An Everlasting Vision of the Ever-Changing View
I'm really far away from home; just thought I'd say that.
I know I told you that today would bring a top-ten list of reasons why I'm a catch, but that's stupid. I'm retarded.
I'm going to stop writing so much stuff down, because then it never goes away. I'm forced to reckon with things I've said. I'm denied any ability to change the story.
Remember I said that while in NC my cousin's husband was psycho-analyzing me at lunch? Well, he talked about "stories".
I've got about eight different accounts of what went on when I was born. Mom, Dad, Bill, grandparents, aunts, cousins... And they conflict. Especially the three most important ones: Mom, Dad, and Bill.
So, if I ask Bill why he wasn't a part of my childhood, even though I'm his only child, his response is, "your Dad wouldn't allow me."
My Dad's (and Mom's) story says he had no problem with Bill coming around.
So in order to accept Bills reasons, and apologies, I have to accept his version of the story, and reject my parents'.
My minute-therapist of a week ago pointed out that many people are frustrated because their story of their past is splintered and incongruent.
So this is why I've journaled since I was eight years old. No one will be able to argue about the facts of my life. This is why my siblings and I are so united. With all the people over us being in hostile conflict all our lives, we had the facts straight. The four of us know the same story.
So I am glad I can't change the story.
I wrote a satisfying poem once about how the changing seasons remind me of every other time in my life I've experienced changing seasons. I wrote that the story of David and me had become only my story (because no one I knew ever heard from him again), and that as the seasons continued changing, the story had too, because I was leaving him out of the retelling.
Sometimes changing stories is a good thing. Like we could all begin agreeing that I went to Disney World for the first time when I was six, instead of twenty-two.
Actually, I'm bad with remembering story-lines. I have to write them down.
The story is important, yes. Being in agreement about the course of life is important, yes. But characters are most important. The people are most important. That's the only thing that helps me forget about bad things done in the past: knowing that who those people are now is someone who loves me.
Alright, I'll tell a story. It proceeds from yesterday's Monster Ballad rave, and is along the lines of the infamous ex I speak of.
It took me three months to break up with him, okay, because we "had" to act like we were together until he could move away (at least I got him to leave the state). The night before he left we threw a going away party with lots of Cuervo and Jack. Bad combination. I was completely altered in mind, body, spirit, and heart by this point. Three months of lies and telling the man I loved "no" on a daily basis had murdered anything lovely in my 21-year-old girl's life. After our guests left I held him in his bed while he cried and begged me to change my mind. I apologized repeatedly, and begged him to understand. I probably promised him we still had a chance, just to give it six months. What a lie, but it's what you say to someone you know you're never going to see again, right? He wouldn't stop begging, though. And I became suddenly irritated with his bitchiness and inability to cope after three months of me telling him it was over. Now, side-note, he was (is?) four years older than I am, and graduated highschool in '92, and was a hair-band, glam-rock, ballad lover. He loved REO Speedwagon. Alright, so back to me comforting him in his bed while we're shitfaced at around five in the morning: I get irritated, right, and I sit upright, swing a leg over him and straddle his waist and put my hands on his chest (oh, he was huge, too, and thus began my affinity for tall, skinny boys), and I began to sing...
I've been around for you I've been up and down for you but I just can get any relief I've swallowed my pride for you I lived and died for you but you still make me feel like a thief you've got me stealing your love away 'cause you never give it peeling the years away and we can't relive it I make you laugh and you make me cry I believe it's time for me to fly you said we'd work it out said that you had no doubt that deep down we were really in love but I'm tired of holding on to a feeling I know is gone I do believe that I've had enough I've had enough of the falseness of a warn-out relation enough of the jealousy and the intolleration I make you laugh and you make me cry, I believe it's time for me to fly
I slept on his sofa and five hours later he left. I wonder if he leaves that part out of his telling of the story. He probably leaves a lot of it out.
Good thing we didn't have children.
I can't imagine him telling the story the way I remember it; "and then this one day I grabbed her by the hair and tightened my fist and pulled... her to the ground."
But I write it all down.
Sometimes I get caught up and write for you guys who read. But it's really for me. Just for me, and maybe one day for my children.
But as a tribute to the dear Mr. Rogers: thank you for teaching me that there's no one like me in the whole wide world. Coming from him it sounded like a good thing, you know?
My back-door man just sent me this:
Reasons why you are a catch: 1.You're hot and have a cool fashion sense. 2. Your hair probably smells like smarties candy. 3. You listen to and have an impressive knowledge of good music. 4. You are not a slut. 5. You're intelligent and write really well. 6. You can single handely crush a brick in your hand. 7. Your toe nail polish ALWAYS matches your finger nail polish. 8. Your mom says you french kiss the best. 9. You got a real purty mouth, yee-haw! 10. You would never kick a boyfriend in the balls....(on his birthday). 11. You are not a low down dirty cheater of boyfriends. 12. You never smell like a cats ass. 13. You gots mad booty for guys to bite on! Damn straight yo! 14. You know where the beef is. 15. You think boys who like the 80's and play video games and rock & roll guitars are damn sexy and want to have their love children!
If I could only find a front-door man...
