Journal Entry 6/10/02

June 10, 2002

I wanted to.
I wanted to take you under my wing, to Amazon w/ blue-hair your troubles away.
You were desperately searching to belong somewhere in this room of lithe pulsating bodies and skimpy, designer sportswear. I’m searching to belong there, too. But I’ve got Claudia. She jokes and laughs my way to comfort with her in-shape-ness.
There was a time when I would have taken you on with much more commitment than I gave to you today. But that was a long time ago, and I’m a far different person now.

I always tired of the work it took to keep an adoptee in comfort. I ritually hurt the person out of my presence, out of my circle, out of my sight.

So I’ve learned a little. From the broken bones of those before you.
I offered you a smile. A tight, taut beckon into this world. Come here, I said.
Come here, and we’ll turn this around. We’ll turn this around to a welcoming, laughing group of women bound together in our beauty myth. Bound indelibly by the cottage cheese on our thighs. I hate the lithe women in skimpy sportswear as much as you. I know you’re probably a kinder, gentler soul.

But take it from me: toughen up or get the fuck out.
There’s no place for kind, gentle souls anymore.

The thing about being vulnerable is that SOMEONE will take it from you. Someone will reach up and rip out your neck, just because you offered it. There was a time I thought myself a martyr. I would offer up my neck for all those who were yet unable to. That lasted about as long as my 25th birthday. Then I hardened, and gasped through torn larynxes, bled through torn carotids, until I fashioned a new throat. A new voice. A louder one, with an edge. Now I’m aghast to say that if you offer your neck to me, I’ll take it from you.

Because I can.
Because you asked me to.
Because there is no other way to help you here.

But then, I’m here and there’s no help for me, either. Train wreck. Avalanche. Barfight.
So I guess there’s not much left out here. For either of us to take, much less share. I wish it had all been different. I wish I set out on a nicer, smoother path. I wish I didn’t fall and then turn around and curse the branch that tripped me. But I do.

I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing most of the time. I can’t shake the feeling that all my friends are going to turn around and call me a fraud. I can’t shake the feeling that they’d be right. I can’t find anything at all that I’m genuine about, except my love of words, my cats, and being on stage.

My marriage is unsatisfactory and I can’t afford to do anything about it.
The life I want to lead is on a shelf somewhere.
I work over 40 hours a week and still live in constant fear of being fired.

I am nastier than I seem to be.
I’m nicer than I think I am.
I wish I were someone else.

I’m always somewhere else.