believes she will never escape her cycle of trauma.
The moral of the story, Charlie, is this: Don’t let the cereal eat you. It’s only a f****** box of cereal, but it will eat you alive if you let it.
In Part One, just as Charlie is preparing to leave the rehab center, Blue pulls her aside to share some advice about a pivotal moment in which she knew she was going to kill herself and end the pain. While stocking cereal, she felt as though the entire world was mocking her existence as futile, and she succumbed to its verdict. Now she knows that her life has intrinsic worth and that external forces should not be allowed to determine her fate. She warns Charlie to recognize the moment of despair and, perhaps more importantly, teaches her how to fight it.
“Small." I test the word carefully. "Small." I like the sound of it. Nothing more than I can hold in two hands at once. Small.
At the beginning of Part Two, Mikey, freshly returned from tour, asks Charlie why she was hospitalized. She is not ready to answer him in full, but she explains a bit of her diagnosis and lets him see a few of her scars. She tries to explain that she cuts herself when life gets too big and too heavy. Like the rest of what she shares with Mikey, this is not at all the entire story, but based on what she says, Mikey gives her the advice to keep her life and experiences small and manageable. Charlie likes the idea but she takes it too far, and when life becomes overwhelming, she diminishes herself instead of extracting herself from the problem.
