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i feel like i have something important to say, something crucial has changed and i have to pinpoint what it is and where it came from, but i can't find it. i think i'm happier now, than i ever have been before. and then, i think maybe i'm not happy but only should be and so i am because i told myself i should be. things keep coming back to me, in a way they never have before. for three years now i've done my best to block out my entire relationship with emily, and suddenly it's back, and i'll tell anyone who'll listen everything i remember, and i'm remembering more than ever. i can say her name without cringing. "i'm finding the pictures, and i finally know what i kept them for" (dar williams, mortal city, buy it.)
I used to only remember the big stories, like the first time we held hands, and the bad stories, like all the times we made each other cry, how hurt she was when i left... and suddenly i'm remembering the good stories, there were good stories, and that realization has seemed to make all the difference... i think maybe when you leave on bad terms it colors everything, i can't believe it took me three years to uncover the truth. we were in love, and we weren't happy but we were happier, and there were a lot of good times. the first time i kissed her we were running around my backyard barefoot at night, and we had the outside lights on but we were far enough away from the house that you could barely tell it wasn't moonlight... and she was climbing the pine tree, and she sat on the first real branch and fell over backward so that she was hanging upside down by her knees... and i went over and kissed her, while she was hanging upside down. she almost fell off, and we laughed the entire way back into the house about how funny she looked, almost falling off, to cover up how insecure we felt at why she almost fell off. we watched the movie Beaches together one night, and there's a line in that movie where the Evil Husband asks Our Heroine what she's going to do that day, and she says, "i was thinking of buying a wrench" and the Evil Husband asks why, and she says, "because we don't have one" we rolled around on the living room floor laughing about that one well into the next scene, and a few weeks later emily went out and bought me a wrench, because i didn't have one. and i used to tell myself there was no point in remembering, because it's over, and i used to tell myself it was ok to remember, and then i told myself i had to remember, i formulated my philosophy that everything i am is based on everything that's happened to me every minute of my life until now, and that, in large part, was a justification for remembering... and i did, i wrote everything i could remember, i wrote how hurt i was and how much i missed her, i wrote entire essays on Bob Dylan's song, "most of the time," i got down everything i could, and then i stopped, and i thought i was done, i thought it was a long time ago, it's over, it's out, i'm okay... but it wasn't okay and i don't know what changed, i don't know what suddenly made it okay to remember the good parts, but suddenly it is. and at the same time i'm not obsessing over it, like i once would have... it's just there. it's like this four year period of my life suddenly opened up for inspection and there's no hurry, because somehow i know it'll always be there, and it'll always be okay, and the good parts don't make me feel worse because they're gone, they make me feel better because they were there, because it's suddenly not as dark as i remember it being. I used to think that if you know someone, if you really really know someone, if you know their every thought and feeling for three of the most important years of their life... then you'll know them forever, then you'll always be able to say, "oh, she'd like that" when you hear a new song on the radio, you'd always be connected so tightly you could never really get apart, no matter how apart you seemed. i don't think that's true anymore. i'll always be able to say, "oh, she would've liked that." I'll always remember who she was. but i forgot how much people can change. I'd forgotten that she wouldn't recognize me now either, i'd forgotten that the sarah she knew hid in dark rooms and listened to sarah mclachlan, wore baggy clothes and cared too much- about her weight, about what other people thought, about where she was going and what she was doing... and that that sarah bears very little resemblance to the one i am now, who's 18 years old, has her own apartment and on any given night can easily have 15 people here just to hang out, just because they like me, that the sarah who loved sarah mclachlan wasn't ready for ani difranco, she was too busy being depressed to be angry, that 5 years ago you never would've found a tank top in my closet, let alone a shirt that wasn't at least three sizes too big... but then maybe she wouldn't be surprised. there are lines, there are places we start and places we end up, and there's a clear path in between, i've always been the sort of girl who would make out with another girl on the beach, despite the dirty glares from grandparents, just because i felt it was my right. I've always been the sort of girl who would wear crazy mismatched clothes just to get attention, clothes that screamed the word "freak" because that's what i wanted them to see. and, on some level, i've always been angry. i got a tattoo, on my ankle, two weeks ago... it's a chinese symbol which means "live for today". i think, that if i could go back in time and tell my thirteen yearold self that, she'd appreciate it. i think that that's always been my motto, although i haven't always been able to articulate it, i haven't always been able to achieve it, i think it's always been what i needed, what i felt was right, what i was looking for. a way to live my life so that today, i'm happy. period. I think i've finally found it. ~me |