Thursday, May 27, 2004
I miss him.
(Yes, I know this is out of keeping with nearly the last three years of this website, but here I am, relaying feelings having to do with personal relationships. Don't worry, it'll probably still be vague.)
The last week was hard. (Hell, the last few weeks were, I guess -- though I can't say when it first began creeping into the front part of my consciousness that this would have to end sooner or later, maybe it was there all year long.) Not hard in the sense that it was miserable, but hard in that it was really, really nice in some way I can't explain because there are some things you can't really put into words.
Which is not to say things were perfect -- I'm sure they never were. Between passive-agressive tendencies, emotional baggage and all the usual crap people have, there were issues. And more to the point, long-distance sucks and there are lot of reasons not to deal with it. But sitting here alone at 12:45 a.m., writing about this all in the past tense, I'm having a hard time remembering what exactly they were.
I knew this was going to be hard. Break-ups are always hard, especially when it's with someone you still care about, but for stupid, logistical reasons, should not continue to date.
Hard, I expected. This weird feeling that something is being scraped out of my insides leaving me empty, I did not. I did not anticipate being unable to go two consecutive days without crying -- I didn't know I had so many tears. I wasn't planning on my bed feeling so lonely at night.
I am not sure what to say when we talk online now without it turning into a string of "I-miss-you's," which aren't exactly sentiments I ought to be expressing for my own sanity's sake. But when he tells me he's going to bed and to call if I need anything, I know I can't call, even if maybe I'm not entirely OK. Because it used to be that if I wasn't OK, I'd call, mumble some incoherent statement and he'd invite me over and then, even if I couldn't explain things, I felt better.
I can't do that now.
It's hard to go from seeing someone on a daily basis to not at all. I haven't been able to locate the switch in my brain and flip it from "on" to "off" mode. I am pretty sure it's not there.
If it was, I'm not sure I'd have wanted to hit it, or when I would have -- though I guess when we said goodbye at the corner and walked way for good would've been the appropriate time. Except the moment came upon me a little faster than I'd reailzed. It wasn't until we were walking back from lunch on Walnut (my mother's car probably heading over the Walt Whitman Bridge as we went) when he said "Let's go the long way" that I realized that this was actually the end. I felt rushed and unprepared despite all the advance weeks' notice, but maybe if I had known leaving my house that it'd be the last time I left with him, I'd have had more trouble leaving like a normal, sane human being.
At any rate, I hardly returned to it as such.
Saturday, May 22, 2004
I'm home again -- "home home" as I like to call the place where my family lives. That's opposed to just "home" which until today had been that familiar block of West Philadelphia row homes.
Most of my goodbyes were hasty and, to be honest, half-assed. I don't like goodbyes, but then, nobody does. I suppose it'd be strange to take joy in the act of saying farwell to loved ones. But still: because I don't like to do it, I don't do it well. Whatever "well" might be in this case.
In most cases, I hurried it too much, cut off sentiments about "Good luck with that" to remind them that I'd see them soon. Very soon, probably. Not so bad. Not so bad at all.
Except we can't ever go back to the way things were. I can return to the same strip of Philadelphia street, I can parade up and down Locust. It'll still never make the moment happen again.
I think that's what made some of the goodbyes so impossibly hard: I don't want to leave. I don't want to loose this. I don't know how to stop myself from missing it, which hurts. I feel empty and I know I can't run to the places I usually look when I feel that way. I'm not there anymore. Holding onto things won't make them stay, so maybe it's time to let go, but I miss you.
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
I suppose you might have been wondering where I've been these last few weeks. Those of you keeping track might note that I turned 22 last month (for the first time in three years, I didn't mark the passing of another year with an entry, but maybe I've run out of things to say on the birthday topic). You might also note that I graduate in less than a week.
Sixteen semesters and six different bedrooms later and I find myself once again faced with the task of packing things up. Except this time, I'm not coming back. This won't be here to come back to anyway.
Here are the things I remember: a flustered girl returning from a camping trip making apologetic introductions, nights so hot I thought I'd never breathe again, that one evening on Junior Balcony that can never be recreated but will always rerun in my mind, the longest bus ride ever to Franklin Mills that cemented a friendship, red plastic cups and paper armbands, another night on Junior Balcony that again may always haunt me.
The first one to move in and the last to leave, the way South Philly looks sparkles gold at night in the distance, watching planes take off and land with a knot in my stomach, missing deadlines and grad student rallys, the first time I ever saw the inside of Smoke's (the truth: I only said yes because he said he could get me in but I'm not sorry I did), an awful couch that was a great place to talk.
Walking through streets that made no sense until my feet made them familiar (again), worrying, for the first time ever, about my accent, three crazy English girls who threatened to kidnap me. Wasting countless quarters on Erotic Photo Hunt, drunk cleaning parties and the happy revelation that wherever I went, there'd be someone worth meeting.
Watching your hand during the first 90 minutes of Citizen Kane with more anticipation than I have ever watched any hand before. Walking home from work at dawn. The sting of chloraseptic spray and taste in my mouth that was so hard to shake. A windowless office and sleepless nights. Driving to 69th Street, just to go to Pizza Hut.
More than I can ever say.
I feel like I'm writing in a yearbook. I guess this site has sort of been like that, in some ways, over the years. I don't know.
Just under 49 months ago, I went to my senior prom. I didn't like my hair, I tore my dress at the end of the evening and my date drove me crazy. When I finally arrived at the afterparty, I remember changing, going outside and throwing myself down on the still-warm hood of a car, in tears. I said I didn't know how I was going to move to Philly. How I didn't know anyone there. How I wouldn't be able to hack it. How I'd be alone and lonely and left out of all the fun I imagined would be going on in Boston.
It seems silly now, that those were the things I worried about. None of them turned out to be true: I met people. Some turned out to be great, some turned out to be idiots; the former became my friends, the latter became my comfort. I don't really know where I'll be a year from now, or how I'll hack it. But I know I will.
There are other things I remember too: along the lines of thud in your stomach and the life seems to continue but how, is it, exactly, that this bad dream doesn't seem to be one you can wake up from? Along the lines of waiting for things that will never come. Of holding out hope for people you know are hopeless. And leaving ones you don't want to.
This is the sort of entry I hate looking at later. It's all drippy sentimental and ridiculous and I don't expect you to read through it. It's also too vague to be rewarding in the end. But tune in again next week, kids, and maybe you'll get some answers.