Steady As She Goes

   Things are looking good. The weather is beautiful. I woke up at 4:30 am with the spins and the perfect idea for a new blog entry. I stumbled to the sink, drank 3 glasses of water and promptly forgot. Sorry to deprive you of my inebriated potential brilliance, dear readers.
 

The Air Near My Fingers

   I know I'm supposed to maintain some sense of chronological order, but I'm hopelessly nonlinear. I'm still making my way through these notebooks, and I've been planning to give you guys a better idea of Johnny (who you guys were introduced to in my list of favorite moments.) He was a wonderful part of my life.
   He treated me with respect and kindness. My feelings for him never went deeper than a blissful infatuation and were never really explored, but we had a meaningful relationship and I hold him dear to me.
   Our interactions were very complex; I have a habit of falling into complicated exchanges and mind games. That's true of my relationship with Kid A also, but Johnny and I had a more open affection for each other, while Kid A laced his love with malice and cynicism. Johnny and I had our nights of disagreements and tension; that's inevitable in any relationship between two people, particularly in high school when insecurities and hormones are at such an all-time high, but we always found ourselves beyond them before the sun painted the next day's colors on the horizon.
   Before leaving for college, I wrote him a letter. Actually I wrote him seven, but the first six were drafts and he only got the last one. It went like this:

thank you for being a presence in my life these past years. you have provided immeasurable inspiration with your intelligence and your grace. you have propelled me to become a better person. your take on logic and emotions has shaped my thought process and actions in ways that would take hours to explain. i'm so grateful for that. i'm so grateful for so many things.

i apologize for everything, particularly being fucking crazy most of the time.

you are the best person i have ever known. i wouldn't say it if i didn't mean it. you are brilliant and clever and beautiful. you can always bring laughter. i appreciate so much the laughter you have brought me.

i'm weirdly content with the way we have so drastically drifted apart. it's comforting to know that if i ever should cross your  mind it will be the way i was at sixteen - graceless, guilty, altruistic, indecisive, overwhelmingly emotional and full of ideals. the only adjectives still applicable are graceless and guilty. of so many things.

i want you to know i learned to separate feelings from reaction and to stop apologizing. then i want you to forget that, and remember me how i used to be. i feel like updating you on my current self is somehow a betrayal to the gorgeous, clumsy youth i was so eager to immerse you in.

i have so much respect and admiration for you and i hope that wonderful things happen to you.

thank you for years of support and lessons and, most of all, honesty. i'll never forget it.

-linnea

   I gave it to him the day before he left for school. I handed the letter over in the late afternoon, as he lingered in the doorway to my parent's house making trivial conversion until I, smiling, sent him on his way. Laughing, he walked away with the envelope in one hand, skateboard in the other, to the parking lot across the street where Kid A was waiting. I disappeared inside my house to fold and pack clothing, where I pictured him shove it in his pocket haphazardly and forget it. I found out later he instead went off alone, searching until he reached a quiet place in the shade, and then opened it. 

   He called that night to react. Being the obsessive, anal person I am, naturally I transcribed our entire conversation. It makes remembering things so much more vivid and accurate. I know, I know, I'm weird to the point where it's borderline creepy, but I'll be damned if my stories lack detail!


   "I don't know who you think I am, but you said some really nice things!" he declared, to my laughter. "I think you gave me too much credit," he added, softly.

   "You just made an incredibly positive impact on my life," I explained. "I don't think it's possible to give you too much credit for that."
  "I'm flattered, but I think you overestimate me and underestimate yourself."

   I smiled. "Thank you, but you really did make my life beautiful. Even when things were awkward and occasionally terrible, it was really important and it caused a lot of growth. I really did love you in so many ways." 

   I kept myself in the past tense. He and I had stopped saying "I love you" the summer before when it started to complicate things too much. I remember spending my senior year jumping back and forth between knowing I loved him and being completely unsure if I did or not. Why are these things so hard to sort out? He's such a pleasant, supportive force in my life who still manages to surprise me. But male-female relationships get tangled when you admit love; somehow saying it raises questions that are awkward when unanswered, but nearly impossible to ignore once put forth. It's so much simpler to just silently understand that love exists without expressing it.

   "Yeah," he said, characteristically keeping his responses contained and concise. How sweetly opposite of me, with my rambling, adjective-ridden dialogue! "We had some good times."

   "Sorry I used to be so out of my fucking head."

   "Only that one time," he said audibly smirking.

   "Ohh, I don't even want to know what time you mean!" I laughed. Taking a more sincere tone, I continued. "Maybe if we're ever sixteen again we'll fix everything we screwed up this time... though maybe I said that last time."

   "Maybe I'll see you tonight," he responded, his syllables pulsating with possibility.

   

Tomorrow is a Long Time

   I'm still in the process of reading old notebooks; it's very on and off, and I have over 30 of them. Seriously, how did I have 3,000 pages worth of things to talk about in 5 years? Is this normal people?! I was out of my damn mind!
   Anyway, I found a few amusing things, although maybe only I will think they're funny. I love the awkward, biting cynicism of adolescence.
    Mr. Fantasy and I first met in June of 2006. So, I guess the four years I give us is a little bit of a stretch, but I'm only two months short, so let's just give that one to me, okay? We went to the same high school, and found out later we had both secretly been checking each other out from a distance for a year before ever speaking, but were introduced in the first weeks of the summer I was 15.
   He was a surprising and welcome distraction from my traumatic relationship with Kid A, which was still the main focus of my life (and can be read about for newcomers here and then here, if you want to be up-to-date and informed) and I was grateful for and excited about that. When summer ended, so did we- really, really badly.  It was ugly enough that we didn't speak for about the next year and a half, though I spent much of that time whining and obsessing about him and us. We started talking again in the middle of senior year and, save brief periods of estrangement, he has been in my life since.
    Here are a few things he inspired that first summer.

7/6/06

pasta & flowers

my pillow for hours

he wants to empower

before he deflowers

before he devours

stop.

stop.

stop.

stop.

stop!

you say you could thrill me

while begging to fill me

you claim that it's still me

say it always will be

at least 'til you kill me

stop.

stop.

stop.

stop.

stop!

7/29/06

there seems to be some sort of a force propelling us towards each other, daring us to touch.
so we do.
and in the sickening heat of the night, i start to shiver.
this feels so different from anything before.
this feels so different from everything before.
i love the way your whispering voice sounds in my ear.
i love the way your hand feels locked in mine,
like this is just where it belongs.
everything is becoming laughter between us,
maybe for the sole reason that we're too nervous to let it be anything else.
what a good place we're in.
everything feels like it's supposed to.
i've never felt so alive.
i've never wanted to feel so alive.
i've never wanted this before.
the night turns to tragedy when we part ways
still trying to resist the pull.


but i guess that's half the fun.

8/2/06

we trade lines like a poorly written, overly high school novel but, then again,
aren't we living one?
aren't we all living one?

   He and I don't address that summer or its aftermath, except in jokes. Some are harmless. "We were so dumb," "Yeah, we were dumb, but we were hot," Some are more misguided. "Like when I used you and then left you!" he interjects with, laughing, but retracting it quickly when he notices I wince and cannot quite laugh convincingly. "Did that... do something to you?" he has asked, in moments of quasi-sincerity, knowing I will roll my eyes and scoff before abruptly changing the subject. 

   We have a lot under the surface; a lot I don't acknowledge, a lot he doesn't accept, a lot we don't confront. Sometimes we try but, between the two of us, it's too raw somehow. It always ends with my pleading for a new conversation, and his reassurance that "the past is in the past." 

   But is it? Is progress possible when we have a time capsule of bitterness buried in the backyard? 

A Moment of Stillness

   One of my classes was cancelled today, and fortunately, it was the class I share with sister #4. Listless, we wandered through hallways in circles, eventually settling on a bench.
   What began as an analysis of our current lives; her overall contentment with the stability she's found, though perhaps lamenting a shortage of excitement, my driving need to get out, shifted towards the inevitable when discussing things I need to escape from: Mr. Fantasy.
   "I just...don't think he's a good person," she concluded.
   I really struggled with that one. Torn between so many responses, I looked away to avoid saying any of them.
   "You don't have to respond," she said.
   "I, uhm... Well. Maybe you're like Mom and I'm like Dad because... well. You know how if someone is cool in a lot of ways but they're a racist I just don't like them?"
   "Yes."
   "Well, Mom's like that with womanizers. If a guy is cool in other areas, but treats women like shit, she hates him automatically. Whereas Dad and I... We have an easier time separating someone from that. Like... 'Yeah, he treats women like shit, but he's got all this other stuff going on...'"
   "Yeah," she responded, "but all that other stuff doesn't matter if you are the woman he's treating like shit. You don't want to be his friend. You don't want to hang out with him and... whatever. It doesn't matter if he's cool otherwise, because he's treating you like shit. And maybe I'm biased because you're my sister and seeing what he does to you hurts me, but... I just don't think a good person would do the things he does."
   That was hard to hear, and even harder to formulate a response to. Eventually, I just stuttered out some form of agreement.
   "And don't you feel like... this has been how many years?"
   "Four," I mumbled.
   "Don't you feel like you've just wasted all this time and energy and four years?!"
   "Yes," I admitted, "but there develops this...desperation. For something to hold on to, to say it was worth it. To... I need proof of the last four years of my life." What I find impossible to express is the depth of the desperation for the effort and the years to add up to something, to have meant something that can be translated into some truth, something other than disillusionment and distrust; some tangible thing I can walk away with, knowing or feeling or seeing, something that could compare to the endless things he takes from me.
   She paused for a moment, inhaling the magnitude of pathos I had laid bare on the floor. I don't open up very often. No one's ever sure how to react when I do.
   "Do you think it's just going to be like this until you get over him, or do you think he's going to change?"
   Ouch. I sat breathless for a minute, almost stunned by the question. Even though I ask myself that same goddamn question all the time. And I know the answer. And I hate the answer. I hate, hate, hate the answer. 
   Visions of our future inundate me, his promises deluge my mind. I'm filled with whining, smiling whispers and reassurances of good intentions, doused with sugar-sweet affection and hopefulness.
   Until: the cataclysm of consequences, moments of brutal realization, every single promise broken, every whisper silenced by deafening actions. I realize the past four years of my life do compose something, they do combine to form a truth and that is this:
   "He's never going to change," I confessed, slowly, feeling my heart contract, pull into itself so tight and small it might explode. "He's... he will never change."
   "That sucks," she sighed,
   "Yeah," I breathed. "Yeah, it does."


   So maybe the truth I can leave with, can carry with me, is this: People don't change unless they want to. And sometimes even then, they can't. Despite possible fluctuations in maturity and hormone levels, people are the same at 17 as they will be four years later, and even forty years beyond that.
   And if I haven't been incentive enough, I never will be.
   "I will never be enough for you," I remember confessing, teary-eyed and scared. 
   "You are. Of course you are. Stop," he pleaded. "It hurts me when you say things like that."
   Well lover, it hurts me every time you leave. And I'm awfully tired of watching you walk away.

  This time this time, this time, no, this time, wait, no this time, wait really guys THIS TIME! Or next time... How can I possibly expect him, or anyone else for that matter, to take me seriously when I can barely take myself seriously? I will be stronger. I will resist. I will leave us behind me.

   Right now I carry our burdensome weight on my back. But I'm headed into the sunshine, and I'm sure I'll shed it soon.

Flower in the Sun

    New Character!

   My best (female) friend is Esther. She's one of my favorite people in the world. She can basically make anything fun, be it weekends at Jesus Camp (which I've attended twice in my life- at a college in Ohio and shrine outside Albany  and while I haven't seen the the movie, I can still guarantee you it's just as insane in real life,) nights at our annual local regatta (a giant, 4-day event where thousands of sailing enthusiasts flood our tiny village to race boats and drink too much) or just a night on my parent's couch with a six pack, where we've spent many nights, alternating periods of serious, soul-searching introspection with gasping, lung-exploding laughter.

2006

  2010

Bright as Yellow

   It scares me; the respect you think I deserve. Have I earned it? I don't know. 
   My Little One is such a force of nature. I appreciate so much the whirlwind that is age sixteen, the naivety and confusion she brings rushing back with every syllable. I'm so grateful for her; that perspective so shaped by age, yet still unique, still hers. 
   I watched this one grow up; I spent Friday nights babysitting her, though she was too old to need me and I was too young to provide any real discipline. I remember her harshness and her honesty. I was grateful for it then, as I am now. "Is this dress a little ugly?"  "Yes."
   I get nervous every so often; I lose people. I get scared sometimes, of being on a pedestal. It's such a long fall from grace when I inevitably tumble down. I have the bad habit of climbing to perch on any pedestal provided me; it's ego. The view is intoxicating, but it's temporary; only as long as I can balance until I come crashing down. There's a lot of pressure to stay still while I keep moving. 
   But she doesn't seem to mind when I fall short; she is the first in a lifetime of audiences who hasn't stopped applauding when I lose my lines. This analogy trivializes our relationship, and I don't mean to. I just don't have a better one. She isn't an audience. 
   What I'm trying to say is; it's different. I've had a lot of fans, a lot of hungry people at my feet, absorbing my words, trusting that they meant something when I said them. I'm not sure why or how I've had this privilege; I've never felt secure in it because I've never really wrapped my head around it; though how could I? Who could? It's unexpected. People try to grab hold of things they can't define, and I've always tried to embody various indefinable characteristics; I'm rambling now. But I always had an audience; doting, listening, flattering, cajoling. Until the first disappointment, and then suddenly I'm a "False Prophet." We're witnessing the aftermath of the last audience I let down now; the cruelty is biting. Love is so quickly replaced by bitter rejection and animosity! It's like I get stale and they turn off the television, then flock to the internet to fill facebook statuses with scathing reviews; "everything about her turned out to be a lie," "so ugly on the inside," "not fooling anyone."
   She doesn't fit the stereotype though, in so many ways she defies it. And I revel in that. She doesn't hold back. I don't think I scare her. And I'll admit it; I'm kinda scary. 
   I'm ecstatic to be present in her chaos, honored to be something solid she can steady herself on. And deeply, deeply grateful to her for finding what I say meaningful or worthwhile or relevant; and sometimes all three! 
   She isn't an audience, she isn't a follower. She's profound and insightful. She makes me laugh. It's refreshing. She's understanding of and sympathetic towards my imperfections; "You wouldn't be you without him." It's surprising and so comforting.
   This girl's one of the best friends I've ever had.

Little Trip to Heaven

   Stumbling in the house at 1:30am, I lean against the door frame for support as I remove my shoes. Quietly; I can't wake the sleeping sisters or the baby.
   Inhaling, the scent of the woodwork captivates me. It smells like my grandparents. 
   I pause here, alone, pressing against the wall with first my hips, then shoulders, then lastly my face; breathing in deeply the molecules that used to perfume the entire house, that scent I took completely for granted for seventeen years.
   I linger too long, trying to preserve the moment as long as possible. Memories come crashing down through my head, too quickly to separate or define.
   I miss you in my dreams. A couple times a month isn't enough. I need you more than that. I'll take the tearful, often hysterical, waking moments if it means I get to be with you again.

Still Can't...

   Simon met my father last night and made a fantastic impression. I knew it was going well when I walked in flustered and immediately launched into a diatribe, while Simon waited patiently until I had finished, extended his hand to my father and introduced himself. "Happy Birthday," he added, as if he wasn't already perfect enough.
   I immediately rushed upstairs to gather my things and, upon returning, found him eating a piece of my father's birthday cake.
   "Hungry, huh?" I asked, laughing.
   "Well, I'd hate to see cake go to waste!" he answered, and it struck me how my father that response was, and I was taken aback to hear it from Simon's mouth.
   As we walked out the door, I tossed a careless "Goodnight Dad, Happy Birthday!" on my way to the car, while Simon stopped to again shake his hand and reiterate the birthday greeting. He's such a gentleman, and a good person. He's chivalrous and respectful and polite to the point where it kind of blows my mind. I didn't know guys like this really existed.
   Tonight, my father mentioned how impressed he was and I made the mistake of mentioning his job (a cross between an electrician and a machinist?) and the giant, fighter robot on his kitchen floor. Grinning from ear to ear, my father reaffirmed "He seemed like a great guy!" 
   This is the first time my father has ever referred to a male I've introduced to him as anything but a boy.

   Sometimes I wish I wasn't so goddamn impossible. I mean, this seems so easy; why don't I want it? Fortunately, I know better than to fake it; that always ends so painfully. Not usually for me; I usually just walk way feeling annoyed & disgusted. It's so unfair. 
   I hope I grow out of this someday; I'm pretty confident that I will.

Oh my God, Whatever, Etc.

   I'm not waiting through another one. Sorry darlin', but your time's up. I think four years is enough wasted time, waiting for you to grow the fuck up. I guess this is one fantasy that will never line up with reality.

   Next?

Remember me as a Time of Day

   Warning: I'm a little bit out of my mind right now. I have too many thoughts to fall asleep, so I'll spill them here.

   I heard from Kid A tonight, for the first time in a long time. He's doing well and is surprisingly one of the few people supportive of my plans for relocation. "It's where you belong," he tells me. "Portland. Not here." 
   I smile a little, to myself, thinking how right his statement is, but how wrong his reasons are. He thinks I'm going to go live among the hipsters and assimilate. He has no idea who I am. I've never assimilated in my life and I have no intention to start- least of all to fit in with a bunch of pretentious morons who think they're living above conformity by conforming to the standards of their selective little subculture instead of the "mainstream," whatever the hell that means. 
   The conversation goes smoothly, although I spend a good portion of it nauseated. I spent a good number of years pretty nauseated actually, mostly due to nerves and self-doubt. With every re-emergence in my life he brings back with him a crippling feeling of inadequacy. The instant he speaks, I literally feel paralyzed. It's so silly and tragic. (Contradictions are my thing here, people! We know this!)
    He and I have a pretty well-developed rapport, and we ease back into it without much difficulty. It stuns me how subversively manipulative he is, but more so how it still affects me. Not to any measurable degree, especially compared to how it once did, but I do still feel a nagging need to measure up to his expectations. He keeps them unrealistically high. As soon as I meet them, he skyrockets them all over again. For someone who found Catch-22 (my favorite book) "annoying," he certainly pays tribute to Colonel Cathcart, eh? 
   He twists my words. It makes me uncomfortable because words have always been so mine. The ones I say, anyway. I maintain such meticulous diction that it throws me off when he seemingly transforms my sentences right before my eyes.
   "I haven't dedicated myself to a concept in years," I inform him, explaining my distaste for self-definition through music or books, knowing he'll compartmentalize me anyway.
   "Do you think that's a good thing," he asks, "not to devote yourself to anything?" 
   He flusters me. Fortunately, I have better balance now. He kept such strict control of me easily for two reasons: I had inordinately low self-esteem, and I was hopelessly in love with him. Now that he has lost both of these, he focuses our interactions on gaining one or both of them back. It almost works in the beginning because time has made me ill-equipped to handle his underhandedly condescending remarks, but I distance myself from the immediacy of the situation and remember how little I am concerned with his approval. Then I feel my spine grow back. 
   "Are you still writing?" he asks.
   "Yes," I reply. "I'm a shittier person when I don't write, so I keep doing it." 
   I briefly consider linking him here but, knowing he would instantly identify himself, I decide against it.
    "Good," he answers. "You were always one of my favorite writers."
   When he asks me what I write about, I draw a blank.
   "Myself, mostly. That's my primary interest." 
   He admits that he has started writing, but hasn't developed his own voice yet. We discuss writing as a tool for self-discovery and he asks me if I've made any progress.
   "Discovering myself?" I ask.
   "Yes."
   "I'm certainly more familiar with myself than I was at sixteen, though I'm a lot less sure about it."
   "Do you think you were happier at sixteen, or now?" The question itself makes me laugh.
   "Now, without a doubt." I affirm. "I'm pretty sure no matter what happens in my life, I will always be happier than I was at sixteen." 
   "I'm not sure if it was the chemicals in the water or what, but those were miserable years," he says.
    "I think it was the age," I volunteer.
   "And the music and the books and the idols," he adds. He certainly has a point; Rage Against The Machine, George Orwell and Kurt Cobain aren't exactly pick-me-ups.
   He continues on to explain that the problems we suffered could have been "solved easily" by a "quick cognitive change." I shudder at the oversimplification, and disagree.
   "I think high school was mostly waiting for the haze to dissipate. And that mostly just required time. I think I did the best I could with the resources available to me at the time."
   I laugh and admit to having had "more angst than everyone else at our entire high school combined."
  "That's why I enjoyed our conversations so much," he says. "You were a breath of fresh air." He laughs and adds, "though more like a tornado." 
   Torn between smiling and wincing, I just agree. "It was a lot more hyperventilating than breathing, I think."
   He suddenly adopts a different tone. Becoming more somber, he admits "Looking back, I see myself as such an egocentric prick." 
   Finding his summation so astute, I burst out laughing. "We all had personas," I reassure him. "What else could we do? We weren't ready to be real people yet." 
   "I had a hell of a time with that persona," he says, absent of the hint of remorse he had shown seconds before. "So it all worked out." 
   I sigh quietly, disappointed with myself for having redeemed him. That's a habit I haven't shaken, I guess; forgiving his sins. I've managed to overcome the need to constantly apologize to him for them, but I haven't figured out how not to absolve him of them yet. 
   When we part ways, I am still reinforcing the distance I've been maintaining throughout. When he breaks through it, I'm floored.
   "I hope things work out well for you," he says, and I can actually feel his sincerity. This may be the first time I've ever felt certain he was sincere about anything. 
   "You too," I say.
   "And I would like to apologize for all the stupid shit I did in my youth."
   My heart falls to the floor. I've never expected or imagined he would make any admission. It's so surprising, yet so quintessentially him; bare and minimal, lacking real substance, yet pregnant with undertones, and heavy enough to break your back.
   "Like what?" I want to ask. "That time you brought all your friends over to my house and walked right past me without so much as a hello and ruined my best friend's birthday cake, then left it ouside on my sidewalk for me to clean up? Are you sorry for that? What about when you started dating someone else, but lied to me about it for eight months while you spent hours telling me how much you needed me, and loved me? Or how you pretended I didn't exist any time your friends were around? What about when you invited me to meet you out, and then sat with your girlfriend, pretending not to notice I was there? Or any of the countless times you invited me places and then whispered to your friends behind my back 'How did she even know we were going to be here? Why did she just show up?' Or the hours you spent convincing me to show you poetry I had written, only to later read it aloud to your friends, and your girlfriend? Or any of the innumerable nights you promised to show up, but never did? Are you sorry for that?" 


   "Thank you," I say instead. "I appreciate that. I made my share of mistakes though, and I'm sorry for those, too." (Mine were just fewer, and less malicious, I add, silently.)
   "Take care, Linnea," he says. I realize this is one of only four times I have ever heard him say my name. The first three, scattered throughout the years, hit me like lightning bolts. This one settles in, softly. It lacks the electrocution.

   I'm grateful for his apology, those sixteen words I didn't see coming. I understand why he kept it so brief. They were painful years. Listing his transgressions would be time-consuming, and heartbreaking.
   We conduct our daily lives with our sins suppressed, nearly forgotten. Carrying the weight of them would be unbearable, and reminding ourselves of them could feel like reliving them. And I don't want to relive his sins any more than I want to relive my own. They were unendurable. They belong in the past, silent and hidden.
   And, although other adjectives have been offered- cruel, evil, sadistic... I could go on- "stupid shit" pretty well encompasses it.
   I feel like I've been released from hostility and bitterness I've felt at the mere mention of his name for so long. I still feel them pouring out of me, leaving me lighter and calmer. It's lovely.

   And I wonder what will be left when the bad things are drained. I'm not sure if there's any love left there. I know there isn't much, if it's there. I'm just wondering if I'll ever taste any sweetness in my mouth, when I remember our good days. 
   I'm not sure, but I'm open to the possibility.

   I'm just relieved I can finally let go.

We Built Another World

   I fall in love with moments instead of people, I think; because of how perfect they can be, and how terrible, often at the same time. But people can too, be both perfect and terrible at the same time! But people change and moments cannot, so they're easier to fall in love with; it's so much safer to love a frozen moment than a fickle person. You saw some with my favorite first kisses. Here are some more.

   Johnny, Kick a Hole in the Sky is someone you haven't heard about yet, but was a huge part of my life throughout high school. He & I still keep in touch and enjoy seeing each other when our schedules allow for it. The easiest way to summarize him: Jim Halpert. With a little bit of this guy. Someday Johnny will get his own entry, because he deserves it, but tonight he'll have to settle for being first on my list of favorite moments.

    We left my sixteenth birthday party to escort home a friend who badly needed it. The walk home was the first time we'd ever been alone together.

   Being the emotional disaster that I was, it was barely a minute before he said something to trigger tears, which I'm particularly bad at controlling. In the middle of a four-way intersection, in the middle of the night, Johnny pulled me in and wrapped his arms around me, tight. 

   "You are the only genuine person I've ever met," he said calmly, but firmly. "Everyone else, you just think they're nice because they pretend to be. Then you get to know them and they're assholes. You are the only person in the entire world who isn't an asshole."

   As I collected myself, I stood enclosed in his arms, feeling safe. He provided such an instant sense of security, of love, of reassurance. 

   "We should do this again sometime," I said smiling, as he left me at my front door. 

   "Yes," he said, taking me in his arms again. "I love you. Happy Birthday."

   Kid A and I were a disaster, start to calamitous finish, but I wouldn't have spent three years in it if it had been constantly terrible. There were periods, however brief, of ecstasy. (Inevitably followed by hopeless periods of agony. Sometimes I can visualize our relationship as an almost tangible manifestation of his mysterious bipolar disorder, a journey we took together, mirroring his unendurable moods with the blissful peaks and excruciating valleys.) But for every descent into disaster was another ascension grace. And while the grace was wrought by heartbreak, even the heartbreak was beautiful sometimes, in its poetry and its sheer destructive force.

   "Promise me something," I whispered quietly.

   "And what is that?" he asked.

   "I don't know," I admitted. "I  was hoping you'd have something." I forced a small laugh. "I'm sorry." (I was constantly apologizing to him.)

   "Don't be. It'll be okay," he assured me. "You'll be okay. I promise."

   My first visit home from college was Halloween weekend. I spent a total of 23 hours in the care of public transportation services for 48 hours at home, because my absentee ballot application had been mishandled and I was hell bent on voting in my first election. 

   At the end of a night with my friends, Bobby McGee and I walked out to his car. As we got inside, he paused before he started to drive. 

   "You're very important to me," he said. I smiled and returned the sentiment. "I love you very much," he continued. "We've been friends for a long time, and you're always going to be a big part of my life."
   He paused again and started driving. "You were like... my sexual awakening," he stated. 

   My eyes widened and I laughed nervously, unsure of how to respond. "What... um. What?"

   "Our first kiss," he explained. "I don't know, I'd kissed lots of other girls before, but that was different. It was like... just totally different. It woke me up."

   I continued laughing and thanked him.

   "You were like, the awakening to my whole life, actually." 

   Again, unsure of how to respond, I just smiled and looked at him inquisitively.

   "I was just this...kid, before you. Who was always following rules and never doing anything cool. Then you showed up and it was like... I started having fun. You just... you were the awakening of my life."

   I smiled, feeling a mild discomfort only because I didn't know how to react or respond. I just thanked him again and reassured him that the gratitude and love were mutual. 

   They were. They always have been. They still are.

High and Low

   I guess it was inevitable; nothing stays perfect.  We preserved it remarkably well though, and I think we deserve credit for that.
   Oh, there were obstacles and there were certainly mistakes.  We've had confrontations, disagreements that have escalated into silence.  But so short-lived, so few and far between!  And so easily left behind when finished. Practically immediate returns to our sweet, mutual bliss!
   And somehow we completely disintegrated, my Bobby McGee and I, through unfortunate twists of fate and alternating stubbornness. It's effortlessly functional when it's right because of our compatibility. We are so alike in all the right ways. Our love of adventure, of salvaging other people's refuse for our own repurposing, finding excitement in the most mundane tasks, staying up all night talking as our souls fill the air surrounding us, connecting and growing. Our respect for each other was only matched by our affection for and appreciation of one another. And there was such an easiness, a comfort in looking at you and seeing a reflection of myself. A completeness. We laid on couches together and designed our futures like the insides of houses, details draping beautifully like custom made window dressings, every so often making slight adjustments to maintain balance and symmetry. We chose songs wedding songs, planned out children's schedules. Our dreams were the same, with our hopes and fears so frequently lined up. 
   I can't believe we've stayed so off-measure for so long. We'd been in perfect tune for so long, I never saw it coming. I'm not sure how to get our song back in key. I'm not sure where to begin, or if I'm capable of it. If we both decided it was worth it, we'd have a chance. But we can't get it right.
   As similar as we are in the right ways, we are too much the same in the wrong ways. Our stubbornness, insensitivity, coldness and defensive detachment are harsh and merciless. We collide bleakly. I don't see our future anymore. I lost sight of it. I don't know if I can get it back. I don't even know if I want to. Not because I don't want us to be us anymore, because I do. I just don't know if I can handle the work required to rebuild us. And will we ever be the same, anyway?
   I have a habit of letting go the instant things turn sour. That way, when the bad taste fades, all the memories are intact, are sweet, are perfect. And every time I convince myself it's worth it and work up the courage to make an effort, you disengage. I know this is a reaction to my detachment. I'm sorry. I'm trying to overcome it. 
   I just don't really know. I don't know a thing. I do not know a goddamn thing.

An Atlas to Follow

   I found a new direction and I finally feel like I have something to look forward to again. I've been so adrift for the past six months, but now I have a plan and I'm so excited and grateful for it. I haven't felt this right about something since I was 17 and first decided where to go to college.
   Despite the fact that I only spent a year and a half there, I wholeheartedly feel that I made the right decision for myself at the time. I'm not sure if coming home was right or not, but I'm a firm believer in not dwelling on things that can't be changed. 
   So: A new coast, a new major, a new life. Oregon, I'm coming! Slowly but surely. Make sure there's a Mountain Man for me.

It Takes a Lot to Laugh, it Takes a Train to Cry

   Sometimes I lose my shit. I don't mean I misplace my possessions (though I do an awful lot of that too.) I mean I lose. my. shit. I freak the fuck out, complete with full-scale stuttering and hyperventilating.
   I did this today. One minute I'm grouchy that I was woken up mid-nap to go to belly dancing, (I have a Shakira complex), the next I'm sitting alone in a parking lot, mumbling incomprehensibly through sobs to my Mother on the telephone, who is very sympathetically telling me she hasn't caught a single word.  "Nevermind!" I exclaim, frustrated, hanging up. As a car pulls up next to me, I curse the extended daylight hours I look forward to all winter long for making me vulnerable to this stranger. I'm not the type of girl who cries in public. I reach in the back seat and pretend to search through a bag, trying to look as if I'm doing anything other than having a complete mental and emotional breakdown by myself in the parking lot of a dance studio.
   Thought process: Exhausted, annoyed, apprehensive. I feel stress building. There's no other thing I can easily focus on, I'm too present in this experience. I need to remove myself mentally from this. As I swallow my grievances, I suddenly see the inside of my head.
   I'm watching every bad feeling, every negative thought I have, You don't seem to feel that my time is of any value whatsoever, falling down my throat, You will never be the man I want you to be, and softening inside me. I love you so much sometimes, and other times I think we're both selfish assholes who return to each other out of boredom and convenience. I literally see myself internalizing my fears and frustrations. But if you don't love me at all, what the hell are you doing here? And if I don't love you, why have I thought about you every day for the past four years? Even when we're apart, you're such a part of my life, of my head, of my waking up and going to sleep every day. "Do you think about me when we're not together?" I asked, fearfully, one night when I felt our relationship was secure enough to sustain honest discourse. "Sometimes," you said reassuringly, insistingly, as if that was supposed to please me. "Sometimes isn't enough," I wanted to protest. Of course I didn't. I just fought my facial features into remaining expressionless until the instinct to frown was suppressed.  I watch my bold, sharp words, vivid red with anger and passion and honesty smoothly dull at the edges, turn blue and then dissolve as I stifle them with detachment. This is my coping mechanism with bad things; I withdraw, retreat into myself and smother them until they're gone.
   Plus, today after reading an account of a toddler's mental scheme of a cat: small, warm, furry, soft, I became obsessed with adopting a kitten. (Admittedly, this is probably a pacifying replacement for my completely irrational desire to fast forward the next five years of my life, get married and have six babies.) But then my parents, who I am genuinely enjoying living with, dismissed the idea. I tried to accept the decision like the rational person I am, but hours later when my mother made a joke about it, I could barely control my absurdly emotional reaction. I know I never had him, but I feel like you're taking him away from me, I wanted to plead. I imagined him and it was like he was real, and I wanted to feed him a saucer of milk and introduce him to my niece and play in the yard with him. But I swallowed the plea, sent it inside to soften, turn cold and disappear with all the other things I want to say but never do.
   So, today was trying, from start to finish. But it's over and tomorrow, as always, is full of possibilities.

Morning Yearning

   I've been going through old diaries on and off for the past week or so. It's enlightening. If you have some, I recommend it, but consider yourself warned; it's tumultuous. Everything seems so different in retrospect; the tragedies seem trivial, funny, while the triumphs break my heart a little.
   Anyway, it's interesting because my life has not become what I envisioned at age sixteen. (Does anyone's?) This isn't upsetting so much as...like waking up? Not in any traditional symbolic rude awakening sense; it's been more of a late morning, where my eyes open slowly, contently, ready to regain consciousness. I frequently convince myself of things that make my life simpler; that I am cold, independent and indestructible to the core. And that I always have been. The vulnerability exhibited so openly and honestly in my accounts of youth are unsettling.

   My sixteen year old imagined account of my future goes something like this:

i sprawl out to cover the part of the bed you just left. 

it's warm and still smells like you. 

i inhale deeply, to fill myself with you.

to others this could feel lonely, 

but i'm surrounded in the silent promises
you flood throughout my room, 

even in your absence.  

i'm so in love with them. with you.

you are grace.

you are bliss.

you are love.

and after a while in silence,
i drift back to sleep with the quiet remnants of you 

on my sheets being gradually embedded within me, 

joining the other traces of you 

that live underneath my skin and flow through my veins.

  

   (I didn't believe in capital letters when I was sixteen.)

   The reality? Keeping in the context of the situation:

I hate taking showers

when I'm dizzy and I might throw up.

I should have drunk more water last night.

I just barely remember

sneaking out of bed

to put on makeup

before waking you up

and telling you to leave.

After this

I will tear the blankets off my bed,

stumble downstairs,

and shove them in the washing machine,

hoping to rid them

of your smell

and your skin cells.

A Spoonful Weighs a Ton

   "You're a jerk."
   "Sorry, I always forget how sensitive you are. I was only joking."
   "Whatever."

   I'm doing my best not to feel bad, because you don't get to make me the bad one. You're not allowed to traipse back in at your leisure and suddenly be the victim. I'm leaving it there because it's already too far. What is with our mutual insistence on bludgeoning our relationship to death over and over and over and over again?  Can't we just let it die in peace?

The Thin Ice

   March! Already?!
   As an angst-ridden teenager, I hated winter. I spent the entire season miserable, waning in my listless lamentations. I dreaded it annually, making charts and lists to count days until it would end. Around 17, when the all-consuming haze of adolescence at last began to dissipate, however gradually, I resigned myself to the inevitability of the season, which in Western New York, lasts about six months of the year. I resolved to find something about winter to excite me.
   The season takes a lot from me. I seek vitality from the world around me. I absorb bleakness and melancholy from winter's harshness. Until I get excited about fashion.
   For me, the desolation of winter is not overcome, but celebrated, through adorning the season in ruffles, feathers and sequins (though not all at once, mind you- wouldn't want to look tacky.) Winter becomes an image of deep-colored velvet, cascading satin and clinging lace, red lips, garter belts and thigh highs. My winter fantasies are rich with dark color, bold accents, a perfect balance of soft, floating fabrics with the rigid, structured stiffness of inflexible articles.
   I've always had the mentality that fashion is whatever I can get away with. At times, admittedly, this has led me in the wrong direction; off-the-shoulder transparent silk-blend floral shirts, trimmed in satin, draping mustard yellow tops designed for obese grandmothers, black lace tank tops over red and white striped Where's Waldo shirts- I have made some interesting choices, to say the least. As embarrassing as the photographic proof is, I still feel a twinge of pride at the reminder that I never tried to fit in. Winter, to me, is the ultimate season of fashion; I see it as a dare. I revel in the unbounded opportunity for self-expression.
   As the season begins to draw to a close, the thought of switching out my wardrobes has started to make me nervous. Brief explanation for those unfamiliar with my obsessive compulsions or the inside of my closet: I have a wardrobe for each of the four seasons. The season of a piece is determined firstly by fabric, then color. It's mostly common sense, but I have some rules that have been dubbed idiosyncratic. I follow the widely ignored rule that white is only to be worn from Memorial Day through Labor Day- a large part of what makes it so special and gorgeous. I reserve colors like orange, brown and mustard yellow for Autumn, pastels dominate in Springtime- etc. I think this is normal, but am repeatedly reminded by my Little One, among others, that it is not.  The idea of putting away the decadence, the extravagance of my personal Winter has me a little on edge. Rather than anticipation, I feel a minor sort of dread, a certain shallowness of breath.
   Then I think of what's coming; the glorious return of the sun's rays, tulips and daffodils at first peeking, and then bursting forth from the ground, the dizzying euphoria of nature's triumphant rebirth. And then: the fragrant twilight of summer, the long, clement days of alternating between soaking up the sunshine and seeking refuge in the shade of leafy green trees. Floating aimlessly down the river, dreamily running my hands through the water as it rushes by, feeling its cool comfort as it runs over me. Watching storms from porches, driving with the windows down, feeling the breeze tangle my already-messy hair. Sitting in circles around outside fires, Corona with a slice of lime, picnics, naps in the hammock in the back yard.
   Time always makes me nervous, but only when I forget how fucking beautiful every single thing has the potential to be.
   So, Winter, we're still together, but Springtime is coming and I won't have a choice. Before we know it, I'll be back in velvet dresses and hair combs, freezing my toes as I slide through the ice to the car. But until then, I think I'll enjoy our time apart. I have three separate seasons to revel in before our reunion, and I have every intention to do so to the fullest.

*** Fashion isn't the ONLY thing I like about winter. I also enjoy snow shoeing, cross country skiing and hot tubbing during snow storms. Fashion's just my favorite part and what I generally devote the most time and energy to thinking about/planning. ***