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[Note: If anything here really confuses any of you, go here it should help. If not, just browse the archives for a while. It's all in there.] I thought of something really interesting today. I was in the shower, of all places, having a conversation with myself like I always do, when myself started saying things like "that's probably the only thing I wouldn't do over again. That's probably the only thing I'd go back and change if I could." ...and I was shocked once I realized what I was saying. Cuz I was talking about my whole relationship with "J.A." People ask me all the time if I'd do it over again- usually about school. "If you had it to do again, would you stay in high school?" ...and that's an easy question- I absolutely wouldn't. I would do the same exact thing I did. I wouldn't change a thing about that. No one knows enough about "J.A" to ask me questions about her. And for some reason, I never asked myself before. But really, if I had it all to do over again, would I run screaming the first day of fourth grade when I first met her? or would I just not hang out with her on the field trip in sixth grade? Where would I draw the line? Or would I draw it at all? Not that long ago, that would have been an easy question. I would have said, of course I'd do it all over again. "Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." ...or however that goes. I'm not so sure anymore. We had a lot of good times. But we also had all of the worst times of my life. And I've spent years trying to tell myself the two weren't related- that I would've been depressed whether or not she was around, and that if she hadn't been around I would've been even more depressed, because I would have been completely convinced no one cares, instead of convinced that "no one cares but her." But the further I get away from it the more I think I'm realizing that those two were very much connected. I don't think our relationship was healthy. It has taken me almost four years to come to the point where I can admit that. We drove each other deeper. It's almost a cliche to call it a spiral, but it really was. Seeing her depressed made me even more depressed, her seeing me depressed made her even more depressed... and it just kept going and going until we broke. Or I broke. I always was worse than her. The spiral probably mostly started with me. I think j.a. was dealing with my issues almost as much as she was dealing with her own. Don't get me wrong- she did have her own issues. But I don't think she would have gotten to the point of confronting them in quite the same way if I hadn't been around pushing. She was never one to question things. She always did whatever they said and never broke the rules. Actually, I never broke the rules either. I just wrote my own rules, while she let someone else do the writing. She never talked back. The whole time I knew her, the whole time we were one person, I never knew her to actually say "It shouldn't be that way- it should be this way." That infuriated me, even then. Even when we were so close we couldn't fight because fighting would break it. We actually talked in those terms, too. We had whole discussions about whether or not elsewhere is fragile, and whether or not it can last. The discussions were all written down. We never could talk about it outloud... that could shatter it. We cried a lot that year. It was mostly eighth grade. It started in seventh. Seventh was the first year we were really friends. I still remember our first sleepover. Eighth grade is when it got too intense. Seventh grade we started reading each others journals... by eighth I think we were writing to each other more than to ourselves. (and, as you can see... I still haven't gotten over the need to have someone read my journal. I can't explain it and I won't try.) I exaggerated a lot in that journal. I was 12 at the beginning of eighth grade, and I was already writing books full of how much I hated my mom. (My dad was rarely in there... it seems really hard for me to imagine now but he wasn't really a big part of my life back then... when I pushed him away he went. Thank God he came back...) anyway, j.a. would read those books about how awful my mom was and I knew it wasn't rational so I would make up examples. I didn't have to make up many... at that point there were enough real ones. When I was 12 I felt grown-up, and my mom couldn't accept that. I needed to be able to decide for myself whether or not I needed an umbrella, without her coming to the end of the driveway and holding one over my head until the bus (filled with overly critical 11-18 year olds) came and saw her. (Yes, that happened. I literally didn't speak to her for months. I spent a lot of time that year trying not to hit my mom. I don't think I ever did... althought I won't swear it. I don't remember very much of that year. I only have vague recollections of little snippits in time. I know there is a lot I don't remember. I remember standing in my room and just screaming when I couldn't listen to my mom complain anymore. And I remember lying in bed crying while she yelled about taking me to a hospital where they would force me to eat. And I remember walking through the kitchen feeling like I was walking in slow motion. I remember getting picked up by the policeman the time I tried to run away, and I remember sitting on the floor in my room while both my parents talked... but I don't remember actually leaving or anything they said. The most disturbing, though, is that I remember waking up, looking at the scabs on my arms, and checking the sheets for blood... I don't actually remember cutting myself, except for one vague little snapshot of what I think was the first time. I don't have any idea how many times I actually cut myself, except that from the number of scars and the journal entries I have trouble reading... it must've been quite a few. umm... anyway. the point is, as all that was going on... j.a. were evolving from "friends" to "best friends" to "more than best friends." I think the fact that she allowed it to go that far shows she had issues. The letters she writes me make it sound like I raped her... but I do remember that part, and so does she. She even acknowledges "I know we discussed it, I know I said yes, but I didn't really want to." ...I mean, she verbally said "yes" ...so we're just dismissing that part right now. But she didn't want to do it. I thought she did at the time. For two years I wouldn't believe that she ever didn't want to do it, because she did do it. (And we're not going to get into the specifics of "it". It doesn't matter.) ..even at my very worst, I couldn't imagine doing something like that if you didn't want to. I couldn't understand not being able to say no when someone actually asks you, "do you want to?" I still don't understand it. But I believe it now. She never had any self-confidence... and she never, ever questioned. I knew she never questioned. I don't know why it took me so long to realize that she also never said no. Her issues were always different than mine. Mine basically all evolved from needing to be independent at the same time my mom needed me not to be, and from being gay and realizing it at a time when I couldn't even bring myself to say hello to my mom, let alone tell her. I couldn't feel out how she felt about gay people... it would have required a conversation, and I was physically uncapable of having a conversation with her without screaming. Neither of my parents had ever mentioned the subject before. If it weren't for the library (which I basically lived in my entire life) I wouldn't have even known there was such a thing. I can't imagine how someone who doesn't read would feel when they're 12 years old and first realizing they're really different... I felt so alone as it was. But anyway, because they never mentioned it, I assumed the worst. I think somewhere subconsciously I was thinking, "they're going to hate me anyway, it'll be easier this way, if I make them hate me." and I know that somewhere I was thinking "if I can't tell them this, the single most important thought in my head... then I won't tell them anything." It wasn't all my fault, though. They should've done something earlier. And there was a teacher at the school who knew I was cutting myself for months before she told my parents. She only told them because "j.a." told her I wanted her to. Because I did. I always wanted my parents to know. I couldn't tell them. I wasn't capable of that. But I wanted them to know. I was thirteen by then, and I was still sure that if they knew they would do something and make it all better. The longer it went on the worse it got because I needed them to notice. Obviously, they noticed something was wrong, but they didn't notice I was screaming for help. When I ran away, they took me to a therapist. One of my mom's friends. (yeah.) ...when I said I didn't want to go, they never forced the issue again. They never noticed the cuts on my arms, even when I wore short sleeves. I wore short sleeves on purpose, when it wasn't even warm enough, because I needed them to know. They never noticed. (It is so hard for me to think back and realize that all this happened only four years ago. Is that even possible? Sometimes it seems like it happened another lifetime ago, and other times it seems like it happened yesterday. The happy parts were longer ago. There were happy parts. I think.) that may have been the only "healthy" thing that happened in our whole relationship... "j.a." told that teacher to tell my parents, and she did. I still hate that teacher for not telling my parents sooner. I know she didn't want to hurt me, but I don't think it was her place to decide that. I was cutting myself, I wasn't eating, I wasn't sleeping, and she knew all that. I even wrote an essay about a girl killing herself. She still never told anybody. She just assumed I didn't want my parents to know. She never even asked me if she should talk to my parents. Anyway. The point of all this. Would I do it again? If I could, would I choose not to be involved with "j.a." ...did she hurt more than she helped? Was it worth it? I really don't know. I think that objectively, probably not. But there were a lot of other factors, too. Things were bad with my parents even before I met her. The whole sexuality issue wouldn't have been as urgent, but it still would have had to be dealt with eventually. It's hard to say how things would have turned out. Would I have had any friends at all in eighth grade if I hadn't met her? I kind of doubt it. That alone might have made it worse. Eighth grade is not the place to be a loner. Especially if you're a loner with really poor coping skills, like me. So maybe I wouldn't have been better off without her. We did have some good times. The problem is that it's hard to measure the good times because all they were was better than the other times. The depression never went away. There is a cloud over all those memories, even the happiest ones. It settles right in the middle of my chest whenever I try to remember back then. I remember the week they closed our school because of the tire fire (the tire dump across the street got set on fire the day before we were scheduled to go back from spring break- we ended up having another full week off)...she came over almost every day. Once, my friend from down the street (she's the daughter of my former baby-sitter. She's five or six years younger than me) ...she came up too, and we went on a picnic in the woods and sat in the flowers and used a whole roll of film. And there were countless sleepovers where we laughed so much it hurt to breathe the next day. But I can't remember what we laughed about. And I can't remember what I felt while I was laughing. Laughing and crying are really close with me. I tend to start laughing hysterically at absolutely nothing when I'm really stressed out. I'll be sitting in the room all by myself when something just slightly funny will happen and I'll start laughing and laughing and I won't be able to stop. It happened just a couple weeks ago... only I wasn't alone, and that made it even worse. I couldn't stop laughing. She kept staring at me like I was absolutely insane (maybe I am.) and tears were just streaming down my cheeks and I couldn't stop laughing. So I don't know if the times my chest hurt from laughing so much really count as good times or not. I can't remember any of them. I can only remember my chest hurting, and wondering why it would hurt, and then thinking "maybe it's because we laughed so much." ...and I know it happened several times although I can't really remember that. I just know it. I don't know why there's so much I can't remember. tesserae sometimes talks about having to block things out in order to keep going... and I know the things she blocked out are a million times worse than anything I had to block out... but like I've said... I have bad coping skills. Nothing my therapists could do ever seemed to change that. I think maybe that's what happened... that my brain just blocked out the things it couldn't deal with. I have flashbacks sometimes. Smells are the worst... I'll catch a whiff of something that smells like the hospital (it had a very distinctive smell that I still can't exactly place...) and I'm gone for the rest of the day. It's even worse when I smell something that smells like "j.a." ...my cousin rene sometimes smells like she used to. That's bad. I guess it's just hard to say at all what you would do differently if you don't know how things would turn out. Things turned out pretty good for me. Really, if I hadn't met "j.a." I probably wouldn't have left high school when I did because I could've repressed the whole sexuality issue for years without her. And it worked pretty good for me to quit high school. I can't even imagine what it would be like to still be in high school right now. I would be a senior if I hadn't dropped out. That thought is just beyond me. I don't think I could've made it. I don't think things would've gotten as bad as fast as they did... but they still would've gotten bad. I guess that's just the ultimate problem in saying absolutely whether or not I would've done it again. I can list all the things she impacted, all the bad things she was a factor in causing. (it wasn't really her, I know, it was my relationship with her.) ...but there were a lot of other factors. With or without her, I am still gay. I still needed more independence than my mom could give. (to an enormous degree.) I still would've been too ready to question authority... that's really what killed me in high school. I saw right through some of the things they did and I wasn't willing to go along with it. I guess that's it, there. Maybe everybody sees it, I don't know. But I wasn't willing to go along with it. I think I must've gotten that from my dad... because neither was he. He pulled me out. I know that with or without "j.a." I never would have killed myself. I thought about it, sure. But I had plans that I wasn't willing to give up. But I think it is safe to say that she's the reason I didn't run away. The real question then is, "Would it have gotten to the point where I wanted to run away if she hadn't been there?" ...I think it probably would have. Our first sleepover wasn't until the spring in 7th grade. We went to the school musical, and then she slept over, and then we went to the chocolate fest the next day. We weren't even close to being close friends before then. Things were already pretty bad, before that, I think. I don't know for sure... I really don't remember much of anything about seventh grade except for science class. I still remember everything we did in that class. I don't remember anything bad specifically happening in seventh grade. I just think it did. I do remember writing her the first "i feel like crying" note. That was in the spring of seventh grade. So I think things were already bad. I think. Anyway. I can't remember eighth grade. I can't remember whether we were close at the beginning of the year or if it evolved into being close. I do know that we took her with us to Cedar Point just before eighth grade started. I remember that and I remember quite a bit about that trip. So maybe we were close before that. I know that I tried to run away in December of eighth grade, before Christmas vacation. And I know I was in the hospital for mother's day. I know that I was in the hospital for a little while, that they let me out for a couple days, and then they readmitted me. I don't remember a thing about those couple of days in between. I have an idea of what happened because I remember discussing it when I was back in the hospital, but I don't remember what actually happened. All I really know is that I wasn't better. okay, back to my point. (no, there isn't really one. But I'm not done disecting yet.) I think I would probably do it again. If only because if our whole relationship hadn't happened, my life would be so much different than it is now. with most friends, you can say "this and this and this would be different" ... I can't say that with her, because there's not a single thing about eighth grade that wouldn't change. We were one person. We finished each others sentences. We knew each other more than I would've ever thought it's possible to know another person. (of course, the further away from that one I get the more I wonder how much she wasn't telling... but all that really counts is that I knew more about her than any other person, and vice verse. And if we didn't know everything, we knew almost everything. There wasn't much.) My relationship with her has shaped who I am. I would be a completely different person if it weren't for her. A lot of who I am because of her I could maybe life without. Like the way I can't be around more than two or three people without shrinking. And the way I can't touch anybody my age. (parents, grandparents, and little kids. They are the only people I can touch.) But there are other things. I can't think of them right now... because really, everything I am has been shaped by her. I'll never be the same no matter how much I wish I could be, even if I could decide if I wanted to be. I guess this whole point is kind of stupid in a way. I will obviously never get the chance to choose again. Even if I were given the chance, I could never choose not to without definitly knowing the outcome... I'm too much of a coward to face the fact that it might have been worse. That's hard for me to imagine... but it's possible. If everything had been the same, except for nobody told that teacher to tell my parents... that would have been worse. It's very unlike me to relate more to a male character (in anything)... which is probably very sexist, but it's true. I'm not going to try to explain it now... it would probably double the length of this and it's long enough already. But in RENT, I relate more to Roger than to anyone else. He says: Barging in on me and my guitar Little girl - hey The door is that way You better go you know The fire's out anyway |