I can never leave the past behind
I can see no way, I can see no way
(Florence and her glorious Machine)
Imagine yourself gripping a jagged rock so tight, fingers changing colour from the strain and blood trapped in there.
Now imagine how good it feels when you finally let go. That relief.
Good, Weird, Bad shit happens and I just write about it. Life feels like an elaborate maze and I am enjoying it, even the stuff that really hurts, the heavy, sharp, cutting things. Turn them over and over in my mind until the edges becomes smooth and the lesson understood. Like a rock tumbler, bringing out the shine.
I was just on the phone with an old friend who is going through some serious relationship trauma. He asked “how do you date after this?” I rhymed off the tiniest list of shit I have been through, and I stopped dead in the middle. Wait…seriously…How DO I do this? After all the pain, the trauma, the cheating, the lies, the ghosts and I still go out and try again? And not half-assed neither, lately I am all fucking in.
I’m trying to solve the labyrinth, but not so I can get out of it. I want to live here (it’s made of magic). I’m learning, exploring. I am pushing my long held boundaries of what I think I am allowed to give and what I thought I could take. I’m starting to freak myself out a bit with this actual enjoyment of the strangeness. I supposed it’s some kind of survival mechanism or, maybe I just know I’ll live through it. Or maybe I am home.
Apparently I am not allowed to bring any of my past into the future. I have to be a Terminator. Come in naked, lightning crackling. No fate but what we make (Sarah Connor Terminator 2).
I like that.
Monday.
I stumbled upon some pre-summer beautiful boy messages that made me physically ill. Not because they were mean…because they were so fucking sweet. I had to forget how extraordinary he was so I could wrap my head around him leaving. Didn’t help. He escaped the oubliette. Truth is, I never locked the door. I thought of him every time the sky turned red.
I think it’s like covering a tattoo. The original ink will always show through from certain angles. I am doing that too. Covering all my old tattoos. Everyone asks what I used to sit for it. Nothing. Caterpillars don’t take painkillers. I’m altering what I was, I am becoming something.
Ya, it fucking hurts, change often does.
Tuesday.
So I was in the proverbial desert (see The Nothing). Yes, there is a desert in my Labyrinth, Terminators too, just roll with it. Feeling like I was getting close to the end. Ha, the Gods are funny fuckers. Car broke down. First instinct, grab everything I could carry and walk. Well, no. first instinct scream like a banshee, cry a bit and then do the thing.
Too much weight, so I LET IT GO.
Texts from another ex
Him: “please stop telling me I bettered you and changed you, I have read enough of your blog to know everyone you ever fuck, which is apparently a lot of people, help you and better you, I feel fucking unclean now.”
I forgot how awful he could be.
Midnight until 6 am. We held a palaver in the desert. He doesn’t like the blog, said I painted him a villain, so he turned back into a monster, the monster I forgot about, never wrote about?
Well that hardly seems safe now does it?
“Because you did it is why I think you did it.” Paul Rudd
I know better than to engage but I was so wired/tired from 3 hours of 1 am driving. I let him mash his fists into the old control-panel that held ALL my buttons. Oh honey, I’ve upgraded, I’m not wired that way anymore. He said I would end up old and alone, all I would have are memories.
I seriously thought (but didn’t type) Do you promise? That sounds amazing!!!!
I know I’m not dumb. I know I am not ugly. I’m okay with my whoreishness.
You have no power over me (Sarah in The Labyrinth)
He hasn’t for years. He exists only in the past. I could see the fight like I was watching an old home movie, detached. Safe in my present perspective. Stop.
I didn’t vilify him. I checked. I offered to let him edit, tell me what I did wrong and I’d fix it. Offered to print a retraction. Tried this exit and that one. I think he was looking for a fight and I drew the short straw.
I washed my memory clean of this behaviour ages ago when I forgave the both of us. But that night he came dragging a dead horse whose name I forget, and showed his true colours when I showed him mine. I’m too much whore and not near enough Madonna for him. Always was. Illusion shattered. I’m not sorry.
I suddenly and fully remembered why he is my ex.
Wednesday
I realized something. I had a full mental breakdown about the boy of pre-summer. I wept, hard. That deep soul sobbing. I wrote this whole big article, posted it and everything. As of today, it’s the only post I have ever deleted. He didn’t ask for revisions or retractions. We just talked a bit and I realized it wasn’t the truth, he was something lovely I’d painted over so I could forget. I couldn’t stand by it. He was sweet to me.
Angry ex? All posts stand. “You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.” Anne La Mott. Eyes are desert dry.
Yes, my memory is selective. I can only carry so much and I want the things I bring to feel light and right and good. Smoothing over is a good thing, makes it easier to walk on and hold onto sometimes.
My girl flew in from the real desert the night this started. I picked her up after Burning Man. She spoke of the Haboob.
I know I’m in it right now. Fine grains of sand in storm form, forcing me to drop the last of my past, hands free to cover my eyes. I need those where I am going. This grit and dust isn’t getting me dirty, it’s the final stage of polishing me clean. I won’t look back, I am not going that way.
Never go that way.
