I know it doesn’t seem like it but I spend a lot of time trying to avoid thinking about things that had a negative impact on me. This means I try not to think about my life from about age 14 to 18. After that I was able to put myself in some better situations.
But back to this not thinking business, when you avoid whole blocks of time you can forget good things too, you can forget people. I can name them all here. I can remember their voices and they way they looked and how they made me feel.
In the case of Sally we looked like such opposites but she was just as insecure and unloved as I was. I remember her showing me a picture of herself pre-Chicago. I think she had come from Ohio (who hadn’t) and she was wearing keds and she looked pretty much like I did before I got to Chicago, skinny, tanned, faded smile. It was clear from that picture that she could have still been saved. If someone would just have fucking hugged her or something. She was my first high school friend and she was not any more fun or bad or depressed than I was. We were completely thrilled to smoke pot in the alley and apply and re-apply eyeliner all day long. And smoke. She smoked my brand and I think in that school there were about three white girls who smoked newports. The other girl was older than us and much cuter too. I wish I remembered her name, we thought she was too cool to be seen with us but she seemed to know where to find me at all times. Once while walking through the sprawling metropolis that was Lincoln Park High School she sauntered out from behind the gym door just as I was walking past it and asked for smoke, said she was out. I told her the White Hen would sell to us but she shook her head and jerked her head in the direction of some boyfriend looking thing.
The next year in school brought bigger problems. I had not received any credits from the previous year and so I was still a freshman. This did not seem to phase any of my friends and new, fresh faced and messed up kids joined our bad kid crowd. I wasn’t able to enjoy my new found popularity because my life was getting bigger and bigger. My brain was absolutely reeling everyday. That summer my dad had died and although I was going through the motions of my life I was not really there. I am sure there were positive or at least enjoyable things happening around me but I can’t recall a single one. When he died I stopped living and I can’t remember when I started again. Any kind of decision that would come my way never got made.
What did I want to eat?
Where did I want to go?
When?
With who?
What did I want from my friends?
What could I give to them?
In the end I could not give them anything and after repeatedly failing at that in long-term situations I stopped. I just stopped making friends, I stopped keeping them. I stopped and anyone who could not tolerate that was gone by the time I left for Maryland. There were a few die hards and I remember them well but eventually I would be called on to do something. To be there and I wouldn’t and that was it. It was totally unconscious, like limiting your food intake because your teeth bother you.
I could put on make up, drink, smoke, sleep with people and so I think it looked to the outside that I was the same person. But in my head I started distrusting people. All people. I realized that I could not refuse to meet people forever. I love meeting people, I love talking to them and figuring them out. I love sleeping with them, drinking with them, sharing my terror. So I continued to make friends and boyfriends even though I knew how it was going to turn out. I wanted things to work and I knew I couldn’t stay away. So I am in hiding for as long as I can stand it.
Right now things are pretty easy because everyone I meet (and I’ve meet tons of new people in the last month) knows I am going and (this is great) they expect absolutely nothing from me. I should move all the time!
I can’t say that during this time I’ve met anyone that I’d want to keep around because I know how that would work out. Things would be great for (insert time frame here, usually about two years) and then someone would need something and I would be me. I would not know what to do. I would probably encourage them to drink more and then move. I have terrible advice and each time I meet someone I like (this happens a lot with girls) I am always excited at the possibility of having a friend! Though deep in my head some little person is sitting on a file cabinet marked People Who You Did Not Help, People Who Don’t Trust You and Think You’re Horrible and he is waving his finger in a no-no fashion. He is a skinny gay man who wears a vest and uses lots of hairspray, if he was not a temp that lived in my head he would be excited about cake and shoes. I know this man, I see him all the time and he is always telling me no. So I meet a girl (or a boy) and I am happy for a whole day or week before I remember the man in my head is actually in charge of reality. If I am having a really good year (and I do, frequently, sometimes they are even consecutive) I will continue on in my fake relationship and fool myself quite well and if I do say so myself I am so good and ending relationships in the worst ways possible. I should write a fucking book.
