It’s kinda weird, this moving on thing. This letting go. It seems to happen in pieces. Or percents of me. My opinion on it differs from one second to the next. I’ve learned to keep quiet. Realizing that I usually feel differently before I even finish the thought. Sometimes I picture it like lightening bugs in a mason jar. Appearing and reappearing at uneven intervals. Blinking like broken Christmas lights.
Many days have gone by without thinking of him. Busy with a thousand other things, my life rings my door bell more than I deserve. For someone happy to spend a weekend alone or even a whole month the ding dong of consulting jobs and art projects and writing opportunities is steady. I find myself wondering on walks home what would happen if I actually tried. Maybe the whole world would burst open and I could pick and chose. Chose and pick. Like being the first kid to find the Halloween candy. It’s all Snickers and Kisses. The Smarties and DumDums are for the second wave.
But I stay busy. Even on days I would rather not.
Those days. Those are the days he crosses my mind a thousand times if he crosses it once. Imaginary conversations that have grown up from Grade A romantic comedy happy endings to me walking away and saying how I can’t do this anymore while wishing him well over my shoulder. It’s how I heal, these elaborate day dreams where I know the color of shoes I’m wearing and if my petal pink nail polish is chipping off or perfect in it’s plasticy shine. All my broken hearts have followed this well worn path. This trail from wanting to not. From better off with to better off without. It’s a journey I watch happen as much as I make happen. Waiting for the magic day where I say no thanks. I can’t predict it’s arrival but I’m never surprised when it comes. It signals the beginning of the end.
The end being when I don’t have imaginary conversation with him anymore. Where I don’t think of him at all and if I do, it passes through without much notice. Eluding the emotional radar, slipping out the back. Unlike the day I say no as opposed to all the other days where I said yes. This changing of the guard day, this haven’t thought about him in a while day, it goes largely uncelebrated but I think that may be the point. It’s the day he doesn’t matter in the same way. Where he takes root firmly in the past and I’m face forward, eyes open. By definition it can’t be celebrated because leaving him behind isn’t important anymore. It requires no ceremony. No words. It just is.
I’m not there yet. As this post attests. Right now, I’m saying no and thinking of something he could say that would make me say yes. I circle around and around but keep coming up empty. Wrestling with the uncomfortable that comes with realizing I don’t think he can be different. And knowing I can’t be happy like we were. We break up a hundred times. I walk up the concrete steps to the plaza while he stands at the bottom. By the porcelain statues of the little girls that are ten feet tall. With their polka dot dresses and rosy glazed cheeks. I don’t look back but I’m sure he walks away. Down the diagonal street to his brown building that peeks between the skyscrapers. Where they make tin cans connected by string.
Showing posts with label pink. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pink. Show all posts
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Sunday, June 10, 2007
like the whole solar system stops and holds its breath with you
I’m reading No One Belongs Here More Than You. By Miranda July. She doesn’t have it capitalized on her book. On her book it’s written as “No one belongs here more than you.” I guess by here she means Earth. I want it to mean Alive but that doesn’t make sense in the context of the sentence. Alive isn’t a place you can be. But Earth is. So she must mean that.
I’m reading it slowly. At first I was reading it slowly to make it last. Now I’m reading it slowly because parts of it make me so incredibly sad that I have to space it out. The parts that make me incredibly sad aren’t predictable. Or evenly spaced. I need days between stories to recover. Sometimes up to one week.
Her and I have hair color in common.
No one belongs here more than you comes in two color choices. One is yellow and the other is bright pink. But those are just the dust jackets. The inside book is yellow regardless of which color dust jacket you choose. This fact, and this fact alone, made me pick the yellow cover. I wanted my copy to look the same naked or clothed. I thought it would be less confusing for me then. I would always just know that it was yellow. Plus, I like yellow but can’t wear it. It makes me look sickly. So when I can pick something to be yellow that I don’t have to wear, I usually jump at the chance. I guess that means two facts, and two facts alone, make me pick the yellow cover.
We may also both think of ourselves as sensitive.
Somewhere in the first few pages, she wonders if all she’s ever wanted to say to someone or be told is this: It’s not your fault. That hearing that. Or saying it. Would make it all ok. Like the line in a great movie that you think of days later and still get the chills. “It’s not your fault.”
“But it is.”
“No, it’s not.”
I wondered what mine was. All I’ve ever wanted to say? All I’ve ever wanted to hear? I remembered this one time. I was still in Minneapolis and he lived in San Francisco. Beautiful boy. Dark haired, blue eyed. Andrew Hendrickson. The One Who Got Away. It was morning, hadn’t slept. We had talked for 7 or 8 hours back when long distance was twenty cents a minute. I was in my hallway. In a t-shirt and underwear. Receiver to my ear.
“These things never work out.” he told me.
“I know.”
“I can’t move there. You can’t move here.”
“Yeah.”
“But.”
I said “But.” back.
“One of us is going to wind up getting hurt.”
“Probably me.” I said.
“Probably me.” He said.
We got quiet.
And then he asked, “Do you want to try anyway?”
And then I said “Yes.”
My It’s-not-your-fault is any question phrased like this: do you want to maybe try and fall in love when the whole world is out to eat us up? If I ask it, I want to hear Yes. If I’m asked it, I want to say Yes. I don’t know if it’s the question I crave or the answer. It’s probably the pause in the middle. The second where everything good and everything bad is possible. The second where it’s just breath holding and beating hearts. A million reasons to say no. But one person of a reason to say Yes. Good. Fucking. God. I love that. Love it. Makes me want to stand up and cheer.
Makes me believe in stuff.
And then after figuring that out. I wondered what it was for you. The thing you most want to say. The feeling you most want to feel. What is it? I’d really like to know.
I’m reading it slowly. At first I was reading it slowly to make it last. Now I’m reading it slowly because parts of it make me so incredibly sad that I have to space it out. The parts that make me incredibly sad aren’t predictable. Or evenly spaced. I need days between stories to recover. Sometimes up to one week.
Her and I have hair color in common.
No one belongs here more than you comes in two color choices. One is yellow and the other is bright pink. But those are just the dust jackets. The inside book is yellow regardless of which color dust jacket you choose. This fact, and this fact alone, made me pick the yellow cover. I wanted my copy to look the same naked or clothed. I thought it would be less confusing for me then. I would always just know that it was yellow. Plus, I like yellow but can’t wear it. It makes me look sickly. So when I can pick something to be yellow that I don’t have to wear, I usually jump at the chance. I guess that means two facts, and two facts alone, make me pick the yellow cover.
We may also both think of ourselves as sensitive.
Somewhere in the first few pages, she wonders if all she’s ever wanted to say to someone or be told is this: It’s not your fault. That hearing that. Or saying it. Would make it all ok. Like the line in a great movie that you think of days later and still get the chills. “It’s not your fault.”
“But it is.”
“No, it’s not.”
I wondered what mine was. All I’ve ever wanted to say? All I’ve ever wanted to hear? I remembered this one time. I was still in Minneapolis and he lived in San Francisco. Beautiful boy. Dark haired, blue eyed. Andrew Hendrickson. The One Who Got Away. It was morning, hadn’t slept. We had talked for 7 or 8 hours back when long distance was twenty cents a minute. I was in my hallway. In a t-shirt and underwear. Receiver to my ear.
“These things never work out.” he told me.
“I know.”
“I can’t move there. You can’t move here.”
“Yeah.”
“But.”
I said “But.” back.
“One of us is going to wind up getting hurt.”
“Probably me.” I said.
“Probably me.” He said.
We got quiet.
And then he asked, “Do you want to try anyway?”
And then I said “Yes.”
My It’s-not-your-fault is any question phrased like this: do you want to maybe try and fall in love when the whole world is out to eat us up? If I ask it, I want to hear Yes. If I’m asked it, I want to say Yes. I don’t know if it’s the question I crave or the answer. It’s probably the pause in the middle. The second where everything good and everything bad is possible. The second where it’s just breath holding and beating hearts. A million reasons to say no. But one person of a reason to say Yes. Good. Fucking. God. I love that. Love it. Makes me want to stand up and cheer.
Makes me believe in stuff.
And then after figuring that out. I wondered what it was for you. The thing you most want to say. The feeling you most want to feel. What is it? I’d really like to know.
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