the past
along with some writings from jr high and high school, inside the manilla envelope my mom sent is a cliche.
"Return to sender" stamped on a love letter.
To the first lover who I ever missed THAT much. I thought I was being so adult about him going away to college two years before me. That didn't last. And when he got a new girlfriend...(OH SOUND FAMILIAR) I kind of freaked. Did I mail this envelope before or after that? Is this an early version of the WALL O TEXTS I've dished out with impugnity to anyone I've been attached to in the past few years as they move on? Am I still feeling unheard and like I could have saved love if I had said the right things? Acted sooner? or better? That I broke faith too soon? I remember the suckerpunch foolishness I felt when that letter came back unread. I remember how it made no sense to feel rejected by the university mail system. The same feeling as now, mortified by putting my feelings in writing and hitting send ffs. I regret lots and lots of those walls o text. I probably sound crazy as hell. And I feel it, too.
What do I do with this gift from the past? I want to burn it. I want to read it, then burn it. I want to take it to a counseler and try to make sense of it. I want to contact this ex, and my 9 yr ex who promised to forget I ever existed. I can't make it right. I'm not sure why I think I should. Moving on is so hard for me sometimes, and when my limbic system says RUN! GET OUT BEFORE HE LEAVES YOU FOR SOMEONE ELSE OR JUST LEAVES, it's very hard to try to apply patience and perspective; to see the man before me instead of all the men behind me. Impossible to convince myself that everything is actually ok for longer than a minute or two at a time. So much fear and foolishness. Plenty of self sabotage. Except- I meant it. Every time, I meant it. Sean I loved you but I was 16 and not ready for long distance. Anthony I- forget it. Brian, yeah. You do have plausible deniability. We were "friends" and wall o text is strings attached. Max, glad you are friend enough to answer me. When I broke up with you, it was because you had one foot out the door. You did, right? I didn't make that up out of fear? Nope. He says. Right before that happened i had a dream, he says, that showed me how bad I was feeling- I was very very depressed, he tells me. And I knew something was wrong between us, but I was too depressed to handle it.
Sigh.
I had a dream.
This dream was in one way similar to many years of previous dreams.
It was time to GO. Something bad (aliens this time) was coming and our ad hoc community was about to get smashed flat. I had to find my things and go. (that's right! hit the road, jack) In the past, my things were an exploded mess and I couldn't make heads or tails. I'd try to pack and get more and more upset and afraid. Sometimes I had to find my cats or my dog and I would not be able to find or catch them, I've even been faced with 4 identical dogs and unable to guess which was mine. Once, when I was breaking up with Anthony, it was he that I couldn't wrangle into the car, rescue, take with me, save from the vampires. He asked me, IRL, if when I ditched him in the dream and drove off, if I felt despair or relief. Relief. I told him. I hadn't lied. (truth be told he was a bit of a load).
It was time to GO. I could see it coming closer in the air, and there wasn't time. This one girl might go with me, her mom was somewhere else and she wanted to be there. There were motorcycle scouts who might go; but they were busy drinking and not urgently ready to GO. I went to get my stuff. I opened a few doors. Dark, clean bedrooms; beds made. Not my stuff. Not even a backpack. I opened some tiny craft drawers in the hall and helped myself to some signalling chalk, light, dark and reflective. "This will come in handy," I thought. I wasn't able to put it in my pockets. I left it there, on top of the drawers, confused and saddened that I couldn't take it, without putting it away. I may have walked around with it in my hand.
I couldn't put it in my pockets, even though I was wearing the army coat with huge pockets from age 16. The coat I wore to visit that first lost love in college. When he told me he loved another, and even before that- just from missing him so much- I walked around that campus in a fugue of pain. I had the same frozen lungs, the same deer in headlights I manifested every time I thought I might lose this last lover. Poor college boys and my walls of text.
Anyway. I looked forlornly at the chalk for a bit. Told myself I didn't need anything really, to just go get on a motorcycle and fucking leave. Looking out at the weird shape that flipped and bounded through the sky towards us, I wondered if I could even get out of its "slap zone" in the time it would take to get here (did not know how big it was or how far away). But then my cats woke me up.
No baggage. No clothes. No gear. No food. Was gonna do it anyway. "Fuck it, I have what I need, or I can find it." For a second I believed in providence, and "I have What I Need" is a direct quote from my friend's self-help/horse show gameface book I was reading on Friday night. It stands for WIN. Get it?
For a second I believed in providence! And I was first worried but then relieved that I didn't have anything to pack.
Not unlike the "maybe I'll move to the attic apartment" dream with no emotional investment either way that I had recently. My nightmares are changing. I was still anxious as hell, but it looked like I could just jet and stop dithering around trying to solve things. That'd be nice.
Alternatively, "you cant take it with you" is merely death.
"Return to sender" stamped on a love letter.
To the first lover who I ever missed THAT much. I thought I was being so adult about him going away to college two years before me. That didn't last. And when he got a new girlfriend...(OH SOUND FAMILIAR) I kind of freaked. Did I mail this envelope before or after that? Is this an early version of the WALL O TEXTS I've dished out with impugnity to anyone I've been attached to in the past few years as they move on? Am I still feeling unheard and like I could have saved love if I had said the right things? Acted sooner? or better? That I broke faith too soon? I remember the suckerpunch foolishness I felt when that letter came back unread. I remember how it made no sense to feel rejected by the university mail system. The same feeling as now, mortified by putting my feelings in writing and hitting send ffs. I regret lots and lots of those walls o text. I probably sound crazy as hell. And I feel it, too.
What do I do with this gift from the past? I want to burn it. I want to read it, then burn it. I want to take it to a counseler and try to make sense of it. I want to contact this ex, and my 9 yr ex who promised to forget I ever existed. I can't make it right. I'm not sure why I think I should. Moving on is so hard for me sometimes, and when my limbic system says RUN! GET OUT BEFORE HE LEAVES YOU FOR SOMEONE ELSE OR JUST LEAVES, it's very hard to try to apply patience and perspective; to see the man before me instead of all the men behind me. Impossible to convince myself that everything is actually ok for longer than a minute or two at a time. So much fear and foolishness. Plenty of self sabotage. Except- I meant it. Every time, I meant it. Sean I loved you but I was 16 and not ready for long distance. Anthony I- forget it. Brian, yeah. You do have plausible deniability. We were "friends" and wall o text is strings attached. Max, glad you are friend enough to answer me. When I broke up with you, it was because you had one foot out the door. You did, right? I didn't make that up out of fear? Nope. He says. Right before that happened i had a dream, he says, that showed me how bad I was feeling- I was very very depressed, he tells me. And I knew something was wrong between us, but I was too depressed to handle it.
Sigh.
I had a dream.
This dream was in one way similar to many years of previous dreams.
It was time to GO. Something bad (aliens this time) was coming and our ad hoc community was about to get smashed flat. I had to find my things and go. (that's right! hit the road, jack) In the past, my things were an exploded mess and I couldn't make heads or tails. I'd try to pack and get more and more upset and afraid. Sometimes I had to find my cats or my dog and I would not be able to find or catch them, I've even been faced with 4 identical dogs and unable to guess which was mine. Once, when I was breaking up with Anthony, it was he that I couldn't wrangle into the car, rescue, take with me, save from the vampires. He asked me, IRL, if when I ditched him in the dream and drove off, if I felt despair or relief. Relief. I told him. I hadn't lied. (truth be told he was a bit of a load).
It was time to GO. I could see it coming closer in the air, and there wasn't time. This one girl might go with me, her mom was somewhere else and she wanted to be there. There were motorcycle scouts who might go; but they were busy drinking and not urgently ready to GO. I went to get my stuff. I opened a few doors. Dark, clean bedrooms; beds made. Not my stuff. Not even a backpack. I opened some tiny craft drawers in the hall and helped myself to some signalling chalk, light, dark and reflective. "This will come in handy," I thought. I wasn't able to put it in my pockets. I left it there, on top of the drawers, confused and saddened that I couldn't take it, without putting it away. I may have walked around with it in my hand.
I couldn't put it in my pockets, even though I was wearing the army coat with huge pockets from age 16. The coat I wore to visit that first lost love in college. When he told me he loved another, and even before that- just from missing him so much- I walked around that campus in a fugue of pain. I had the same frozen lungs, the same deer in headlights I manifested every time I thought I might lose this last lover. Poor college boys and my walls of text.
Anyway. I looked forlornly at the chalk for a bit. Told myself I didn't need anything really, to just go get on a motorcycle and fucking leave. Looking out at the weird shape that flipped and bounded through the sky towards us, I wondered if I could even get out of its "slap zone" in the time it would take to get here (did not know how big it was or how far away). But then my cats woke me up.
No baggage. No clothes. No gear. No food. Was gonna do it anyway. "Fuck it, I have what I need, or I can find it." For a second I believed in providence, and "I have What I Need" is a direct quote from my friend's self-help/horse show gameface book I was reading on Friday night. It stands for WIN. Get it?
For a second I believed in providence! And I was first worried but then relieved that I didn't have anything to pack.
Not unlike the "maybe I'll move to the attic apartment" dream with no emotional investment either way that I had recently. My nightmares are changing. I was still anxious as hell, but it looked like I could just jet and stop dithering around trying to solve things. That'd be nice.
Alternatively, "you cant take it with you" is merely death.