The mean reds

http://movieclips.com/AEsN-breakfast-at-tiffanys-movie-the-mean-reds/

Its 11pm. One hell of a day. my cheeks are stained with little white veins where tears have traveled and with them taken bits of makeup leaving behind almost mocking trails. My throat is sore, thumping with a pulse from “talking it out” with girlfriends, lovers, family members, even my pudgy chihuahua. My eyes though, my eyes are the worst. The computer screen feels like staring into the sun and my eye sockets feel like they are about to collapse. 

   This is the only time I feel creative.

 I wish sometimes this were not the case. I wish that when I found myself wrapped in loving arms at 11pm that I would be inspired to gently pull out a notepad or even my phone and scribble down little glittery pieces of love,light and sweetness. I just cant.

   When I was a little girl I was lonely a lot. An only child with employed parents with social lives was not the american dream its painted to be. 

    Most of my childhood was spent occupying my time with intricate games or crafts that made me feel less alone. One winter I made an entire village of people made out of popsicle sticks. They all had names and distinctive outfits. There were Mommies and Daddies and little popsicle sticks cut in half to be children.Every family had a number and last name scribbled on their backs with sharpies, you know...just in case anyone ever got lost. Everyone had a place. Even wacky aunt Mildred with orange felt hair and  a zebra gum wrapper dress...what a crazy bitch she was!

  When the weather was nice I would go hunting outside my Fathers apartment. Armed with a Ranger Rick magnifying glass and a net used to catch butterflies I would scour  the manicured bushes and stone paths searching for pill bugs or “rolly pole-y s”.  Catching the bugs was easy, at the very hint of a threat the grey caterpillar like creatures would fold up their bodies into a perfectly round hard shelled ball and just sit there, sometimes seconds, sometimes minutes. Easy to catch I would collect enough into my net until I was satisfied and lay them out on the sun heated concrete. I would sit and watch them unfold one by one. Watch them cautiously learn to trust, get their baring about them and run for the nearest soil. Pretty soon I smartened up enough to bring an old shoebox out with me and hold them all hostage there. As their tiny bodies unraveled, scared, unsure, untrusting they would panic looking for a way to escape. 

   These days I felt so powerful. I myself being a little pill bug, frightened, untrusting and terrified of someone hurting me. Once I opened up my hard shell to expose my soft underbelly it was usually met with immediate regret and then more aloneness.  It felt nice not to be so alone on these hot summer days. The rolly poleys and I.

     Sometimes on nights like these. When I feel the twinge of panic in my heart as I realize for the first time in the day while everyones asleep how alone I really am I wish on whatever is close (usually my stuff unicorn) that I could be transformed into that creative, optimistic girl that made the world her playground so that she would never feel that she was facing this planet alone. Until that day comes again, I will fold myself up into my perfectly round hard shell and bid you goodnight.

You cant go home again

Thomas Wolfe wrote a novel titled “you cant go home again”  When I first heard this I figured what he meant is that you cant move back home in every literal sense. You can, I have seen many a friend do it. Either post breakup with tear stained cheeks, or financial reasons with shameful eyes and empty pockets and even sometimes because the parents are the ones that need you. For whatever reason, in most situations yes, you can go home.

     Although I really believe that what Mr. Wolfe was referring to was that once something is gone you cant get it back. The whole concept is one that is more frightening to me than any ghost story could ever be. Yet a reality I am forced to face.

    Sometimes I try to convince myself that I can go back home. I find myself driving the hour back to the town where I grew up, or in your bed or the passenger seat of your car, just like I always have. I unlock the door to my childhood home with the same key I’ve always used. I sit at my kitchen table with the same worn in chairs we have used for years of dinners, family game nights, birthday parties or sheet forts in the living room. The chairs make the same creak when you sit on them, they are a bit worn on the sides but they still look the same but somehow distant, they are not mine anymore. This is not my home, You are not mine.

    My room is no longer painted pep-to bismol pink with angsty teenage quotes and plastered with pictures of smiley faces from summer camps and sleepovers. My room is now white, with an Ansel adams painting hung over the place where my vanity use to be. My furniture is gone. Although it is furnished with a bed for guest and a small desk It feels as empty as the pit in my stomach as I look at it. This is not my room anymore. This does not belong to me its just a faint memory of what use to be.

      When I find myself alone at night, no one else around, my mind drifts back to what was. Guilt forms a blanket over me where my down comforter once was, only its not soft and cozy its hot and itchy and all the sudden made of lead. I am forced to lay there unable to move, faced with my own reality. No one left you little girl, you left. You were not thrown out in the cold. You packed up all your belongings into brown boxes lined with duct tape and moved across the ocean.You decided to leave. You left. 

       You cant go home again. I am stuck in this conundrum every time. If it tugs at my heart when i see the skeleton of my room why do I go back home?  Why do I sneak back in your bed, tracing my fingers in swirly patterns across your back? Why do I pick you up from the airport??

      The truth, The truth is that when I don't go home I am just stuck with memories. Memories that haunt me night and day. I would rather live with the day to day pain in my chest then long for something so far away.  I would rather have you tell me about the girls you have replaced our nights with then not hear your voice at all. I would rather hold you and know I can never have you again then sitting home alone trying to remember what it was like with you in my arms. 

    You cant go home again, but you certainly can visit from time to time. and for now, i think I am ok with that.