 |
solstice: Drunking | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
›comments[0] ›all comments ›post #715 ›bio: kristen ›perma-link ›9/15/2025 ›13:37 ›archives ›first post ›that week
|
So, a miraculous miracle did not occur. Alyssa died. It threw me for a loop and pulled things into perspective. What matters in life? We can all try and mask our pain, yet it will bite us if we don't ... And that's the part I don't know. How do you rid yourself of the pain that no one understands? The baby deer was still trapped in the back yard with an open gate. It had been in my yard since Friday - the day I heard you were pulled off life support. I've put water out for it, but it can't seem to figure out where it's going. A mockingbird flies to the bush that needs pruning. I've lost one of the balls and can't figure out how. I keep wanting to use third person, but fuck it. I ate a tub of ice cream, egg rolls, a biscuit and drank like a sailor to try and not ask. Or maybe I did it so I could ask the question that I keep wondering - the one that made the last quasi-relationship that I was in become a non-starter: "do you keep hunting for different prey, or are you currently satisfied with my taste?" This was my struggle when I was in the bed with him and yet again that fucking pillow fort that blocks me from what I want: being engulfed in his arms like a ship in a safe harbor. Alyssa would understand. Her entire life was built on insecure and fading beauty. She had a great sunglass game. I did their tarot cards for them once when we were in key west. I remember going "wow, surprisingly, the cards are for your marriage." And I think of John sitting in the jail knowing that his kids have no parent now. They have been split up and are in life-altering pain probably trying to distract as much as possible. That's how it starts doesn't it? We don't want to just wallow in sadness and enter a lifetime perpetual pity-party table for one. Instead, we prefer to dance with only brief pockets of breakthrough sadness. If I knew how to work it, I wouldn't be writing the same old diatribes to a blank screen hoping I myself can transcend or work through my own pain and be a fun time for others. She would understand. I liked her. I remember the fight she had with John where she dropped the laptop from the balcony onto the tile floor. He had called her fat. She had father issues and was raised by a stepfather. There was plenty of money all around her, but no one ever let her control any of it. She had to be a charity case. She wanted pretty things and a loved life. She wanted her girls to have it better and more thoroughly loved than she was. The almost usual. Her biggest lesson was really thinking - really believing - she was good enough. She didn't have to have to boob job, the face lifts, the pills. She was a beautiful girl. Surely, she saw it in her daughters. That stage where you walk into the room, and you see faces light up like their god has visited them in the flesh. Things got hard. I wonder if John had buried that fetus instead of throwing it in the trash - if that would have been enough to not let them break. I still wonder "what happened." Was her liver so weak from drinking and killing pain? Did she have a defective one and it wasn't detected until later? All I know is that when she got kicked out of the charity house with her two daughters and $15K - we failed her. What choice did we give her? Stripping or whoring. Did we think she was going to go to trade school while waitressing and picking up the girls? Based on what? her strengths were her charm and beauty. She went from man to man to try to maybe win. It didn't work, and she collapsed before John was even in jail for a full year. She had needed him to survive. "I'm no better than her. I just didn't have kids." "So you do believe in eugenics, and you win - you're way more fucked up than I am." And it was like what I was talking about with Will - you want them to know the context - you want them to know why you drink - why you were stoned for a decade. You want them to know that the monsters were inside you and constantly on the verge of winning. "You know when you said that about smoking - his face contorted." "Oh. I've told that story before. The real news was when I told him that my father - his grandfather - had quit drinking because he beat the shit out of my brother - his father - for insulting my mother's cooking - mimicking my drunk father - but it wasn't the first time he had hit him, but my father went to a place that scared him and at the bar he fled to afterwards someone he respected asked 'bill, have you ever thought about quitting drinking?" It wasn't even the worst parts, but what was I going to do? I had done that before - the battle of who had the shittiest hand. The trick was not to toss it out every time you do something daft. "well, I've been hurts, so that's why I hurt you/me." "Are you looking for other people? are you still on the bee trolling for less fucked up specimens?" "no. I'm not. I didn't get off the profile because I didn't want you to think I'd gone away." That didn't make sense, but I took it. I was drinking the tequila I bought for him when I asked it. I had said "oh, I'm not going to do this." and then I launched right in thanks to the liquid courage. I had told him that I probably should have been aborted like my father wanted me to be. It's still quite a shitty thing to say to all the parts of me, but I still say it. For me, it means that I know that I'm not a stellar example of humanity. I'm aware. I let Orangie in the window and tell him I love him while I also know he'll drive me bonkers within 15 hours. Life can be such a gauntlet. I mainly want to forgive myself for everything and embrace someone possibly loving me that I love. I want to show Alyssa that it was possible. And taking on those girls. For a second, I wondered if I could do it. Could I raise two broken girls and give them the love and support they need? How could I do something that I have no experience with? Perhaps I could raise them like I'd been raised - here's some food - don't get fat and go get you a man the minute you can! What did we know of STEM when I was a growing up one. I could have been smarter. I could have been a lawyer. I could have been a contender. Instead, I tried to get the best most fascinating men to love me. It didn't work out exactly as I planned. I sit here poor and typing to no one but my own parts. Yesterday, I'm going to own that I went heavy. I deepened the connection. I wept, and I told a few truths that were not the most pleasant to hear. I wonder if I could have told something pleasant. The only times I remember being happy and secure in my childhood was when I was away from the criticizers and drunks - when I was with my grandmother. That feeling of being really loved makes me tear up even now when I focus on it. I want to know why I'm the way I am. I want you to know why I'm the way I am. I don't think I could be like Merri yet and never tell because I don't think I"ve healed like she has yet. For me, I still go into sad fugues. What I want is to feel like I felt for those brief times when my grandmother had that closet of paper and crayons that were at my level, and I could draw all day long - that we could go on walks and I knew I was enough - that I was adored. really. We could swim and the old ladies would think I was amazing for being so ... potential-ed. The tears are because it's so tender to me - the low level message I got from my home was: I was fat. I was not enough. I needed to not bother anyone, and I needed to succeed without anyone telling me how. I made awesome grades. I was in my room all the time. It wasn't until I got to Athens and had the first person who I thought was cool think I was also cool - chuck - and I didn't have my fucking mother nagging at me and my fucking stepfather barely tolerating me. I didn't care about grades. I didn't care about careers. I was going to write, and I was going to love and be loved. The difference between Alyssa and I is that I wasn't nearly as pretty; I didn't hang out with friends who were in poverty; I didn't procreate. Unlike her, I had had older siblings show me things she didn't see. I knew raising a child as a woman - it traps you. You'd suck fifty dicks in an hour if it got them food and shelter. The transfer of wealth. Who's holding the cards? rarely women. We've got fathers and husbands to help us launch. What happens when your father is indifferent to you? What happens when your real father tells you you are only valued for producing an orgasm. It molds you. You scared me Alyssa, and I loved you as best I could. Seeing you such a ghost the last time we were together. You were so broken and knocked down and trying to attach to your baby daddy. It all makes sense, and we just kept giving you money and telling you it was the last time so you better figure it out. I'm wearing the clearwater shirt and getting over three weeks of debauchery that it kicked off. It feels nice to be healthier although I've had chicken nuggets for breakfast. A hummingbird and a butterfly feast on the geraniums my mom helped revitalize. I don't know what I'm doing, and I'll never make fun of people who are drunks again. Without weed, it's so easy to just descend into the numb of alcohol. I loved my time in Florida with you because it was just us, and you had to lead more than you usually like to. What would I have done in your situation? I definitely wouldn't have been as beautiful doing it. That mattered to you. You succeeded in that. This seems like the most twisted tribute. It was a twisted life. I suppose the most important thing I want to tell you is that I saw you. The deer still can't find the water, but it's soooo close. It keeps going back into the woods where there's not going to be a way out.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||