Cello making me so damn sad.
Hello self. I am about to get all kinds of brutal with you.
You know sometimes things break on purpose, and sweeping it up and throwing it out feels like liberation.
Some conversations are amazing because you can think while your having them, the revelations can fly out and grab you in the oh yeah, and the oh yeah is everything, all of a sudden. It’s not just weariness behind the eyelid, or a dull ache in the center, but an absolute in the moment kinda thing.
It's your own truth. All you need to hear it is a sounding board, a friend who will be there without taking your shit, or going to sleep too soon or letting you get your pants off.
Sometimes your own truth is inside bitchslapping you and throwing broken things at your feet and you pretend you have no idea why. But a thing seen can not be unseen, and little nags become big drags and frantic circles. You reach a place where you are so stupid blind you can only hope your friends will not allow you to act that dumb in their presence for too long.
You can only hope that when you reach a certain pathetic level they will have had enough of you. They will tell you they do not want to see you, because they love you. Because you are special, because you are their bright light too and right now you're flashing Morse code for "Please don't fuck me I am a pathetic sniveling worm and this whole thing is happening because I can not decipher, speak, sing, scream my own truth, please distract me so I don't have to face anything". They will refuse to participate.
It won't matter anymore about history or nostalgia or an ache so fucking big you fell in and couldn't swim with the monkeys. It won't matter that someone once said yes and someone once said no, that your thigh had more jiggle than you thought your romance could ever sustain.
Here's to the friends who caught you being petty and called you on it, here is for gems in the muck, pearls in the river, words on paper, songbirds, rhythm, time, getting through hard feelings.
Most of all, silly self, stuck on old forms, running in circles, having guilt because eight years ago you had sex with the last person aside from your husband, and you are wishing for a do over. Because you were such a chickenshit, little twit, afraid to enjoy what you had because you actually loved him. Afraid to feel joy because you were certain you would just loose it again. Afraid to have your moments while you had them because you were so sure you did not deserve it anyway. Uh, hello.
You are no longer that five-year-old girl, dragged down the hallway by the hair, being called a whore by your mother and grandma because you got caught being molested. You are not that same girl who sat all night by the radiator being asked by your mother why you did this to her. The things that happened to you were not voluntary, you did not ask to be degraded for the rest of your life just because your uncle was horny and free of personal guidance.
You have a thing you have always known you had, and it is partly sexual (which you will just have to deal with), but it is mostly not, and you will have to deal with that also. You will have to recognize your own talent, and admit that you get sick unless you can stick words together. You must write, it’s what’s for dinner, for the rest of ever. It does not matter who hates you, or loves you or has an opinion about who you are. Who fucking cares? You have a thing that is yours, and no one can take that away from you. If you don’t use it you are a loser. And you knew that, and you know that, and you know all about reality and pain and circumstance. You also know about great beauty.
You know all about other people who need to get their shit together but pretend that you have to go first, and you hate that shit, so don’t fucking do it to anyone else. You call the shots, so if you are still pissed off about circumstance that’s your own gig, and you’re not getting any payoff but pain. And maybe you think you need that. Maybe you think you are supposed to make things as hard as possible. Maybe you think you are supposed to go around with all this broken glass in a sack on your back, because you swear that as soon as you get hold of the right glue you’re gonna make some kinda fountain, the likes of which the world has never seen. You are the glue. You are the fountain. Only your perspective is ever going to make any difference in how you chose to see reality, or the reality you react to. You know people love you. You know you are making an impact, and that’s not for you to measure. You know you are cool, you know you rock, you know you are a good fucking person. You even know you are a good friend. You know your friends are real. Why are you testing them?
You lived through some fucked up shit. You know you had it worse than many, but you also know you are lucky, you are gifted, you have an insight you pretend away at your convenience. You can see the truth, you have intuition, and when you trust it you are rewarded. When you go against it you are smacked. You just got smacked real hard, how did that feel? Do you need another one? Let me wind up our arm.
And you almost ignored it didn’t you? Almost ran up to make a nice big mess of things, with a truly delicious person who would never deserve advances under such loathsome pretenses. You just wanted to make some change. Luckily he was smarter than you. And you could hear in his voice that he was struggling with hard words, that part of him wanted to just pretend away his own intuition. And there is that deep and amazingly painful realization that you have been here before, in reverse. That you wanted to take his sadness and fix it in the worst way. You strained not to hold him for a whole year, and you hung out nearly everyday. You struggled with the idea that he loved you and it was not right for for you to be together at that time either. You could not just be casual about it, and you kept putting walls up and hoping he would scale them in spite of you. That HE would just decide these big things about your destiny and you would be living some fantastic love, when really you would have probably just hung around his mom’s basement, smoking far too much pot and drinking too much, and spending all the gas money on impulses. What you loved so much about him was his way, his laugh, that long wool coat, the way his nostrils would flare in the woods and he would march beside you, behind you, in front of you, and your breathe would sync up together. You could smoke him under the table, laugh at his whacked out humor, enjoy the most simple things. But you could not allow yourself to call it what it was, and that is not his fault now.
You are being mean. You are being petty. You are making yourself ridiculous, so dummy up. OK? Because I am sick of this limbo shit, I think we have had enough. So you loved. You loved well. You loved every word out of his pretty mouth, you ate up every thing he gave you, he brought you good media, perfect fruits, and ache so big you fell in, and he would not fish you out, only tell you, “Stop aching. Get it together woman, for Christ’s sake, I had to do this all by myself. You started a fire then ran away, left me to put it out. You were mean and I forgave you. You were mean again. Are you going to keep doing that? We did what we did until we stopped doing it. We are doing other things now. Hadn’t you noticed?”
Damn it, that is so fucking wise and hard to say and hard to hear. Real love is not all pretty roses. When he told you he loved you, you heard him from a real place, and it was not at all like you thought it would be. It was honest and raw, which is what you kept asking for, which is what you will always get, which is what you need. Love that lets you get on alone. Like a real friend where you once had a vague fantastic notion. And now all that is left is for you to forgive your own self for not always knowing everything, for not always paying attention to your inner voice, and for the times when you did pay attention and took the hardest path (rocky, steep and straight up), wondering the whole time if you were doing the right thing.
You hurt some people, some people hurt you, that’s gonna happen, you’ll have to adjust. You are bigger than that. You know better. Don’t make me smack you. You need to make a ceremony of forgiveness. You have been in the best places. You remember what wholeness felt like. No man is your other half; there is enough of yourself for completeness. You will need to be much more specific with your wants and needs. You will need to listen to that inner voice.
There will always be people who have something to say about your way, and how it should be, but after awhile you will be able to discern your own truth, and other opinions will matter less to you. And then, any friends you have left will have something better in you. And any love you make can be savored, enjoyed and mutual. And you will not be a slave to once upon a time I had a bad thing and I knew too much, once upon a time I had a good thing and knew nothing about it.
So, um, your not gonna keep on making this a bad trip are you? Life is too short for this shit girl. I am your inner mama and I am only gonna put up with so much sass.