She a little tactless, but she got the spirit.
—
TRANSCRIPT
Panel 1 (Alex regarding Imogen in the very close foreground)
Imogen: Besides, I like be helpful. It’s the least I can do.
Alex: You could just relax.
Panel 2 (Imogen brandishing the clippers, winking)
Imogen: You know I can’t!
Panel 3 (Alex opening her phone to a food delivery app while Imogen protests)
Alex: Okay, well, I’m ordering dinner. That’s one thing off your plate.
Imogen: What? No, I can cook!
Alex: Nuh-uh. You’ve done enough. Anything more, and I’d have to pay you! Seriously, it’s like having a nanny again.
Imogen: You don’t have to pay me! We’re the ones living in your house!
Panel 4 (Alex, looking at her phone)
Alex: Are you kidding me? With my first concert in a year coming up, you watching Nolan alone is worth it. Jonathan didn’t appreciate how much work you do.
I love this.
Not Imogen having been ground-down and convinced she’s worthless for years,
– that’s as awful as it always is – but Imogen coming in with a (proverbial) surgical sledgehammer to the kneecap to try to get the reality to register? That’s great and freshly proportional to get it to actually register. Even if only a little. Sometimes bulldozer-type people are needed. Go Alex!
Gah. Alex coming in with the surgical sledgehammer, not Imogen.
Typos happne. 🙂
You have no idea how much I NEEDED this comic today. Thank you so much for this beautiful storyline. And also I love how you’re doing the speech bubbles in this. Really captures their tone.
I also needed to see this comic today… Been struggling with a lot of “if I just keep myself occupied with physical/immediate tasks I don’t have to think about my more deep-seated anxieties/situations” the past few weeks, both from internal and external sources of stress. ._. Solidarity, tho…!
I know that feeling. Any time someone offers to help and you jump to “I can do it” defense mode. It takes a lot to learn that taking a break does not mean admitting defeat or being useless.
Ugh, I just love the implied buzz of the clipper under all the dialogue, it really resonates with the energy of the scene.
I’ve described this feeling to many a therapist, that my mind sometimes feels like a speedboat, hurtling over the waters of my emotions so fast that I don’t have to deal with them, just moving on from one task to the next – until I run out of fuel, and end up stranded in a sea of emotions, unable to direct myself in storms in doldrums. I’ve learned how to “sail” better, over time! But it takes a lot of support to even begin to learn.
Sometimes, some enforced relaxation is necessary.
That being said, I do wonder how much of this is Imogen’s grind she’s already used to, and how much of it is Imogen wanting to be occupied so she can take her mind off of the oncoming divorce.
Even if it’s a desire to be occupied – she’ll grind herself into the ground if she doesn’t stop. It’s more important that she slow down and take time to relax and face the ugly emotions.
I feel like Alex’s facial expression in the last panel is really important. She’s not earnestly trying to convince Imogen; she’s stating facts that are so obvious she’s not even outraged anymore. I don’t know if it will have the same impact on Imogen, but for me, the more invested someone is in making me believe their words, the easier it is for me to dismiss. This right here would hook in and take weight.
Also the stress beats on “we’re living in your house” make me hear it as something she’s used to being told is huge. “I put a roof over your head!” as the ender of arguments and the cue she’d better start apologizing. But I might be imagining/ projecting that.
I’m glad Alex is telling her this, even if not in the best way she needed to know