(no subject)
This older lady I was friends with in Alaska is coming down to Portland to visit. She tracked me down and she wants to come stay with me for a few days. I'm kinda freaking out about it. She's sort of a wacked-out mountain woman who's spent way too much time by herself and/or with drunken fishermen. I mean...she's a nice lady and all, and she was good to me when I was up there. She also drove me nuts with her extremely long-winded story-telling, repeats herself over and over again, has spent waaay too long in a crazy small town in the middle of nowhere, and is just sort of a loose cannon. I feel bad because I haven't thought about her in ages, mainly because my time up there was pretty traumatizing and I really try and forget it ever happened. So then I get this phone call and she's so excited to talk to me, and she wants to meet Q, and she's going on and on...and suddenly I'm blown back to that dark period I spent in that town, and I don't want to talk to her or hear anything about those people up there. It was like living in Twin Peaks.
So I tried to say, yeah it would be great to see you, but I live in a tiny apartment and there's not much room and you wouldn't be very comfortable...and of course that doesn't fly, because she just spent 3 yrs straight living on a boat or a tiny trailer in the middle of nowhere and she could care less where she sleeps. And she says she's been saving up money to come down. I was sort of...shocked I guess. It still feels very surreal, like she never really called.
I feel like a jerk writing this. But I gotta say it. I just don't have any room in my life for unstable people. Or any people from Alaska for that matter. Even for a few days, even sleeping on my couch. Maybe if it was just me, but not around Q. Then I think, I'm being too paranoid, she's a nice person, she has kids and loves babies and all that. She wouldn't do anything bad, she's just...eccentric. But I feel really anxious about it and I'm hoping she won't really come.
I'm trying to imagine that this is a lesson for me. People come into your life for reasons...not always sure what reasons. I shouldn't make it into such a big deal. But my short-lived stint in Alaska was pretty reckless and painful, and I thought I left it all behind me. And just talking to her reminded me of how bad I felt up there, and how long it took me to shake it all off once I came back to Portland. Okay, that was 5 years ago, and things are so much different. So much better, and my life makes sense it ways I always wanted it to.
I think maybe this is a test.