Eventually there comes a point, when you go on and on avoiding something or someone, and just snap-and go right to them. Like the poor dog who doesn't want to go to the man, afraid that he might be hit, but wanting attention more than anything else; or like a person on a diet absolutely confident that this candy bar will be the last; or like me, scared to come into contact with anyone who I think has hurt the people I love, or who will hurt me.
When you run back to that thing you've been avoiding, like a lonely pup with her tail between her legs, you-in this scenario-are rewarded. The treat has been given: a pat on the head, a nice talk, some confidence-boosters, and all is good. It reminds you that some people are good, and family is not all infected. You don't need any elaborate lunches, any shopping sprees or whatever, just each other, lots of things to talk about, and hours of time. It becomes difficult to leave. This person makes you feel so good, and not many other people can do that, so walking away is like getting up in the early morning-you can barely lift the blankets.
This person inspires the positive in you, knows how you're feeling, why you're feeling it. But everyone you know is in a different sphere of the world: there are the ritzes, the cheapos, the friendly and the fraud, the gentle and unsociable, the teenage angst, and the five-year-old darling who stands up for her 22-year-old sister on graduation day.
Then there is you. By which I mean me. The recent grad., ready for road trip but not really, very worried, wishing her boyfriend wanted her more, terrified of what happens AFTER the road trip...unsure of what is right or wrong to say, to think, to do-not only around the boyfriend, but also around anybody else, worried that she isn't polite or professional enough, that she can't dress the part, that she needs to meld into the normal in order to survive, and she wants to believe this one person, not her mom, not her dad, not even really her family, that these are not all bad things, that they can be quite useful, and not everyone needs a prescribed path.
She feels much better, a little less afraid, some plots in mind. The anger is not so much there as it was before. (She drives home in the dark, might have hit an opossum, tries hard to ignore that thought, the images, the guilt-reminding herself that it wasn't her fault, she tried to dodge it-and remembering that soft crunch under the tires.) She will try to sleep, and may struggle to do so, but tomorrow will be calmer. She'll sleep later, and write when she gets up, and will send the person some writing exercises to do. Then she will go home to her boyfriend, and maybe they'll keep each other warm.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Stagnant...but not
It is very difficult to stay awake past 11 when you've been awake since 8 a.m. Although I am glad to have gotten up so much earlier than usual, I miss my usual reason for late-wake-up--my boyfriend. Only a single night I have been without him, yet already I want him here with me. Kind of. Part of me does, part of me does not. I enjoy being away from him, for just a little while. It may just be that I so very much enjoy being away from western Mass. I do not like it there. For me it is boring and lonely. For him...it is the perfect bachelors' place. We will see how this goes.
I want him here so I can show him around. It's weird. I know I'm supposed to see him as a person now, but I still have this weird obsession with pushing him into the follower position where he won't react. I guess I want him to react, I just don't know how he will. That is perhaps the best part about being with him--I never know what's next. With Chris it was always quiet, or he was scared of something, or whatever; with James there's a bit of bravery, curiosity, an insatiable humor, although it can be somewhat morbid.
I got my hair cut at Wal Mart tonight. Maricel brought me out to lunch (onion & mushroom pizza at Not Your Average Joe's), and then we went with dad to China Buffet (we snuck out lots of, ahem, leftovers), then Wal Mart, and home again. I talked to James on the phone for a little while. I will not be obsessive and check my phone to see how long...but it felt like five or ten minutes. Spent an hour and a half in Staples trying to put together that damn booklet for the mothers at the TLP. Wicked bothersome. I was so out of it after that. Registration tomorrow, for the Honda, for the road trip.
I need to sleep really bad soon, this tired feeling is killing me. Stomach also killing me. Apparently being in Eastern Mass does not heal my intestinal issues. I will just need to not eat. Everybody here keeps telling me I need to gain weight, but how do they expect me to do that when everything I eat just stagnates in my gut from night to night? Sleep calling still. Dreams of storms last night. Perhaps there are more waiting.
I want him here so I can show him around. It's weird. I know I'm supposed to see him as a person now, but I still have this weird obsession with pushing him into the follower position where he won't react. I guess I want him to react, I just don't know how he will. That is perhaps the best part about being with him--I never know what's next. With Chris it was always quiet, or he was scared of something, or whatever; with James there's a bit of bravery, curiosity, an insatiable humor, although it can be somewhat morbid.
I got my hair cut at Wal Mart tonight. Maricel brought me out to lunch (onion & mushroom pizza at Not Your Average Joe's), and then we went with dad to China Buffet (we snuck out lots of, ahem, leftovers), then Wal Mart, and home again. I talked to James on the phone for a little while. I will not be obsessive and check my phone to see how long...but it felt like five or ten minutes. Spent an hour and a half in Staples trying to put together that damn booklet for the mothers at the TLP. Wicked bothersome. I was so out of it after that. Registration tomorrow, for the Honda, for the road trip.
I need to sleep really bad soon, this tired feeling is killing me. Stomach also killing me. Apparently being in Eastern Mass does not heal my intestinal issues. I will just need to not eat. Everybody here keeps telling me I need to gain weight, but how do they expect me to do that when everything I eat just stagnates in my gut from night to night? Sleep calling still. Dreams of storms last night. Perhaps there are more waiting.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Random Scene (fiction)
Stuck in the scene: you, holding onto me weakly, me, trying to escape, to reach for the remote. But you never let me have it. You never gave in. You’d rather leave bruises on my armbands than give to me a second chance at choice.
My first choice was a mistake, I get that now. But everyone, especially greedy little children-and very especially little spoiled greedy children-will try and get what they want. The thing I did was a little over-the-top, which is, I suppose, why I was never given another choice. But father refused me the one thing I’d ever wanted in life: a shock-shooting typewriter. The kind where, every letter you hit, you get a little shock, so that by the time you finish a word your finger’s tip is numb, and by the time you finish a whole sentence your arm is numb, and he wouldn’t get it for me, said it was dangerous. As if. I didn’t realize the apricot seeds would hurt him so bed, would send him into that place-we-don’t-speak-of. But I still don’t regret what I did: standing up for what I believed I deserved has created me the person I am today.
And you held me there, just held me out of reach of that damn remote. You’d watch the spontaneous -trig channel and the “Aren’t Gods Millionaires?” show, and movies like “My wife turned into my testicles,” when all I asked for was a simple space alien or blood-and-guts type show--like my favorite, “Harry’s in the Bloodbath.”
My first choice was a mistake, I get that now. But everyone, especially greedy little children-and very especially little spoiled greedy children-will try and get what they want. The thing I did was a little over-the-top, which is, I suppose, why I was never given another choice. But father refused me the one thing I’d ever wanted in life: a shock-shooting typewriter. The kind where, every letter you hit, you get a little shock, so that by the time you finish a word your finger’s tip is numb, and by the time you finish a whole sentence your arm is numb, and he wouldn’t get it for me, said it was dangerous. As if. I didn’t realize the apricot seeds would hurt him so bed, would send him into that place-we-don’t-speak-of. But I still don’t regret what I did: standing up for what I believed I deserved has created me the person I am today.
And you held me there, just held me out of reach of that damn remote. You’d watch the spontaneous -trig channel and the “Aren’t Gods Millionaires?” show, and movies like “My wife turned into my testicles,” when all I asked for was a simple space alien or blood-and-guts type show--like my favorite, “Harry’s in the Bloodbath.”
Sound-No sound
Turning around in the thick blankets. Warm blankets, sticking like sweat. Breathing. A snore. The sound of hair and pillow against your ears. A car passing by, headlights flashing across the ceiling as it turns out onto the main road. You hear a slight scratching above, the rats or squirrels living in hordes on the floor above. But this is nothing but sound.
Sitting at the kitchen table. Peeling surface rough beneath your fingers. Light pouring in from the sky-roof, landing on the potted plants on the lower sill. They are green-someone gave them a spill of water and in a day, after months of dehydration, they came back to life. You sit still. Not even bird calls can be heard from where you sit: every window is closed and encased in cocking: cemented tightly shut. The washer and dryer are off. Every sink closed, so not a drop clinks against the metal and porcelain sinks. Branches shake outside, send the light and shadows spilling across the wooden floor. An ant scurries across the floor and over to the rug, but the silence is complete. You stay until you can’t stand the quiet anymore. Your ears are buzzing in the quiet, and thoughts just won’t bob to the surface. You run the faucet, say his name aloud, throw his favorite can of Zazz across the room.
Sitting at the kitchen table. Peeling surface rough beneath your fingers. Light pouring in from the sky-roof, landing on the potted plants on the lower sill. They are green-someone gave them a spill of water and in a day, after months of dehydration, they came back to life. You sit still. Not even bird calls can be heard from where you sit: every window is closed and encased in cocking: cemented tightly shut. The washer and dryer are off. Every sink closed, so not a drop clinks against the metal and porcelain sinks. Branches shake outside, send the light and shadows spilling across the wooden floor. An ant scurries across the floor and over to the rug, but the silence is complete. You stay until you can’t stand the quiet anymore. Your ears are buzzing in the quiet, and thoughts just won’t bob to the surface. You run the faucet, say his name aloud, throw his favorite can of Zazz across the room.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)