introspective periscope : peeking inside since Y2K ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- fluid filled girls and the full moon effect 24 days til nobody likes me - fifth of august, 2001-came home early- "we are the party generation."~dar williams i know you didn't want to say goodbye to me, but i forced it on you. i know you were upset with me. i knew when i saw you hug your sister goodbye and you knew damned well i was going with her and yet, in the passive aggressive way that you've always done things, you turned and went back into the kitchen. and so i sought you out instead and my heart was in my throat and i fought back tears that i didn't want them to see. i think that in the last year or so, i've become more comfortable with my tears and more knowledgeable about the sorts of tears that fall. angry tears that come fast and hard and hot. sad tears that seep from my eyes stinging and slow and wincing. i wasn't going to cry tonight. not in front of them. everyone in the kitchen had a familiar face but faces change in time. they've all grown a little older. perhaps a little wiser. and i think i realized how much i've drifted from your life in the last years i've spent away. and don't get me wrong, i didn't expect for you to be miserable and lonely. i didn't expect that you'd shun the culture completely...i guess i just thought that all of that plastic niceness and the armloads of superficial smiles...well, i thought you were more than that. and you are. more than that. see, when i walked in the door, i was irate already. i'd spent the evening with her and i couldn't figure out why i was so on edge. she's made me think too much this week as it is. and i'm learning a bit of selfishness again in all of this manipulative wild. i realized how thoughtless she can be when i had to ask her to carry a bag or two in with me as she headed down the alley leaving them to me. i was already irate. and the moon wasn't showing then, but when you said tonight was a full moon, it made a bit more sense to me. and a full gorgeous moon it was. and i found my thoughts drifting south to tennessee...found them drifting home. and i know you don't think i'm going to go...but i am. and i wonder if all of this animosity is merely veiled separation anxiety or something of its sorts. i think i remember susan and yogi having this problem after having each other for all of those years before they graduated. i'm going, you know. i'm miserable here. i want to be with him...near him...happy. i want to be h a p p y. and i will be. happy. and i watched you open gifts and my stomach churned with black beans and nervousness. even after all of these years, you are still the hardest person for whom to shop. you're even harder than my dad. i didn't know if you'd like the sweater. i'm glad you did. of all of the things i gave to you today, the poem and the cd were the things of which i felt most proud. they were from me. from my hands. from my h e a r t. they were things i made with Y O U in mind. and then people started showing up, as they sometimes do at parties, i suppose. and i had to have him call because i already felt miserable. i already felt like i was going to cry.you see. i don't know if you've kept count. i haven't, but its been awhile. its been a lot of months since i've been a good sized crowd of familiar strangers. its been so long since i've been to one of her parties. and there have been reasons for that. i have never felt like i belong with them. well..maybe i did for awhile, but their compassion is so fickle, changing with moods and the phases of the moon. there was a full moon tonight. and i would have liked to have seen Flower and Steve and Really Fucking Hot Donna and whoever else might remember me and still remember that i'm a person and not just a big fat body sweating and drinking and smoking and taking up space in the corner. how do they all know to disregard me?i guess what i'm trying to say is that i wasnt comfortable. i wasn't comfortable and you were on your way to intoxication and i knew then that you didn't need me there anymore, really. i knew that you were comfortable in your own house with those people and i knew that no amount of coconut rum was going to calm the thoughts in my head. you aren't the only one with unbearable thoughts. and so when they said i could ride home with them, i could nearly breathe again except for the thought of how you were going to be when i told you i was leaving that early. you...you are the party generation. i...well...i've changed a little. maybe a lot. i've settled down and just want some peace. i like to be wild from time to time, but i can't plan it like you can. i am the big girl in the polyester purple tank top with the criss crossed straps and the green khaki cargo junk pants. i am the big sweaty girl sipping rum and pineapple juice in the corner not really talking to anyone because she doesn't really have much to say to people who can hardly remember her name. and i am the girl who is full of fluids reacting to a full moon and irritable in the heat. i am the fan hog. i am the one that wrote a poem for you about how you're my best friend but wonders if this is drifting...wonders if this is cooling...wonders if this is a comfortable passive aggressive way of dealing with the separation to come in the next few months.because i'm going, you know. i'm going and getting away from all of the plastic and beer and yelling and finding some peace colliding souls with the person who knows how to better salve my heart since its metamorphosis. metamorphisis? whichever. you are the party generation. i am the hydrated girl crying alone in the light of the full moon, caught up in the tide of things going on around her and in herself. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .what came before. - .what happened next. a diamond at the bottom of the drain - 20 october 2017 |
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