strange musings of a distracted spunk

For me, it started on the bus.

She had been in a few of my classes; almost all of them, actually, but we didn’t talk. She thought I wasn’t cool enough, because I didn’t care what other people thought of me. She was the envy of most girls in our classes because she was tall, with long blond hair, and she could eat for days without gaining a single pound. Not to mention, she was model pretty.

One day, we started talking on the bus. Did I reach out to her? Did she reach out to me? We both lived outside the town our high school was in, so we rode the same small bus. When her friend was dropped off early on in the bus ride, I became the default. It never bothered me; I just liked having someone to talk to to kill time.

Over time, we grew closer. Our conversations extended to instant messages. We chatted during drama practice and lunch. We even talked during class. By the time we got to the end of sophomore year, there was something infinitely more comfortable than it had been the year before. She was less concerned with pretenses. I still didn’t care. But I began to genuinely like her, and not just as someone to talk to. She came to my sweet sixteen and sat next to me, even though I didn’t yet consider her my closest friend. Those pictures tell a story we didn’t know was taking place.

Junior year changed everything. We both came back from summer with boyfriends. She kept hers for years, while I discarded the first, and moved onto another. Sex was now an option. We would sit in the very back seat of this small little bus, talking about what our boyfriends liked and what we liked. We talked about how we felt. We talked about the annoyances of high school. I was more than ready to leave, but she was still feeling her way through the halls. We described sex, graphically. We discussed penises, having never really seen them before. We talked about articles we’d find on how to leave our man satisfied.

I woke up one day, and she was my best friend.

I can’t imagine what other people on our bus thought, had they overheard us. We wouldn’t always sit together. Sometimes, we’d sit in the two back seats, so she could finish putting her makeup on, but when the bus became more crowded, she would move over to my seat. I don’t know that we made any attempt to be quiet. Self-consciousness had no place in our little corner of the bus. It was here where we could hash out everything on our minds; the future, the past, the present. We ran over every article of thought, like a highway to overanalyzation. There was nothing too big or too small for us, and by the time we graduated, she knew almost everything about me and I her. We understood each other. We understood why we did the things we did, and why we didn’t. She knew the most about my parents and family, and we would talk about them on the bus, sun pouring in through the unlatched open windows so we could enjoy the fresh air, despite the grit and dirt of my memories.

That bus is probably no longer in service. Yet, that bus holds a memory I don’t even have; of how we became friends. Of how ten years later, she is still the first person I turn to because she knows where I came from. It holds the teenage gossip and babbling that we thought was so important at the time, only to find out that the world largely disagrees. Except for sex. Sex is always important. The bus is inscribed with the words of our high school lives, the stories of where we were going and how did we get there, and us.

Sometimes, I wish I could find that bus, and see if there would still be the two girls in the back corner trading tips, test answers, paper topics, and friendship. Would they be as close as we are now? Would they have double-dated throughout college and visited each other, and even flown across oceans for one another? Would they still do as much for each other now as they did then?

For me, it started on the bus.

Scene: Three twenty-somethings are sitting at a table in a busy, popular restaurant. They have each gotten dinner, and are now eating dessert. While one is admittedly, a bit messier than usual, there have been slight snafus with the service leading to said messiness. The one with ice cream on her hands goes to the bathroom to wash it off, while the other two continue to chat.

Suddenly, a managerial type individual walks over to the table.

“There are a lot of people outside waiting for a table, so if you guys could just wrap it up, that’d be great.

Reaction: Stunned silence.

Reaction to reaction: Walk away.

Post-stunned silence reaction: “Did he really just ask us to leave?”

“I think so. Did he ask anyone else to leave?”

*Glance around to see if anyone else has been hustled and bustled. Confirms that no, it’s only the two twenty-somethings, waiting for the third.*

“Maybe we look really young?”

How would you respond?

The thing with moving away for a year is you expect everything to be the same when you get back. You expect the little sister to be the same snot-nosed brat she was for the last twenty years, instead of the more mature and humorous twenty one year old she’s turning into. You expect more arguments and getting stuck in the middle between your bitterly divorced parents, instead of the rational conversations and less badmouthing. You expect your friends to kind of be the same, even though you know they’ve experienced tons of milestones in their own lives.

Moving away for a year also makes you forget how many friends you actually have. I knew I had friends. I knew I had people who were excited to see me. I just didn’t realize twenty five of them were going to come out on Friday night. Had my six usual players been in this part of the country or not a Mets game, they would have been there too. Going from living in Berkeley, where I knew all of nine people that I would regularly see for a once-a-week social life to being in the middle of a bar with people I know everywhere…it’s overwhelming. I forgot how much it hurt to talk that much. My voice was scratchy by the end of the night. Yet it was absolutely wonderful to be with everyone again, because I was reminded of my history with each and every one of them. I forgot how fun it is to just reminisce about silly things with people who have known you for years. I had a little bit of that in Berkeley, when we would create new memories, but this was like slipping into an old sweater and the most comfortable pair of jeans and just being yourself.

I was surprised at how easy it was to hug everyone and fall back into the same patterns. With my life partner, we hadn’t seen each other since November, but we fell right back into almost finishing each other’s sentences. With my Pea in a Pod, though I talk to her every day, having that face-to-face interaction where she knew how I was feeling and having her be there was just really really nice. But perhaps the biggest surprise was when D showed up. I knew he was coming, having invited him, but I wasn’t prepared for the actual interaction. When I gave him a hug (because let’s face it. I’m a hugger now. I have no idea where this came from, as my family is all too happy to share stories of how I would punch them were they to try hugging me, kissing me, or even pick me up when I was younger), he was slightly awkward. But then…he would poke me if he wanted my attention, just like he used to. He ended up being my ambassador of sorts, because outside of Thailand and Avocado, he knew almost everyone there. We slipped right back into our old routine of chatting away and absorbing each other’s attention, and then I would remember there were still twenty four other people there. Needless to say, the whole night was a success.

Then came Saturday. After a lovely brunch, I had a family party to attend, before stopping off at a friend’s birthday party in my old town. I got a phone call. “D is going to be here. Is that okay?” Coming on the heels where I got furtive whispers about, “When did you and D start talking again? I thought you said you would never talk to him again!” it just felt another, “Oh boy.” So I got there. And we chatted. This time, we both tried to redirect our energies towards other people in the room, but quite simply, there was no one there as interesting as us. We caught the whispers and stares and “When did this happen?” We fell back into laughing at one another and just moving around each other to talk. It was like old times, where we wouldn’t plan it, but we’d end up hanging out multiple nights in a row.

And suddenly, it felt all too comfortable. The whispers. The stares. Him poking me and me laughing at him. The ease of our conversation, even when we talked about my now ex-boyfriend and his girlfriend. And suddenly, I felt as though I needed to leave. Because it had only been my first venture out back into socializing the night before, and already I had seen him twice. And I can’t do this again. Are the old feelings there? I don’t know. They were too tied up in comfort and familiarity for me to really ever accurately separate them. So I left, because it was too easy to see this going down the same road. Of the friendship and comfort building up until one day, I decide that he’s the right one for me.

I wondered if I was displacing my feelings for GDB onto D; as though he were the brief interlude during this year and a half we hadn’t seen each other. Is D the Harry to my Sally? I don’t know. I don’t want to find out. I’m glad we were able to spend time in each other’s company, and see that we still have that same ease of comfort, playfulness, and interactions with more awkwardness, but I think…this isn’t a path I want to head down again. What it means, I don’t know. I just know it’d be too easy to make the same mistakes. How is it that everything really can change and yet nothing change at all?

Settling in is a lot harder than I thought.

It doesn’t help that my body has fine-tuned itself to fall asleep between eleven and twelve, and rise before eight. Further exacerbated by my now religious ritual of driving my sister to the bus. There are three cats waiting to be fed when I wake up, and sometimes, this involves them sitting on my head. Or at least being outrageously flirtatious and allowing me to pick them up for a few seconds longer than they’d normally allow. To be fair, we’re still not sure what the youngest cat thinks she is; her “sqgurks” and “-ehp” sends me into hilarious laughter every time.

But my room is significantly messier here than it was in Berkeley. Maybe because I still haven’t found a proper home for everything yet? Here, my past, present, and future all collide. The Care Bear I used to carry with me as a child. The black and white cat my stepfather gave me when I had surgery. The brand new dress I bought for my birthday party on Friday. I struggle, feeling slightly like an unwilling archaeologist, accidentally digging up the artifacts of my time. There are memories stored in every pocket, every corner, every box and bin and yaffa block. Most of which, I had put aside for the time being.

I have to borrow my sister’s earring rack for the time being, which is a bit of a struggle, seeing as I have over eighty pairs of earrings and hers can only fit about forty of mine. It’s strange accidentally glancing at the headless earring mannequin that holds six of my earrings, but seems to wonder where her head went. In a lot of ways, I feel as though I can relate.

The job hunt is not having it. I wonder if I need to dress myself up - professional clothing to yield professional results? More often than not, I sit at my parents’ makeshift dining room table in pajamas, scrubby hair and face, and bemoan the lack of publishing jobs that I’m actually interested in applying. The job industry is one that far forgets the long-term effects of positive reinforcement. Just a single, “We’re interested,” would be lovely; proof that all those cover letters and proofreads are worth my time.

But the thing that hits the hardest is…when I wake up, everyone else is still asleep. It used to be that when I woke up, everyone on the East coast was bustling away, starting on their day, and I would have plenty to keep me distracted. Avocado and I were on the same time zone, Thailand was always up before bed, and I could begin my day-long conversations with my friends. GDB would have invariably dropped a line or twenty. Now, I wake up to several lines from GDB who has this uncanny poor timing of signing on after I fall asleep. I blame the central time zone. I wait for everyone else to slowly wake up, get their coffees, churn their minds, while I’ve been sitting and wondering what to do today for the last two hours.

It’s a strange feeling, feeling so purposeless. I feel as though I should try to make sense of my new room (for it is new; my parents moved into this house a year ago. I’ve never lived here; only visited.) I feel as though I should foster better relations with my three cats. I feel as though I should be writing a book or more stories or just writing in general. And instead, when someone asks me what I’ve done today, I can only answer, “I’m not sure.”

Is this what coming home means?

Edit: Good news! I just found out I am published in You’re Not the Only One, a book that dedicates its profit to the non-profit group, Warchild! Additionally, several other spectacular authors are published, including the ever-lovely Hope. Buy it here!

-Why does Macy’s Wedding Registry keep sending me e-mails? Do they think I might be a customer soon? They have wild aspirations.

-My parents’ smallest cat makes noises like a robot. I’ve never heard anything like this, and I end up cracking up every time I hear a “Sqgruk.”

-It’s kind of nice having a shower that works. My apartment in Berkeley was excellent at being temperamental in temperature and pressure. This is why I often took baths.

-I’ve been shaving for at least twelve years. So explain to me why a chunk of my right leg is now missing?

-Kyle XY is quite a spectacular show, and they need to come out with the season 2 DVD ASAP. (We started watching this in the islands in Thailand. This is geek chic; who needs to go out and socialize when you can watch a boy without a belly button!) Also, why is Lisa still on Top Chef? And why did my family forget to DVR the last two weeks of So You Think You Can Dance? At least I get my dance fix tonight! *cheers*

-Twould be lovely if I could stay awake past 10. Last night I passed out at 9:45 pm. This does not bode well for my alertness at a bachelorette party on Saturday night.

-I’ve lost an inhaler, an earring rack, and 50 yen. Each one of these are in a different country. Awesome.

-When I invited D to come to a party next week, he said, “Are you sure it’s okay if I come? Won’t your friends want me to die?”

-GDB makes me laugh. He can stay for a bit.

-Family barbecues with mine and Thailand’s family are super fun, especially because he and I finish each other’s sentences and would tell stories and giggle hilariously. Also, I am craving a hot dog like no one’s business.

-One of my easiest snacks is a ketchup sandwich in a hot dog bun. My mom used to have to have my camp counselors take them away from me if I made that, but I’m such a picky eater sometimes that instead of picking at my food, it was easier to make a ketchup sandwich! I don’t know why it hasn’t caught on more.

-I think my hair is redder in California than it is in New York or New Jersey.

-I’m actually kind of digging not doing anything this week.

He held my hand, loose but warm. His enthusiasm caused him to pump it up and down as though we were swinging along as we walked, though we were only standing in the back of a restaurant. Something felt different about that moment. As though our world was about to shift, again.

Just the night before, he had accompanied me to an event in our shared hometown. Where we wandered among vendors, performances, and hundreds of people, wailing kids, and smeared faces of cotton candy and funnel cakes. We had friends there, and were just putting in an obligatory appearance. Yet I was excited; there would be fireworks. The first time in our history of friendship and more that there had ever been the fireworks of the exploding kind, and not just the ones that jumped when his lips had touched mine. I wanted to stay, sit on the dewy grass on an early summer evening and watch everything I had felt for him light the sky like a visual stage of our tumultuous relationship.

As we walked into the park, I teased him. “You know there’s no one more awesome than me,” I said. He nodded sagely. “Yeah. You are the coolest girl I know.” Half teasing, half wistful, his words were the lyrics of the song I had been waiting to understand. After three years of tense friendship, a week of romance, and another year of tense friendship, I was reassured to know that I was his number one girl. His hand swung close near mine, but we never touched. My heart didn’t leap, but it was then, in that moment, that I knew something was there still.

We stood in the restaurant the next day, me in a strapless dress, and him in maybe a blue checked shirt, or a green one. His eyes were bluer than I recalled seeing them, and even with my family and friends surrounding me, all I could think of was, “He’s holding my hand.” In the past, we would only hold hands when one of us wanted to pull the other somewhere. Or when I was tipsy and about to fall over. We had said goodbye to the days of romance when he said he couldn’t do it, not now. That he regretted kissing me, being with me, after we spent five hours exploring each other, mouths, cheeks, shoulders, more our first night together.

But that day, when the sun was bright and shining, and I was already in a great mood, surrounded by my closest friends and family, he held my hand, vigorously, excitedly. I teased him about how the past year had been hard on our friendship, but we were better than ever. He blushed, turned red, ran to sit with my friends from college, all of whom he had befriended when he visited during a particularly eventful weekend.

I felt as though light would stream from every pore, like Beast at the end of the film when Belle revives him with a tear and a kiss. I had wanted for so long a signal to say he was still there. He was still in that moment. That he never regretted kissing me, being with me, that he cared about me as more than a friend. That him holding my hand in front of everyone was a sign of more to come.

But like the night before, when he suddenly turned sick before the fireworks and I could only turn behind me to watch them splinter the night sky as we drove back to his house, I wasn’t meant to see those fireworks. I wasn’t meant to watch spinning Catherine wheels of delirious delight. I’d see the occasional spark, a brief rush of “Can we do this again?” before a tree would block the view. Had I been able to watch our story, it would have showed spikes, up and down, holding onto the smallest detail for more. Why is it that we cling so tightly to the actions we construe as signs?

Our story wasn’t written in the skies that night or any night. Our story ended with an angry text message, leaving behind a blank sky and a broken me.

Several summers ago, I got an e-mail out of the blue from a girl who graduated a year ahead of me. I remembered her as loud; when we read the Canterbury Tales, she was quick to point out that climbing a tree to have sex was probably not the most comfortable. I often laughed loudly and heartily at her defenses during class, but we rarely talked outside of that. While we had been friendly, and had overlapping social circles sometimes, we never really hung out alone.

The e-mail surprised me. It thanked me, for inspiring her. For showing her that it was possible to lose one’s hearing and still continue on to do anything I wanted to do. She had been working as a teacher for the last year, until a tumor was detected in her brain. When they removed the tumor, they also removed some of her hearing. She asked me to come to a party of hers, in North Jersey, because she really wanted to introduce me to some people as the person who reminded her that losing one’s hearing wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

I didn’t really know how to say no to that. At that point, D was back at school taking summer classes so he could graduate a semester early. Most of my other friends who I would have usually asked to accompany me to such an event were out of town or busy. So I scrolled through my phone book, and found C.

C. was that perfect blend of acquaintance with a smidge of attraction. We met in a Communications class, but not until the very last one, where our professor instructed us to go out and test our communications skills by asking random people to allow us to try on their coats. Naturally, we made it a competition. Guy vs. girl: who would succeed? The winner of the night was me, after I scored a wool alpaca coat that retailed somewhere around $400 and the woman practically handed it over to me without any questions. He acquiesced and acknowledged that I was utterly cool, and much better at communicating than he was. But it didn’t hurt that I was pretty cute too, in his words.

“Want to go to a party with me?” I texted.

“Sure! When?”

Easy enough.

He picked me up in a car that I was positive would fall apart on the New Jersey Turnpike. We proceeded to look for what has to be the smallest square mile of town in New Jersey. Finally, after finding it, we parked and rolled out of the car, to the backyard party that was full of drunk doctors and nurses. Oh, of course. The girl who had just had surgery thought it would be fun to have a Dirty Doctors and Naughty Nurses party. She was a walking hormone, I often thought.

We made small talk. He talked about films, his motorcycle, and how he hated the people in some of his classes. I talked about work, how I hated my boss who judged me for being deaf, and general chit-chat. Sometimes, he’d lean into me, or I’d brush my arm against his. I couldn’t really tell though; was he just being friendly? Or was he into me? The night continued as we watched people dive into the above-ground pool, their black or pink or red bras peeking out beneath the soaking white costumes. We laughed, chatted convivially with those around us. Finally, we left.

The conversation wasn’t substantial, I don’t remember much. I invited him into my parents’ house, as they were away for the weekend, and I really didn’t know where the evening was headed. So we talked more, a theme of the night, my beaded necklace dangling against my collarbone and the heated air pushing against my bare legs. I couldn’t tell if he was nervous or I was nervous, but finally, one of us suggested we call it a night.

We leaned in. I decided his behavior dictated friendship more than relationship. I aimed for his cheek, when I realized it was his lips coming straight at me. Immediate instinct propelled me to duck.

Yeah. I ducked. On a kiss. Then I realized what I did. And popped back up. And went for the unnecessarily long hug. You know. That kind. The one where you hold on for slightly longer than comfortable, but you’re not entirely sure when to back away.

“I had a really great time,” I said. “Really.” (Did my face give away that I was absolutely mortified?)

“Me too,” he said. He turned and walked out the door.

I verbally whiplashed myself, wondering what the hell was wrong with me. Who DUCKS on a freaking kiss? I rationalized it was okay, because he hadn’t been giving off the flirty vibe so much, so I wasn’t prepared for it, and usually I have a good idea when a boy is about to kiss me. Usually.

Typically, the story would end here, awkward moments to end awkward moments.

I texted him again, the next day, to thank him for coming with me to the party and that I hoped to see him again soon. There was no response.

“He hates me,” I thought. I convinced myself that he would never speak to me again. Because seriously. That would be a blow to anyone’s ego, no matter how self-assured they were. (Watch, now someone’s going to duck on a kiss on me soon.)

Three weeks later, I got a text from him, which surprised the heck out of me. “I’ve been forgiven!” I thought. I opened my phone.

“Hey, sorry about that. Just got out of the hospital. I got into a bad motorcycle accident the day after we went out and I’ve been in the hospital ever since.”

Awkward moments. I has them.

100. I’ve been a dancer for probably longer than I could walk.
99. My parents lost me one night and found me break dancing in a night club on vacation.
98. I was two and a half.
97. I used to do gymnastics too, as well as tennis, until my parents made me pick one activity. I chose dance.
96. Several years later, I ended up doing circus stunts at my sleepaway camp. See: aerial lyra, swinging trapeze, static trapeze, and spanish web.
95. I miss it. Sometimes I look up classes and contemplate running away with the circus.
94. I was a Mr. Rogers girl through and through. Sesame Street was kinda bull, though I did enjoy Big Bird goes to China. Relatively.
93. My childhood room was covered in Rainbow Brite memorabilia. I even have a t-shirt still that says “Sharing is caring.”
92. I also loved My Little Pony and the Smurfs. There used to be a show with animals who had the body of one and the head of another, and I can’t for the life remember the name of them, but I loved that one too.
91. I lost my virginity when I was 16.
90. It was more a sort of…I wonder what this is all about than it was wanting to be with someone I loved.
89. I’m a lefty.
88. I’m one of four lefties in both sides of my family.
87. Both of my grandfathers have red hair, blue eyes, and were born lefty. They both write recreationally, but were taught to write with their right hands. My mother is the only other lefty, but she’s brunette with hazel eyes. She didn’t write; she performed.
86. I wasn’t born deaf.
85. Neither was my sister.
84. But they at least have a strong suspicion why she lost her hearing. I’m just a medical anomaly.
83. We’re the only ones in our entire families.
82. I think my mom blames herself, while my dad blames some doctor he thinks misdiagnosed me.
81. I’m technically third generation American on one side, and first generation American on the other.
80. My dad was born in Israel. It’s made for interesting dynamics.
79. I tend to get bitten by the wanderlust bug often. I’ve traveled to Israel, Spain, Chicago, moved across country, and other places, all rather impulsively. I’ve also traveled to many other places, but those were less impulsive.
78. The first time I fully understood the Holocaust was when I was in fifth grade. It shocked me to realize that I would have been one of the first killed, for my coloring and for my poor vision and poor hearing.
77. It took me another year or two to realize almost all of my paternal grandparents’ relatives were killed in the Holocaust. Including my grandfather’s baby sister.
76. If there were ever one person I’d like to meet or bring back, I’d wish for her so my grandfather would have had her in the lonely years between her death and his next sibling. He might have had a childhood then.
75. I’ve only been in love once.
74. I still am.
73. My first best friend’s name was Ilana. She had a swimming pool in her backyard, and I wrote my first book about her.
72. She moved to Florida when I was five. I saw her again when I was sixteen, on a family trip.
71. Sometimes I think I’ve led a really easy life.
70. Other times, I think I’ve been put through more than most people have, and deserve a fine karmic break for the rest of my life.
69. It still destroys me every time my parents fight. It’s become easier now on this side of the country. I’m nervous to go home because I like not being in the middle anymore.
68. I was a commitment-phobe for the longest time, because I couldn’t imagine ever feeling passionate or interested enough in one person to want to be with them for the rest of my life. I also never wanted to inflict the kind of pain on my children, should I have them, that I experienced growing up.
67. I had a german shepherd named Gingi growing up. It means red in Hebrew.
66. My grandmother calls me gingi calavasa. I still don’t know what calavasa means.
65. My family stopped teaching me Hebrew when I lost my hearing.
64. Some doctor told my parents I’d be lucky if I ever spoke English, let alone Hebrew, and should be locked away so as to not burden my parents.
63. I’m glad they didn’t listen.
62. We used to go to special gala affairs at the New York Aquarium for the League of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.
61. I will always have a special fondness for the aquarium, even if it is much smaller now than I remember it being.
60. I still sleep with the teddy bear my dad brought back from Boston when I was seven.
59. But only on nights when I feel lonely and cold.
58. I’ve known Thailand since before we were born. I didn’t get much of a choice with him in terms of our friendship.
57. Our moms were each others’ bridesmaids, and we were born a month and a half apart. We’ve been more or less stuck together since then.
56. I’ve managed to sprain at least one ankle once a year, up until I was about twenty one. I’m hoping my streak is broken.
55. Once, I hobbled all over New York City with K as we wandered around, having sprained an ankle the day before.
54. I’ve also managed to step on a kickball and go flying in the air, sprain both ankles days apart, and jam a finger. All in the same summer.
54. Sometimes, I still wonder if there will ever be anything again with D.
53. My mom thought we were going to do a When Harry Met Sally.
52. So did I. We didn’t. And we won’t. But I still wonder anyway.
51. I can find traits of myself in all four of my grandparents, but more presently, in my grandfathers.
50. My paternal grandfather and I could be identical twins if we were the same age and the same gender.
49. We aren’t. So we just argue a lot.
48. I’ve fainted two times.
47. The first was when I was ten, and got a Hepatitis B vaccine.
46. The doctor gave me pretzels and M&Ms with orange juice upon my reawakening.
45. I still remember the taste of all three in my mouth. It was surprisingly pleasant.
44. I don’t recommend blacking out. Everything shrinks, and surprisingly, my hearing was the last to go, even though I could no longer see anything anymore. It was strange relying on my hearing rather than my sight. Then I woke up on the floor.
43. On the bright side, both times I fainted happened to be in a doctor’s presence. The second time, I happened to be volunteering in the ER at the local hospital.
42. I’ve been to the ER several times. Most recently for pneumonia. In the past, it’s involved sprained ankles, jammed fingers, as a volunteer EMT, and lots of x-rays.
41. The first house I lived in was a small row house in Brooklyn, in the middle of the block. We had an alley behind our house.
40. At the end of the alley, a friend of mine lived. He had a treehouse. I would often scale the chainlink fence and hop to the other side to play with him and his brother in the treehouse.
39. While we lived in said house, my sister dropped a radiator on my right foot during a game of hide and seek.
38. It didn’t break, but it was badly bruised. It still hurts when it rains. I was nine.
37. The second place we lived was a two family house across the street from a small park.
36. I never knew how small it was - my mom did the best she could to give us a proper home, despite the recent divorce she had just undergone.
35. It had two bathrooms, adjacent to one another. One black and one blue.
34. I cut my bangs once in the black bathroom, after thinking my hairstylist cut them unevenly.
33. I spent the rest of the summer with the most godawful curly bangs bouncing in front of my eyes.
32. That might explain why I didn’t cut my hair for another five years after that disastrous cut.
31. In high school, the girls sitting behind me would pull my corkscrew curls, just because they liked to watch my hair bounce. Our teacher would yell at them for disrupting the class, or at least mildly berate them.
30. I met Avocado in high school. She wasn’t my biggest fan when we first met.
29. That’s since changed. But we usually have one big fight a year.
28. The only song that can effectively make me cry is “The Trouble with Love Is,” by Kelly Clarkson.
27. I can’t explain why I can understand or hear music in ways that don’t make sense to most doctors.
26. Then again, I tend to come across as a medical mystery in all shapes and forms. When they do my autopsy, they’ll find I have three misshapen hearts, one highway of a vein connecting my body, four overclogged arteries of memories and unspoken thoughts, and one brain that segments itself between my right pinky toe, left knee, left rib cage, right clavicle, and parts in my head where it properly belongs.
25. I’ve been on and off writing a novella/novel for the last four years.
24. I don’t know if it’s going to go anywhere.
23. If I were to be a Disney character, I’d be a mix between Ariel and Belle, with a healthy dash of Abu thrown in. And perhaps a little bit of Rafiki.
22. One of my cousins told me tonight that she loves how I don’t ever express emotion. I laughed and thought, if she only knew about this blog.
21. Neither sides of my family adequately understand me. But at least my mom’s side tries.
20. Sometimes, I feel like I’m living a teenage rebellion now, even though I went through my rebellion phase when I was 12.
19. I volunteered with a first aid squad for two years.
18. While I was there, the guys nicknamed me jailbait. I was a bit of a tease. I ended up tied up and tossed in an empty garbage can by one of the guys who was frustrated with me, because I wouldn’t go anywhere with him. Luckily, Techny Besty pulled me back out.
17. What most of them didn’t know was I was sleeping with a 20 year old and a 26 year old when I was only seventeen. Both of them were on the squad.
16. I don’t know what I want to do or where I want to live anymore. I used to think I did. Now I feel like this country is too small, and they need to build a new city that is the perfect blend of New York, San Francisco, and Chicago.
15. Sometimes I think I will never speak to GDB ever again. And then I realize that I talk to K and D, who hurt me in a way I never thought I’d recover from.
14. I taught myself how to use power point, illustrator, and photoshop in high school, because I was bored.
13. I like teaching myself how to do things. I feel a sense of accomplishment. I’d often rather learn from a book than have someone else tell me how to do it.
12. I don’t think I’m sexy outside of the framework of someone else telling me I’m sexy. I think I’m cute, but I never considered myself sexy until GDB.
11. I don’t struggle from low self-esteem. But I do struggle with overanalyzing everything to death.
10. I tend to feel like a walking contradiction most days.
9. I’m strangely attracted to nerds. My house’s motto senior year was, “I date nerds.”
8. For the longest time, I thought something would eventually happen with one of my old housemates because we had so many sparks. I don’t think it will anymore. His girlfriend was one of my good friends our last year in college. If it weren’t for her, I do sometimes wonder if things would have played out differently. He’s since become a close confidant.
7. I’ve only been high once. I spent the entire time giggling at the three people attempting to paint one girl’s room, all high, as I sat on the bed in the middle falling over with laughter.
6. I learned my harshest lessons about friendship at the camp I went to for seven years. I think it’s one of the main reasons I knew myself so well by the time I got to high school. I had already experienced heartbreak at the hands of those I believed to be my friends the summer before.
5. I won’t ever want to live in the suburbs. But I’m grateful to my mom for moving us out to New Jersey so I saw how much of a world was outside of New York. I wonder if I would have developed such wanderlust if I hadn’t been so bored with New Jersey, and would have missed out on seeing so much of the world. If I do have kids, I’ll probably move to the suburbs for that very reason.
4. GDB was the first person I ever felt like I wanted to marry and start a family with. It won’t be him. But I still want that now someday. I never thought I’d ever say that.
3. I still remember most of the guys I’ve had one night stands with. Mostly because they had some special meaning, or came at a point in my life where it was needed.
2. I don’t regret anything I’ve done up to this point in my life. But I do wish things had happened differently in some cases.
1. I truly believe everything happens for a reason. I just hope to find what my reasons are.

It’s unnerving to find myself glancing back on my life as a viewer. I’ve been sorting through a mass folder that held all the photos on my computer before it crashed two weeks ago, placing them in proper labels. England. Halloween. Israel. New Year’s. College. Grad School. Mom’s Side. Dad’s Side. GDB. What should be methodical, simple, easy, has turned personal. The photos are so crisp, so clear, that I find myself lurched into a memory that I thought I had forgotten. People who were once an integral part of my life are just an image, preserved in digital memory for as long as I remember to back my computer up.

I’m not scared of my past. But I see parallels. I see extra weight in my face that I don’t like there. I see relationships played out in various stages, juxtaposed against the backdrop of similar situations, different times. The photos are so out of order, yet they still seem to tell the same story, despite being months or years apart. I am reminded of events that happened years ago, a blip on the graph that has become my life, when I thought it was a turning point. I am reminded of the times when I linked arms with others, feeling high on energy, as though it were the best night of my life, before it came crashing down around me only an hour later.

I recall feeling so unsure and confused one night that I wondered if a camera could adequately capture my emotions. It did. I recognize the look on my face, as D and I talked animatedly. It was one of comfort, familiarity, of this will be how it is forever. It wasn’t. I see nights of laughter, of freezing cold weather as we traipsed around Manhattan, looking for this obscure bar for my cousin’s birthday. Only one of those bonds remain.

In a way, the photos that I’m forced to look at as I place it in its proper folder, they’re almost painful. They remind me of how much I’ve lived, how much I’ve seen, where I’ve been, and what I still have to do. They show me the people who I thought were going to be around forever, and are just a faded fingerprint pressed on my heart now.

I debated last night bringing my camera with me on an outing with McGee, who I must say is one of the strongest, and most amazing women I have ever met. I opted against it. I wonder if I should be taking more pictures, capturing my life on the West Coast as I live it, commemorating the white shower curtains around my clawfoot bathtub as the sun gazes through the window. If I should be taking pictures of me in my work clothes, to show that yes, I can look professional, and I look damn cute at it too. If I should capture the sun setting on the water as I walk home from work in the evenings, its colors reaching out beyond the bridges, the mountains, the bay.

And then I think, it’s just a phase. Like everything else in my life, it’s just a phase. I don’t want to look back on this phase and be reminded of the painful memories, of being alone and lonely, when I only wanted someone to call when I felt isolated from everyone. I don’t want to necessarily be reminded of all the thoughts, the transparent wisps of memories and cognizations that I’ve undergone in my last seven months out here.

It occurred to me that when I return home, or move to the next phase of my life, this year will be my forgotten year. Where the boy I loved was known by only a handful of friends, known better by name than person, where I sometimes wonder if we actually did spend the better part of a year together when no one else could document it, and we only have five pictures to memorialize our time together. Where my family reminisces about a memory that happened while I was gone, wondering why I wasn’t there, before they remember my imposed separation. When I felt like my reality was so different from the reality I lived before, that if I should ever return to the previous reality, this whole year will have been a dream.

But then I think, this year is my year. I could take pictures, but I’ll find myself in the same spot. Of being forced to look through memories, my life out of order, reminded of the highest highs and the lowest lows as I embarked on a year of self-exploration and discovery. Ultimately? I think I’d just rather rely upon the stores of my mind to capture a moment, colored with the emotions of the time, a faint image burned into memory to be called upon when I want. Everything changes. Something will always remind me, of the good and the bad. It will always be my dream year, a year where I stepped away from my life as I knew it, and created a new one. You can’t take photos of a dream.

He asked me if I wanted to take a shower with him. The third guy I had ever kissed; the first an unnamed stranger at a teen night, and the second, a boy I met two nights later and greatly resembled Justin Timberlake in his N’ Sync days. I had just started volunteering at the local first aid squad, and he immediately took a liking to me, seeing right through the baggy gray sweats and the oversized blue Billabong shirt, my red corkscrews in a pony tail down to my waist. There was mild flirtation, and a day later, Thailand told me he had been asked for my number.

It had only been about three months since I had met him, and already he had managed to circumvent the beginning of our relationship with the beginning of another - that of a friend named Kim (thus began the Kim complex). Partially bored, partially curious, and partially spiteful, I agreed to shower with him after having made out with him, the newest Scott Bakula Star Trek playing in the background (his interest, not mine.) There was no great passion with him - just mild curiosity.

I’m pretty sure I had my period, but he wasn’t all too worried. The blood could run into the bathtub as we fucked, I gathered. There was no pretension of love or romance - though he did light a few candles, including one memorable Hershey’s flavored candle. I always thought it smelled more like shit than chocolate. Three years older than me, and much more experienced, though how, I don’t know. He had a charm that could woo any girl, despite his pathological lies and his unconventional looks - somewhat resemblant of a squashed fly with beautiful blue eyes and blond hair. A weakness of mine, as had already been foretold.

We tried it standing up, but even at sixteen, I was already three inches taller than him, a full three years older than me. His penis just would not reach my vagina, no matter how hard he tried. I laid down in the bathtub, only to find laying in the bathtub against the cold ceramic tile, my spine pressed against the tub awkwardly and uncomfortably, was not exactly where I wanted to lose my virginity. It seemed I had some conventions after all. I suggested we move to his bed, and after he laid a towel and moved the candles to his room, we tried again.

I don’t remember the kisses, or him entering me. I recall it being slightly pressured, as it is with any guy after a long drought, and then it being easy. He asked me if I was truly a virgin, because it seemed too easy, not painful enough. (Why is it that women are supposed to take on all the pain during sex and pregnancy? Just every once in a while, I’d like to see a boy with a bruised penis or waddling down the street after crazy sex.) Knowing the kind of boy he is now, for he will never be anything but a boy, I wouldn’t be surprised if he gossiped to others that I was a slut because of my ease of entrance - I’m pretty sure I heard stories after I dumped him about my wild wanton ways.

It wasn’t anything cataclysmic or special. It wasn’t until I met GDB that I knew how amazing sex could be - I was aware it could be enjoyable, yes, but never to the point where I couldn’t even pronounce GDB’s name, which is all of one syllable and ends in “oh!” My lovers in the past were quite satisfactory, but I never allowed myself to get emotionally involved to the point where sex could be blissful in its passion. So I lay there, not entirely sure of what I was supposed to do, but having read enough Cosmo magazines and seen enough porn, I figured I should try the whole arched back, bucked hips, legs spread thing. My years of dance and flexibility may have assisted me in the movements.

The whole thing may have lasted minutes or an hour. I don’t actually know. It was more a rite of passage. Once I entered through the archway, I could say, “All right, well that’s taken care of now. What’s next?” I knew early on that my first wouldn’t be my only, and that hopefully, the passion would come later. He pulled out of me, slid the condom off. I sat up, went to the bathroom, and put another tampon in. There were no regrets.