(no subject)
The last month and a half have been a lesson in how little a person can change: when faced with the idea of personal growth, Rose likes to think about physical growth, and how she'd have to have one to have the other. There was a period after she'd moved, after she'd gone through all of her old life, dug out her senior pictures and had to slip them into the mirror frame, lean against the sink and just stare, just try to strain her eyes and force them to see some kind of difference between the face in the mirror and the face from half a dozen years ago.
She'd packed them up, though, put the strangeness of it away and forced herself to leave them at her mother's house. The only thing she forgot to leave behind was this habit, this worthless way of coping with the crazy shit life gave her--close the door on it, close the door on the whole world and exist in the smallest space possible. She can count the number of times she's left the compound on one hand, and she can count the number of people she's tried to meet on the other, which is so much worse when she's trying to hide out in the biggest hub of civilization in the whole goddamn island, but still the sad truth. Last month, she started sleeping the days away in the crash room, letting the afternoon of tropical sun and steady activity wax and wane without her, waking up after dark to eat and sort through books in the rec room, to curl up on the couch in the sweater she had from home and watch films that hadn't even been made yet, to write letters to mom and Jeb that are never the kind of things you'd ever send anybody, letters about how she wanders into the clinic some nights because that hospital had become such a big part of her life, one of the few places she really went on a regular basis. How she keeps working on the book but is afraid to work on the book at the same time, because if the powers that be only be for as long as people believe in them, why work so hard to sustain a trio that scares the shit out of her?
Eventually she stops working on the book, lets the texts she's collected collect dust under the bed she claimed in the crash room, the bed that smells like her now, the bed with a mattress that is learning her shape--when she picks up a pencil, it's to write another letter, until she realizes she's in Washington all over again. She's come out the other side of some Weird Shit in a place she doesn't know, and what strength she had at the start was brittle, wore down until she's back in that attic room, typing away at that journal, avoiding the real people who aren't going to fuck her up, at least no more than a person can.
At this point, living in the compound is like trying to live in a hotel--nothing in it is really hers, and the people are like guests, strangers from every part of the globe that she ought to treat like neighbors but doesn't, at this point, and outside is some prime vacation destination that she's avoiding. This too is part of the pattern, she guesses, pulling on a jumper with her leggings, some new clothes instead of chopping off her hair and dying it a significant shade of purple: she starts out strong, goes to ground, then pulls herself out when she can't stand it anymore. The bed doesn't just smell like her, it stinks; the compound isn't like a hotel, it's a crutch, and last she checked, her legs worked just fine.
Nursing a second cup of coffee to see her through the daylight hours, Rose pushes open the compound door for the first time in over a week; soaks up the sun and squints against it in search of someone to have a conversation with.
[I am back to the game and Rose is back to being diurnal, feel free to handwave seeing her up late at the compound in the last week or two. ST is very welcome and late tags through Wednesday/Thursday. Great time to meet her, obviously.]
She'd packed them up, though, put the strangeness of it away and forced herself to leave them at her mother's house. The only thing she forgot to leave behind was this habit, this worthless way of coping with the crazy shit life gave her--close the door on it, close the door on the whole world and exist in the smallest space possible. She can count the number of times she's left the compound on one hand, and she can count the number of people she's tried to meet on the other, which is so much worse when she's trying to hide out in the biggest hub of civilization in the whole goddamn island, but still the sad truth. Last month, she started sleeping the days away in the crash room, letting the afternoon of tropical sun and steady activity wax and wane without her, waking up after dark to eat and sort through books in the rec room, to curl up on the couch in the sweater she had from home and watch films that hadn't even been made yet, to write letters to mom and Jeb that are never the kind of things you'd ever send anybody, letters about how she wanders into the clinic some nights because that hospital had become such a big part of her life, one of the few places she really went on a regular basis. How she keeps working on the book but is afraid to work on the book at the same time, because if the powers that be only be for as long as people believe in them, why work so hard to sustain a trio that scares the shit out of her?
Eventually she stops working on the book, lets the texts she's collected collect dust under the bed she claimed in the crash room, the bed that smells like her now, the bed with a mattress that is learning her shape--when she picks up a pencil, it's to write another letter, until she realizes she's in Washington all over again. She's come out the other side of some Weird Shit in a place she doesn't know, and what strength she had at the start was brittle, wore down until she's back in that attic room, typing away at that journal, avoiding the real people who aren't going to fuck her up, at least no more than a person can.
At this point, living in the compound is like trying to live in a hotel--nothing in it is really hers, and the people are like guests, strangers from every part of the globe that she ought to treat like neighbors but doesn't, at this point, and outside is some prime vacation destination that she's avoiding. This too is part of the pattern, she guesses, pulling on a jumper with her leggings, some new clothes instead of chopping off her hair and dying it a significant shade of purple: she starts out strong, goes to ground, then pulls herself out when she can't stand it anymore. The bed doesn't just smell like her, it stinks; the compound isn't like a hotel, it's a crutch, and last she checked, her legs worked just fine.
Nursing a second cup of coffee to see her through the daylight hours, Rose pushes open the compound door for the first time in over a week; soaks up the sun and squints against it in search of someone to have a conversation with.
[I am back to the game and Rose is back to being diurnal, feel free to handwave seeing her up late at the compound in the last week or two. ST is very welcome and late tags through Wednesday/Thursday. Great time to meet her, obviously.]