Portland always twists my heart up.
I went because my mother told me too. G. texted me that her friend had died and then the days-long string of communication between us snapped and I got nothing but silence for three days. My mom said to text her that I was coming down and leave.
See with her, you are either in or you are out. And she vacillates crazylike between the two. And when you are out, it fucking hurts. Generally it is for what she calls 'good reason', which I call 'the need to privately self destruct'. She hates to be worried about and prefers to fuck herself up without an audience. For a girl who starts drinking when she gets up in the morning, every morning, getting serious about harming yourself involves things I have nightmares about. Things that have scarred her. Things she won't talk about.
I arrive as she is getting off work and she is not so much with the eye contact. Not good. But I know how to fix that. I haven't loved her this long without learning. I start drinking. I can't keep pace with her, god knows, but there always comes this point where I am drunk enough and I look over at her. And she actually looks back. Click. I'm in. Bam. Powerful stuff.
See, everyone who meets her loves her. Witness my mom sending me in to certain drunken insanity because she is worried about G.. Who she met, oh, four times. My mom says there is just something about her that makes you want to spend time with her, take care of her. It's so true.
Sitting in the bar, watching everyone try to catch her attention- they all want to get inside just a little. I wonder how this still works for her. To me, the last 8 or 9 years, she has seemed dulled and distant and guarded and just a fraction of herself. If they ever saw her as I remember, they would all go blind and mad. She once was amazing. (She says that she was only ever 'mildly intriguing'.) And they are all into this dim, smudgy version...well, they are all drunks.
She only has meaningless sex. Random sex. She says she sometimes thinks of having a girlfriend, but that would require her to quit drinking, so she just keeps picking women up in bars. All the women she has tried to have a relationship with were crazy. Probably, I offer, because only crazy women are willing to fall in love with an alcoholic. True. She figured that out, finally.
I can not maintain any sort of a reasonable drinking pace. So the window is small and it isn't long before she has to take me home and we flop on the bed in her studio apartment and fall fast asleep while the dog watches late-night cable and thumps her tail on the floor hopefully everytime someone rolls over or opens an eye.
One night we are walking home over the Morrison Bridge and I am explaining to her that I can't lose one more person, and that's why I came to Portland. And she patiently explains back that she has tried to kill herself off, both in several bold maneuvers and in a passive drawn out campaign, and it simply doesn't work. She's resigned to this life of work, drink, sleep, sex. No more drugs, no more cutting, no more violence. Just enough drinking to maintain, and granted that is a lot. She's unhappy, she tells me, but she is stable. Well, I tell her back, I miss you and I love you, and I hate that I can only get inside long-distance, or on a drunk.
Apartment. Dog. TV. Flop. Sleep. I wake up early in the morning with my back to her and she has carefully lain her arm around my waist, but her whole self is so taut and tensed her fist is clenched. I feel like if I so much as breathe wrong she will explode into pieces. She rests her forehead on my shoulder and sighs. I fall asleep.
I text her to tell her I am home safe and get nothing in return for two days. I can't sleep. This morning I send, "Disappearing?" and she responds "No". Well, that's reassuring.
See with her, you are either in or you are out. And she vacillates crazylike between the two. And when you are out, it fucking hurts. Generally it is for what she calls 'good reason', which I call 'the need to privately self destruct'. She hates to be worried about and prefers to fuck herself up without an audience. For a girl who starts drinking when she gets up in the morning, every morning, getting serious about harming yourself involves things I have nightmares about. Things that have scarred her. Things she won't talk about.
I arrive as she is getting off work and she is not so much with the eye contact. Not good. But I know how to fix that. I haven't loved her this long without learning. I start drinking. I can't keep pace with her, god knows, but there always comes this point where I am drunk enough and I look over at her. And she actually looks back. Click. I'm in. Bam. Powerful stuff.
See, everyone who meets her loves her. Witness my mom sending me in to certain drunken insanity because she is worried about G.. Who she met, oh, four times. My mom says there is just something about her that makes you want to spend time with her, take care of her. It's so true.
Sitting in the bar, watching everyone try to catch her attention- they all want to get inside just a little. I wonder how this still works for her. To me, the last 8 or 9 years, she has seemed dulled and distant and guarded and just a fraction of herself. If they ever saw her as I remember, they would all go blind and mad. She once was amazing. (She says that she was only ever 'mildly intriguing'.) And they are all into this dim, smudgy version...well, they are all drunks.
She only has meaningless sex. Random sex. She says she sometimes thinks of having a girlfriend, but that would require her to quit drinking, so she just keeps picking women up in bars. All the women she has tried to have a relationship with were crazy. Probably, I offer, because only crazy women are willing to fall in love with an alcoholic. True. She figured that out, finally.
I can not maintain any sort of a reasonable drinking pace. So the window is small and it isn't long before she has to take me home and we flop on the bed in her studio apartment and fall fast asleep while the dog watches late-night cable and thumps her tail on the floor hopefully everytime someone rolls over or opens an eye.
One night we are walking home over the Morrison Bridge and I am explaining to her that I can't lose one more person, and that's why I came to Portland. And she patiently explains back that she has tried to kill herself off, both in several bold maneuvers and in a passive drawn out campaign, and it simply doesn't work. She's resigned to this life of work, drink, sleep, sex. No more drugs, no more cutting, no more violence. Just enough drinking to maintain, and granted that is a lot. She's unhappy, she tells me, but she is stable. Well, I tell her back, I miss you and I love you, and I hate that I can only get inside long-distance, or on a drunk.
Apartment. Dog. TV. Flop. Sleep. I wake up early in the morning with my back to her and she has carefully lain her arm around my waist, but her whole self is so taut and tensed her fist is clenched. I feel like if I so much as breathe wrong she will explode into pieces. She rests her forehead on my shoulder and sighs. I fall asleep.
I text her to tell her I am home safe and get nothing in return for two days. I can't sleep. This morning I send, "Disappearing?" and she responds "No". Well, that's reassuring.