Things
The Boy came by to drop off things I didn't want. Old shirts, some boxers, a pair of shoes - none of it I'd worn much before, and now all of it is tainted by him. The only thing I might have found useful - my thermos - he still has.
I went home for Thanksgiving.
Why do I keep saying that? Home is here in West Hollywood. Where I went is my parents' house twenty-five miles outside San Antonio in Boerne, Texas. I'd never been there until that Thursday afternoon, but I keep calling it home.
Thanksgiving dinner passed in silence. The expectation was, I felt, that I'd deliver an eloquent blessing as I had so many times before, but I'm not much for praying these days. I could hear my sister chewing.
The next night ended in argument. My sister cried, and I left the house to walk the dark Texas roads, alone. I knew I was wrong, but I didn't know what else to do.
In between, I dug through the boxes of things I'd accumulated in the nineteen years before striking out on my own and tried to figure what was so important I should bring it back to my apartment and what I could throw away.
In those boxes I found the stuffed animals I'd played with well after I was ten years old. I found my Boy Scout shirts, my band polos and three uniforms from AMC. I found my first love letter as well as every note I'd ever received from Stephanie, from Rose, from Mina and from Kyle.
There were two shoe boxes full of cards from family and friends, at least two more containing all the photographs I'd taken since I received my first camera when I was nine, and a stack of letters from friends in Kansas with whom I can't remember corresponding.
There were magic tricks and pieces of various costumes and programs, booklets and ticket stubs from what must be almost every performance I'd ever attended. If it had all burned in a fire, I wouldn't have know what had been there to miss, but faced with consciously throwing some of it away, I couldn't part with any of it.
I've spent a lot of money in my life. Hundreds of dollars on coins and banknotes, on Beanie Babies and their Teenie cousins, on Star Wars books and action figures and other memorabilia. Thousands on a movie I can't bring myself to finish. Untold sums on clothes I no longer wear, no longer own and more on clothes I wear today but won't tomorrow. All of it to no end.
I've spent so many hours reading and discussing the latest movie news, learning and teaching the proper care of aquatic turtles, shooting the shit on AIM and Facebook and Livejournal - each time under the impression that I am part of a community, that I belong.
I don't belong. I'm alien. Not of this world, not meant for the next. I pretend that's fine by me, but even when in third grade Mrs Schmidt told my parents I seemed to prefer time to myself, I knew that sitting along on the playground swing I was secretly hoping someone would notice me and be my friend.
Thirteen years later, the names have changed, but I have not. I still buy things, hoping to be noticed, begging to belong.
No, I don't think a jacket by J Lindberg or two coats by Marc Jacobs will win me any friends - not any worth having, anyway. Neither will a sofa from Blueprint, whether brown or grey, bring back The Boy, and while boldly colored sheets and pillowcases might impress tomorrow's boy, they won't convince him to stay.
Anyway, the things will come and go as they always have. It's the words that really worry me. All those notes and letters and cards, all the programs and booklets and ticket stubs - if I throw them away, am I not also throwing away those memories, destroying my connection to the past? But if I refuse to let them go, do I also refuse to let go the past, to embrace the present, to look forward to a better, brighter future?
In the bottom drawer of the nightstand that once was mine I found an old journal. Stephanie and I had broken up, and the words in that entry were so near the ones I used in describing the breakup with The Boy.
She'd been perfect, pure, and I'd ruined her. She'd been right, I'd been wrong, and I'd driven her away. She'd been light, and without her I was nothing, alone in the darkness.
Almost six years later, I have come so far and changed so little. Will I - can I - ever be content with me?
And when I'm gone and so are all the people I've known - for better or worse - all that will be left are the words. Everything I've written - so much of it already lost - it will be all I'm worth. Even then, paper biodegrades, data is corrupted, and nothing lasts forever. Will any of it have made a difference? Did any of it matter? When everything I've collected and created is gone, when every record and product of my existence is no more, will I have existed at all?
Ten boxes of childhood, an apartment of today's clothes and furniture and pots and pans and pens and paper and whatever else - isn't there more than things? Isn't there supposed to be?
I want more, but I don't know where to find it. The fragments of my past tell me I've looked too long in all the wrong places, but I don't know how to change, and I don't know if I can, and when the coat keeps we warm and earns me compliments and gets me laid and makes someone love me - if only for a moment - I don't know that I'll want to.
I'm doing so well, yet I'm so angry, yet I don't want to be, yet I don't know how to stop and just be happy.
I went home for Thanksgiving.
Why do I keep saying that? Home is here in West Hollywood. Where I went is my parents' house twenty-five miles outside San Antonio in Boerne, Texas. I'd never been there until that Thursday afternoon, but I keep calling it home.
Thanksgiving dinner passed in silence. The expectation was, I felt, that I'd deliver an eloquent blessing as I had so many times before, but I'm not much for praying these days. I could hear my sister chewing.
The next night ended in argument. My sister cried, and I left the house to walk the dark Texas roads, alone. I knew I was wrong, but I didn't know what else to do.
In between, I dug through the boxes of things I'd accumulated in the nineteen years before striking out on my own and tried to figure what was so important I should bring it back to my apartment and what I could throw away.
In those boxes I found the stuffed animals I'd played with well after I was ten years old. I found my Boy Scout shirts, my band polos and three uniforms from AMC. I found my first love letter as well as every note I'd ever received from Stephanie, from Rose, from Mina and from Kyle.
There were two shoe boxes full of cards from family and friends, at least two more containing all the photographs I'd taken since I received my first camera when I was nine, and a stack of letters from friends in Kansas with whom I can't remember corresponding.
There were magic tricks and pieces of various costumes and programs, booklets and ticket stubs from what must be almost every performance I'd ever attended. If it had all burned in a fire, I wouldn't have know what had been there to miss, but faced with consciously throwing some of it away, I couldn't part with any of it.
I've spent a lot of money in my life. Hundreds of dollars on coins and banknotes, on Beanie Babies and their Teenie cousins, on Star Wars books and action figures and other memorabilia. Thousands on a movie I can't bring myself to finish. Untold sums on clothes I no longer wear, no longer own and more on clothes I wear today but won't tomorrow. All of it to no end.
I've spent so many hours reading and discussing the latest movie news, learning and teaching the proper care of aquatic turtles, shooting the shit on AIM and Facebook and Livejournal - each time under the impression that I am part of a community, that I belong.
I don't belong. I'm alien. Not of this world, not meant for the next. I pretend that's fine by me, but even when in third grade Mrs Schmidt told my parents I seemed to prefer time to myself, I knew that sitting along on the playground swing I was secretly hoping someone would notice me and be my friend.
Thirteen years later, the names have changed, but I have not. I still buy things, hoping to be noticed, begging to belong.
No, I don't think a jacket by J Lindberg or two coats by Marc Jacobs will win me any friends - not any worth having, anyway. Neither will a sofa from Blueprint, whether brown or grey, bring back The Boy, and while boldly colored sheets and pillowcases might impress tomorrow's boy, they won't convince him to stay.
Anyway, the things will come and go as they always have. It's the words that really worry me. All those notes and letters and cards, all the programs and booklets and ticket stubs - if I throw them away, am I not also throwing away those memories, destroying my connection to the past? But if I refuse to let them go, do I also refuse to let go the past, to embrace the present, to look forward to a better, brighter future?
In the bottom drawer of the nightstand that once was mine I found an old journal. Stephanie and I had broken up, and the words in that entry were so near the ones I used in describing the breakup with The Boy.
She'd been perfect, pure, and I'd ruined her. She'd been right, I'd been wrong, and I'd driven her away. She'd been light, and without her I was nothing, alone in the darkness.
Almost six years later, I have come so far and changed so little. Will I - can I - ever be content with me?
And when I'm gone and so are all the people I've known - for better or worse - all that will be left are the words. Everything I've written - so much of it already lost - it will be all I'm worth. Even then, paper biodegrades, data is corrupted, and nothing lasts forever. Will any of it have made a difference? Did any of it matter? When everything I've collected and created is gone, when every record and product of my existence is no more, will I have existed at all?
Ten boxes of childhood, an apartment of today's clothes and furniture and pots and pans and pens and paper and whatever else - isn't there more than things? Isn't there supposed to be?
I want more, but I don't know where to find it. The fragments of my past tell me I've looked too long in all the wrong places, but I don't know how to change, and I don't know if I can, and when the coat keeps we warm and earns me compliments and gets me laid and makes someone love me - if only for a moment - I don't know that I'll want to.
I'm doing so well, yet I'm so angry, yet I don't want to be, yet I don't know how to stop and just be happy.