Archive for August, 2005
another year
It’s almost the end of summer, I came to terms with that today. And I don’t know how I feel about that. I’ve been reminiscing about the last four months for the past couple of days and it’s been an amazing time, I can honestly say that. So much has happened, probably more than any other summer I’ve been through (as of yet) and although a part of me is sad to see the summer end, the other is happy that yet a new phase of my life is beginning. Another school year, another year away, the second year without my sister. It’s my childhood fading away slowly as I grow into an adult.
And it’s all I do to hope for the best.
bittersweet
So I haven’t posted. I’ve been up north. Making more money in a week than I did in a week of being in the city. And it’s great. I’m having fun. Relaxing. Working. Getting job interviews. All that jazz. And I couldn’t be happier. Well, maybe I could be. If my sister was here. If my sister hadn’t left. If I haven’t spent the last week bawling my eyes out because I just know it’s going to be a very long time since I’ll ever see her again.
But there’s nothing I can do. Except live my life here. Get things started again for the new school year, new phone numbers, new address, new clothes, new life – again. What can I say except it’s a bittersweet feeling. The same feeling I always get once the summer begins to come to a close. I leave soon and nothing’s ready, not my lease, not my packing, not my computer, not me. I’m not ready. You’d think that over the course of 4 months something would have clicked me into being prepared for this move, but no. I sit waiting and trying to figure out what this year’s going to bring, yet try not to think about it too much, because as soon as I do, it’ll be here, and then it’ll be gone. Another year of school complete and another year of my life.
I always speak about how much life changes in such a short period of time, how things can perform a complete 180 in a flash when sooner or later, all the talk about change gets to me and suddenly, because of all the change, it doesn’t seem to be “changing” all that much anymore. It’s just my life. It’s just everyone’s life. Things change so quickly that as soon as something is said that deems to be official, already it’s turning around. That’s the way it is I guess. Without it, life would be boring. And we can’t have that, can we?
I’ll just say it again, it’s the bittersweet ending that’s getting to me. It’s like my relationship with the word bittersweet. I love the look of it – b-i-t-t-e-r-s-w-e-e-t- it’s so cute, but it’s meaning is so powerful and ironic. Is it actually even the right term, ironic? Or is it the ironic like how Alanis thinks things are ironic? Who knows? It’s a bittersweet feeling, a bittersweet answer.
It all contributes to the bittersweet life.
do you have a boyfriend, sexy?
Over the past summer months, I’ve had to deal with hot sweaty weather, broken English accents, long hours at work and the most bothersome, incessant questions about my singledom status. Why are you single, they ask. And every time I want to roll my eyes and ask them why they think it’s okay to ask such a rude question. Is it even a rude question? Which is why I probably don’t ask back. Is it rude to ask why someone doesn’t have a boyfriend? But as I write that, it occurs to me that it’s an unanswerable question to begin with. WHY don’t you have a boyfriend? How is someone supposed to answer that? What possible valid reasons can there be, how are you supposed to know what they even are?
Usually I sigh and shrug my shoulders, replying that I live too far away to have a relationship (keeping in mind that I receive this same question no matter where I live) and that I’m too difficult for some boys to handle. Which is probably also a lie since I’m not the typical clingy girlfriend guys supposedly hate. Give me my space, I enjoy hanging out with the girls, I laugh at everything and it takes a lot to piss me off if I’m not related to you.
What I can’t stand is the assumption that there’s something wrong with me because I don’t have a boyfriend. And the fact that even while I was growing up I never had a boy on my arm, it just wasn’t me. And maybe it still isn’t. But now that “older” and get asked this question at least twice a week it bothers me because I’m afraid that maybe I will start to believe that I don’t have a boyfriend because there is something wrong with me.
It’s on days like today that I’m reminded of why there really isn’t something wrong with me, but rather with the options that this city leaves me with to choose from. I was walking to meet my sister at her work listening to my MP3 player and enjoying my background theme music to the sounds of the city streets when I came across a group of guys leaning over cement architecture on the sidewalk. As soon as I saw them, I knew what was coming and braced myself.
“Hey, you’re sexy,” one of them shouts to me.
“Oh my God, Jesus, girl, you’re so fiiiine,” another one goes.
“Girl, come over here sexy. Come on, come on over,” the third joins.
I think at this point they see my headphones and think I can’t hear them when in fact I can perfectly and it just goes on despite my creased eyebrows and curled frown I give them.
Is this who I’m supposed to date? People who snarl comments at me while I’m walking along a public street like I’m some sort of dog? The same thing happened last week when I walked home from Etobicoke to Mississauga due to a massive fight with my father resulting in me treking home for a six hour long walk. The walk was long, but enjoyable, except for the countless men who hung out their car windows, honked, shouted and BARKED at me. Barked, just as if I were a dog. I wasn’t aware that people even did that, how naive I was. Is this really flattering to anyone? Does any girl actually turn around and go, “thank you!” or respond in a manner that can make one believe this behaviour is acceptable? If they do, I guess I missed the memo on the feminism backtrack of 2005.
So I’m single. And I have been for the past two years. And I’m not ashamed to say it. See? I’ll say it again. And I’m typing it so it’s even more official. I’m SINGLE. And I will not be made to feel as though there is something wrong with me because of it. If I meet someone that actually holds my interest past the attractiveness of their face, it’ll happen. Until then I’m a goal oreinted person and I’m sorry but “finding a boyfriend” isn’t on one of my TO-Do lists. But I’m not really sorry.
Especially when “do you have a boyfriend, sexy?” slurred out of some random guy at a bar is the pick up of line of choice.
it'll be okay
I look over to her and ask her if it’s okay to go upstairs like always. She says okay and leaves the room. I slowly get up and turn to look at him. He stares at me with unsuspecting eyes as I hold out my hand.
“Come with me,” I say. He gets up and takes hold of my outstretched palm. I slowly lead us up the stairs and we pause when we reach the door to her room. “I want to show you her room,” I whisper quietly and open the door.
It’s the same as it’s always been: untouched since she left. The bedspread never been changed because nobody had ever been in it since its last wash. The dried flowers perched upon the headboard in a sort of perfect stance that could never be tampered with. All the things that made the room appear as though a regular fifteen year old girl inhabited it. But it didn’t. Not anymore.
“It’s not something incredibly big, but in some weird way, I like that it’s been unchanged. It’s like something will always stay the same.” I move toward the centre of the room, finally letting go of his hand. He looks uncomfortable, yet at ease, it’s the same way I felt the first time I entered the room. I sit down on the bed and he does the same. “I used to read her diary. Her mother never could, because she felt like it was an invasion of her privacy, which it is. I just couldn’t help myself to know if she really did tell me everything.”
“Did she?” He asks, looking up at me.
“She told me everything that was important. So nothing really that’s in a fifteen-year-old’s diary is,” I reply, looking away. I slowly run my hand along the embroidery in her bedspread. We’re quiet for a moment, both unsure of what to say. I look in her mirror across from us and stare at myself. I look so much older than the last time I saw the same scene. I dart my eyes in his direction and see that he’s doing the same, although he’s trying to read me, my thoughts. He’s not the first one, which is why I can tell that’s what he’s doing. “Hmm. I wonder …” I drift off,
“What?” He asks. I lean forward and run my hand down the dresser drawers, trying to remember and believing that my fingers will jog my memory. I pause once I get to the top drawer and open it. Inside is filled with junk that has now turned into precious scrap that she has touched. I reach into the drawer, all the way in the back, and feel a small box, one usually meant for diamond rings or earrings. I pull it out and he looks confused as I smile up at him. I open the velvet box and inside is a small baggy half full with decomposing marijuana. We both laugh.
“You knew about this?” He chuckles.
“I found it once right after, when I was up here for hours just staring at her things. I hoped her mother wouldn’t find it, so I hid it in the back of the drawer. I guess she didn’t,” I shrugged. We’re quiet again as I put the weed back where it came from. And I look up at him again.
“I know what everyone says. That it gets easier with time. And if you just come to terms with your feelings that everything will fall into place, go back to normal. I know when people ask you if you want to talk they don’t really mean it, because they wouldn’t know what to say. And I know what it feels like to have someone look at you and have everything they ever thought of you, every memory, be replaced by this one thing that gets trademarked by your name. I know that when they say ‘I understand’ they really don’t, and they can’t, no matter many times you choose to talk about it. And I know that you don’t want to talk about it. Because that’s all everyone seems to want to talk about. And that sucks. Because they keep saying to try and get on with life, and things must go on, but the second you actually try, they look at you with these stupid sympathy eyes that say ‘I know you’re not ready and you’re only doing this for my benefit’ and you want to yell at them for being hypocrites. But the truth is they’re right. All you do want to do is sit at home and watch reruns of shows that you’ll remember watching with them and try and brand every memory you have in your brain so they don’t start to fade away with time, because that I can tell you for sure, the memories you have, they will fade. And that’s what hurts even more than anything. The guilt you have when you can’t even remember your best friend anymore. Maybe that’s why it does get easier. Once the memories start to fade, you won’t think of them every second of your day,” I conclude. We’re quiet again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to come out like that, and so much,” I say as my eyes start to tear, which I hate because I’m usually very good at keeping them dry.
“No, it’s okay. It’s actually pretty right on,” he replies. I just shrug my shoulders in understanding. My hands fidget with each other, like I have no control, until he slowly moves his hand over to mine and encompasses it. I look up and there are tears in his eyes, and it shocks me, because I’ve never seen him cry.
“I don’t want you to cry,” I murmur, putting my hand on his cheek. “But you can if you want.” And he does. He really does. It’s like he hasn’t ever done it before and he lets go, quietly and forcefully at the same time. I’m unsure if I should hug him, if that would be going too far, but then I realize that we’ve probably gone farther than we ever have, so I do. I hug him and he grips me so hard I can hardly breathe, although I don’t really notice until we’ve let go and I inhale deeply to catch my breath,
I look past him at the ticking clock on the end table. According to the time, we’ve been in the room for almost an hour. I look back at him.
“We’d better go, her mom probably thinks we’re doing it,” I joke. He laughs. I smile. I wait for him to get up before I do and I follow him to the door. When he steps outside, I stop. “I think I just need a moment alone.” He nods in understanding.
“I’ll wait out here.”
I close the door slowly and turn around. I walk towards the bed and smooth out the bedspread from where we were sitting, the surface is warm. I haven’t been in the room for so long but to me it looks different, even though I know her mother hasn’t changed it. And I wonder if it looks different to her too, her mother, I mean. If she comes in here every so often and sees that the clock needs to be changed an hour ahead or an hour behind. Or that the furniture surface never needs to be dusted and the dried flowers never grow mold.
I back out of the room and open the door. He’s waiting for me, just like he said. And that makes me smile.
“Thank you,” I say.
“I was just about to say the same thing,” he says back, outstretching his arm, indicating for me to walk ahead of him. I chuckle a bit and walk forward, my eyes never leaving his as I pass. I feel my hand touch his, and realize that he’s intertwining his fingers with my own.
And that makes me smile even more.