At Least

Back in Utah and single still and curious as ever and unaligned... I've been trying to write for a while now.

What is it this time, you ask?  It's Hunter.  It's Avery Taylor.  It's Jesus.  It's finding Katrina and then saying goodbye to Katrina, and then sitting at home a lot.  It's my new roommates.  It's Brittni having a boyfriend and not wanting to hang out with me all the time like we did in 7th grade, and also me not wanting to hang out all the time like we did in 7th grade.  It's not having any new ideas and being okay with not making movies and no female forum speakers and a lot of people being smarter than me and forgetting who directed Being John Malkovich and looking stupid in front of him for it. 

I've gotten caught up in another high school drama and it makes life all sparkly and exotic and I'm wondering how long it's going to last.  I've almost shed my bumbling and achingly dull 16 year old persona and am embracing being the bumbling and insipid 20 year old that I guess I always knew I was.  Still tripping over my drooping socks and telling my palms not to sweat, but I at least have a bag with foxes on it and that's cool sometimes.  

No, I haven't changed much.  

And yet I'm so different that I don't even know what to say about myself anymore.  I don't recognize myself.  I don't sing very often.  

I do, however, know a lot of fun facts about Disney World, though.  So there's that.

But here's the deal: things are happening in a way that is desirable and confusing and upsetting and HORRIBLE and WONDERFUL and I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING and it feels good to have something so exciting again.  It's glamorous, and we are glamorous, and we are giggly and we are secretive and we are fools for it.  We are damn fools and I'm so incredibly content with it all.  And I weep for the day when it ends, as we all know it will.  

But until then, I am going to let my heart race a little bit and I'm going to be late to class and I'm going to write 17 draft texts before sending the "right" one and I'm going to analyze conversations with Avery and hate myself because it feels good to be passionate and it feels wrong to run away.

I'm done running away from myself.

I guess I don't have much else to say now besides this: I've made a string of good decisions and one bad one and my ligaments are tearing and I'm happy.

At least I have that.

The Extras

I forget sometimes to believe in gravity.  And the peace that comes with having two feet stuck firmly to the ground.

Somewhere between my fifth house and my hundredth new school, I forgot.  Wishing on turkey bones and laughing at people who carry dogs in their handbags.  I forgot what it meant to be stable.

There is a person standing at the edge of a precipice, wondering where the gas leak is coming from.  Wondering about how many people still wear socks with holes in them.  And what time it is in Africa.  And how to do winged eyeliner without messing up.   

And how that boy had really beautiful eyes, and how he used them in the right way but for the wrong reason.  How it sounds when it’s quiet enough to hear everything.  How skin feels against more skin and how knees feel during bon fires. 

If it's worth the risk.

There are people who think about June weddings and flowers and big dresses, and there are people who think about girls with big lips and long hair at dark and musky bars.  There are people who write their feelings on napkins and leave them in booths in cafes.  There are people who kiss in parks and on boats, and there are mothers who tell their sons not to look down girls’ shirts.

There is Right, and there is Wrong, and there is Sometimes. 

And I am nowhere to be found.

Unpeeled, Like a Thread

I keep waiting for my big break, but now I think that maybe I've missed it.

I didn't need to do it.  I didn't want to either.  I had passed the point of desire and hate, and I was moving on to being more weightless and acceptable.  There were no more missed phone calls.  There were a lot more nights out.

We were choice examples.

Maybe the past is forgotten and the flowers are dead, and maybe I wait up too late.  I always was the more sentimental one.  And you think it's childish and juvenile to cling to remnants and pieces, but I never knew how to leave them behind.  I carry them with me wherever I go, picking them up off the floor and placing them in glass cabinets when you're not looking.  I'll always be too attached.

I'm terribly sorry for the things I pray about.  Forgiveness and cheap tickets to concerts I'll never go to.  Headaches and rose petals, heart strings to be untied.

I wish I knew how to get better.

I wish...

A Ballad For Mrs. Lovett

"Mrs. Lovett, you're a bloody wonder, eminently practical and yet appropriate as always."  

This is my final headache.  

I was not born to dote, not born to breathe for you.  

I had other opportunities, other loves.  

Other heartaches.

I get my own dinner, I clean my own space.  I take care of the dog, and I pay my rent.  I file taxes every year.  I hardly drive above the speed limit.  I have stamps.

Stamps.

An ordinary life for an extraordinary faith.  Faith that he will love.  Faith that he will forget.  

Faith for first choice.

I want to remember and to be remembered.  I am selfish, I am hasty, I am ignorant.  Praying to be better, and sleeping in until noon.  Hoping for blue skies, and wearing all black.  Contradictory to beauty, yet standing for just that.

He loved very little and I loved to pretend I was part of it.  

"How I've lived without you all these years, I'll never know."

I Let It Go

"What are your plans, then?"

"I don’t know."

"Whatever happened with that arts school?"

"I got in...

I’m not going, though."

"Why not?"

"It's cheaper to stay here."

"That's true."

"Chicago will still be there.

I can wait."

I never figured out how to participate in class.

I plan everything I say two days before I say it.

He didn't want to talk to me after we kissed.

I laugh when I should cry, and I cry when I should smile.

Only three people remembered my birthday last year.

The cute boy in my film class didn't sit by me this week.

My older sister once told me that she didn't like me until I stopped being ugly.

My dad still hasn't gotten a job after all these years.

One day he took me to dinner and when he went to pay, he realized he didn't have enough.

"I got it, dad.  Don't worry."

I can't use a curling iron.

He didn't love me back.

I got bad grades last semester.

I go out of my way to avoid talking to people I want to talk to.

I'll probably never be a movie director.

He hated my favorite song.

We'll never move out of my grandparents' house.

What if I never meet Tina Fey?

Or what if I do, and she doesn't like me?

I don't want to get married.

I don't want kids.

I don't want to be happy.

I don't even think I'd let myself.

I jut want to eat food forever.

I hate my nose all the time.

Marla West once said it was beautiful, and I laughed at her for saying so.

I will never be charismatic.

I'm not fun enough at parties.

Or sexy enough to be liked.

Or really anything at all.
I spend a lot of time trying to be someone other than myself.
And I think about it way too much.


I realize that none of it matters.
We'll all be dead soon, anyways.
I'm going to be just fine.

I took a deep breath, and I let it go.

I let it all go.

I'll Never Be The Same (No. 10)

My boy loves me.

My boy loves me.

I'm sorry I keep talking about it.  I just feel like if I stop, I won't ever figure it out.

He loves me, he does.

I guess I resign to never seeing that side of life.  I resign to all those things we shoved aside.  The ones we put in the dresser drawer at night, saying we'd bring them out again when the time is right.  Then he locked it tight and put the key in the medicine cabinet.  Right where I'd never see it.

My boy…

He told me small lies and grand truths and I called that love.  He gave me reality and cynicism and I called that chivalry.  He threw everything I knew into a jar and shook it up and when I got it back, I couldn't tell the difference between heaven and the word "up."  I put my hands on the floor and walked on the ceiling and claimed I was just doing what I was supposed to do.

He loves me.

I got tired of saying it.  Of reminding myself.  It became the only thing I knew to be true.

He loves me.  My boy, he loves me.

After the river incident of June 2013, I was worse than ever.  I was trying to erase imprints of his thumbs on my forearms.  I was trying to sever the ties he had roped around my ankles.  I had cowered in his shadow for so long that I was afraid of my own.  I was expecting 6 more weeks of winter.  Turtlenecks, tights, and gloves in 90 degree weather.

He hated himself, he hated what he thought about, and he despised what he became.  He left little notes on the floor, and cleaned out my bedroom closet, and never once questioned the things I had collected over the years.  He made me breakfast.  The eggs were cold.  But the bacon was perfect.

The eggs were cold, but the bacon was perfect.  The days were fine, but the evenings were fragile.  The parties were long, but the walks home were lonely.  And I'll never forget the day he left drunk and I had to carry his shoes.  He never asked me once what I believed in.  He always assumed that I would leave him.  He was right to worry.  He was wrong to believe it.  No, I was too afraid.

My boy.  

I have no doubt.  

My boy will always love me.