introspective periscope : peeking inside since Y2K ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- why i'm not going and the glamour factor waiting for tomorrow - twentieth of june, 2001-pre eclyptic evening- "you think i'd leave your side? you know me better than that. think i'd leave you down when you're down on your knees? i wouldn't do that."~sade if i hadn't talked to you last night for all of those expensive hours, maybe this would be killing me. maybe this would be crushing me. maybe this would be destroying me. but it isn't. instead, i feel like i've made some good choices. i'm not going to california. its breaking my heart, but at the same time...its giving me so much to look forward to. last night, he sent it to me on a spreadsheet. "what does it look like to you?" he asked, as i looked at the Excel file that showed what i already knew: i was five hundred dollars short of what he had; five hundred dollars short of my even half. and what else could i have expected, really? i hate my low paying job and, try as i will to find the humor or the good in it, i only remember every day why it is that i've got to get away. i remember what it was like to work there those years ago and feel like i was wasting my life away in the muddy rut in which i'd gotten myself stuck. and rightly so. i am more than a drive thru queen. i am more than a uniform and a thirty minute break. i am more than that. i am so much more. but it was only seven dollars an hour and it was only a month and if i hadn't taken those weekends to go and see T, it still would have come up short and there are no excuses, don't you see? i hope he can understand. i hope he can see where i'm coming from. i did what i could. i knew early on that this was going to be the problem. "what does it look like to you?" "well, it looks like the already understood deficit of my half put on a spreadsheet." ...and i dont know why he had to put it on a spreadsheet. maybe it was his way of organizing. maybe it was his way of making me feel as though i'd made the choice. he is, after all, a businessman. he didn't used to be. but he is now. i don't know why he had to put it on a spreadsheet but there it was, emailed to me in a crisp little 3K file marked "expenses". How dry. How unfeeling. How him, these days. i didn't need to open it to know where it was going to end. and i think i dealt with that before i even double clicked to open it. i think i dealt with it days ago. but still, my head was swimming. there was my dog to think about. and i'd made the bold choice to give her up. bold. forced. whichever. but the other night, while i sat on his mother's porch and listened to her talk about coming out with us, i realized just how naive i'd been. i realized that, if by any chance we should fail, it would be my fault and if we should succeed, it would be completely his success. and i'm not ready to share that. i'm not ready to be the downfall or the benefactor. i need my own choices. i need my own balance. and its not that i don't love his mother because i do. she has listened and taken me for who i am but there are just some things that they will never understand. they will never understand that not everyone's mom and dad are like them. they will never understand how much i've already had to do on my own. they will never understand why i've had to learn certain things the hard way. but that aside, i can admit to being scared. i mean...who goes to the other side of the country to one of the most expensive cities with only enough to get them there in hopes of getting a job within days? i'm all about spontanaeity but this is the sort of thing that needs more planning. i suppse that when i started to accept that eight hundred dollars a month for an apartment was cheap, i should have started to wonder at my own acceptance of that sort of thing. and don't get me wrong here. i want to get out of this state more than anything. the winters here will kill me. the winters here are so dark and lonely and destitute and long and i just don't have it in me to make it through another. not without you. and so it was decided tonight. i called back after dinner just like i said i would. i had eaten slowly, pondering the options, knowing what my answer was going to be. i thought of the uncashed paycheck sitting up there in the peach room that is not mine and i thought of the check to come the day after tomorrow: more money in my possession than i've known in nearly five years: i've become a paycheck to paycheck sort of girl. but not anymore. and i thought of the hours and the possibilities and of a more northern place that would still be by the much needed ocean but with trees and something like seasons. and i thought of him. i called back after dinner like i said i would and i don't know why i was crying except that i felt like i was letting you down...except that i felt like i was setting myself free again...like i felt when i decided not to go back there again. i felt free like i was going to do this one for myself. like i was returning to the original plan. and if i didn't love you, B, i probalby wouldn't have cried. i probably wouldn't have asked you all those times if you were alright. i probably wouldn't feel like i was letting you down. and i know, in some ways, i am. but i think there are more, less obvious ways that i'm doing the right thing...for you, and for me. i remembered when we lived together. i remembered all the things about me that drove you crazy; the things about you that drove me wildly nuts. and i remembered how i felt when i realized we'd grown up...when i realized you'd gone on ahead at the businessman pace and i have been taking my time and learning so much and taking the time to enjoy the ride. and i'm not saying that you're doing it all wrong...i'm saying you're doing whats right for you and i'm proud that you're doing what you always knew you would. but me....we always knew that i'm slower than you. i just wish that sometimes, i had that same compassionately naive person that you used to be around... and this doesn't mean that you're any closer to me than you were...its just that sometimes, your matter of factness crushes me. it sometimes bothers me. i know you're accessible and emotionally there for me, but sometimes, your word choice hurts. He is a linguist and has a million more eloquent ways of putting it. and he's not growing up so fast. we are peter pan and wendy. we are different than you and thats okay. but where was i? ah, yes. i cried. i cried and i worried and then, i felt relieved. i called her at work and she put me on that schedule. she asked if things were alright. she seemed to care a little. i needed that because i need people to understand and not ask too many questions. i need people to do that quiet kind of caring that says that they don't understand but do realize that its just not something that i want to dwell on. i want to think for the future. i want to think for december. i want to make this work. i want the old plan. and i wonder if portland is lovely this time of year? i wonder how much snow they get. i wonder if i'll like to spell oregon? i wonder if they've got an open booth at the office there and if i could transfer. i wonder what the rent costs. i wonder what color my car is going to be. i wonder how much better this is going to feel come winter time. because i've got that uncashed check. and i've got another one coming the day after tomorrow. i've got the most wonderful understanding kind compassionate man in the world on my arm and in my heart...supporting me and loving me regardless of my geography. and i've got the possibilities and the dreams again and i'm not worried about grey carpet. i'm thinking about storage units and a place for my dog to vacate for a few months. i'm thinking about how nice it will be to be close. i'm thinking about cities that like dogs. i'm thinking. and i am feeling better and i think that if i hadn't talked to you last night for all of those expensive hours on the telephone, i think it would be a lot difference. you make my world a lot easier to swallow. you make me want to dream. you make me want to give it the best shot i have in me and i can't imagine doing it without you by my side. its like that song i want to play for you. its like everything i've told you. i can't imagine my world without you. i dont' even want to try. i'm dreaming. i'm planning. my god, baby, we're going to be so glamourous. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .what came before. - .what happened next. a diamond at the bottom of the drain - 20 october 2017 |
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