Mother, Mercy
<<2003-07-02 - 12:31 a.m.>>

She called my father, after. He wouldn't tell me what she said.

And so here. Here I am. It ends here, it begins here.

Except it doesn't. I can't make it stop hurting. I don't know how to ride it out. It won't stop.

I don't know how to make anybody talk to me. Am I a person worth knowing? A worthwhile person? I want to know people so badly, and I nurture like a baby giant the idea that no one wants to know me. I need so horrifically, and no one needs me.

She is so far away from me. They are both so far away from me. What is wrong with me that they are so far away?

It feels like I've always been lonely. It's always felt shameful, the loneliness.

It surges so easily, and then there are sobs, big ones, and I can't even think about running away.

I want to run away to my pink house. My pink house where there are people who may not want to love me but who are not abandoning me crippled in their lack of love.

I've done my homework. I could fly back to Portland on August 5th for $185, which I can make in a week at the job I'll start soon. I'll have a chance to say goodbye to my parents, who come home from their three-week trip on August 1, and to my sister, who comes home from her five-week French extravaganza on the 2nd. No subletters in August, to the best of my knowledge. I'd be free and clear. I'd read books and drink coffee...

I trail off here. The idyll doesn't come easy tonight.

I kind of can't believe the things I said to her tonight. I can't even think what they were...but she called my father, after. Calling my father for support during his workday seems an extreme measure. Maybe you have to know my father to understand this. And my parents' relationship.

I am such a cripple.

Save me, save me, save me. Heal me where I'm broken. Quite the task. A tall order.

Too much, too intense, too angry, too painful. You want me with you down there in the pit? Like it's unreasonable. Like it's unreasonable to want someone with me. Giving the lie to all her "You know, it's okay to ask for help, you should ask for help when you need it..." I don't ask because there's no chance of getting it. I never asked.

Children are dependant creatures. It's natural. Isn't it natural? Isn't it normal?

I just never stopped.

And God, it's just so childish. All of it. Me. My infantile yearning and I, we're dupes.

And aren't broken people, sad people, often interesting people? Why am I not an interesting person? Why don't I draw people into my brokenness? I know quite a few broken people who draw others quite successfully. I am unmagnetic. I'll never be the girl someone approaches. Always the begging girl. Scrambling for what I can get.

It's just that I can't take the aloneness. I never could. I feel alone and I can't bear it. I can't. I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this. There's never been anyone to share the burden.

And I seem to love disproportionately. I care so much for so many. And I don't seem to matter to other people. Disposable.

I feel like one of those Giacometti figures. Alone by virtue of fragility.

And I fall so fast. At the slightest inkling of affection. It was enough that Steffi wanted to be with me—the fact that I didn't really want to be with her didn't seem to bother me. It wasn't like I wanted to kiss Josh. He wanted to kiss me. He wanted to kiss someone, and I was there, and because he wanted to kiss me, I let him.

And John? John who everyone knew was wrong for me? John who let me worship him because he took care of me? The worst part was finding out I wasn't special. That he was just like that. Needed to take care of people. Almost pathologically. That was the worst. The finding out.

It was the worst with my mother, too. The finding out.

And she talked as we walked home. We were going to go to the gym. I'd been with Hanna. I was cheerful. And I felt cut down. Cut off. Shut off. Shut out. I bit my lip and squinted ahead, and she didn't ask what was wrong.

Because she doesn't want to know.

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