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| An old painting, but apt. <3 |
It was such a pleasant weekend but I’m antsy to get
back to the story, anxious for the part where the paragraphs drop me back in
2019, on a few-weeks-ago bright spring day in a nearby city, surrounded by people
with fancy dogs and deeply curated outfits, pleasantly arguing with Sweetie
(Still ex-wife, now freakishly close best friend and co-aunt) whether I was
stopping to take pictures of forsythias or just boring yellow leaves.
While driving toward family for Easter, Sweetie and I
decided to play YouTube DJ, with the rule that we could only pick fun-to-sing
but wholly undignified songs. This led to a lot of belting hair-metal ballads
and the over-optimistic decision to swing by my teenhood home. I was curious
and it was on the way. I had this idea that it would be healing to be there and
see how un-evil the place was, to be there as a strong adult with a reliable
car for easy escape. But we hit a bad pothole and a hubcap flew off my pretty
car, and Sweetie was worried about the tire.
Even if there hadn’t been car-upset though, the street
would have felt rotten and bleak. Not even a couple of Pokéstops could redeem
it—that place doesn’t deserve Pokéstops! The sky was trauma-grey and there was
no escaping the fact that this was the place where the worst things of my life
happened. The little park made me so angry and the old house had been painted a
particularly upsetting shade of taupe. It was old-Twilight-Zone creepy there,
without the fun or charm. I fucking hate that block, I hate that I’ve spent so
much therapy time on it, I hate it, hate it hate it.
The magical thinking of mental illness clicked in and
I thought I had broken my lovely car by getting curious about this awful place,
but the tire was fine and if I want a new hubcap, the guy at the car place is
very cute. Nieces and nephews several towns over broke the spell of the bad
street, my youngest nephew chose a Captain Marvel book on our traditional comic
shop visit, and all was well.
Back in the nineties, it’s still that summer. I’m
pining and waiting for the mail—which, now that I think about it, was my
default state for the ensuing ten years. I loved the feeling that someone cute
was going to send you a card or a letter or a mix tape, sometimes they even
still do.
Far more painful than the pining were the long and
painful treatments for STIs—who knows if I got them consensually or not, I
guess it doesn’t matter. The doctor was a harsh and judgmental old man, gouging
and pinching away at the hurts, freezing my insides to try and heal them. There
were big, intimidating, emphatic antibiotic pills. My mom was there with me for
all of it, and, though we’ve spent big chunks of our lives at odds, for this,
she was kind.
Once, after a particularly harsh doctor’s visit, I was
walking in town and heard kids yelling “Slut!” out of a pickup truck at me. The
summer was half ugly insult, half beautiful dream.
When school started again in the fall, everyday life
settled onto me like a weighted blanket, not in a pleasant way. I gained so
much weight (though I’m sure I was teensy compared to today, but this was WAY
before Dietland/Roxane Gay/Shrill.) that my drama teacher (No Kate
Moss herself) took it upon herself to tell me that I needed new jeans. I
remember those jeans, high-waisted and acid-washed to almost white, devolving
into a permanent wedgie as I got bigger. I want to say I didn’t care, it seemed
like I didn’t, but I seem to remember it a little too vividly.
(This might have also been why I only got the teensiest,
tinesiest part in that fall’s Drama Club production, one scream from backstage
in a murder mystery. I hate this drama teacher. She also told me I’m too tall
to ever be a leading lady, which I guess is true in the patriarchal sense. Fuck
that lady though.)
ANYWAY, there was a very bright spot to look forward
to! The Boy Who Sewed Me a Pillow was coming up with Favorite Aunt for the Drama
Club production, maybe in early October. In anticipation, still glowing with
love about the pillow, I sewed him a shirt.
Objectively, this shirt was probably pretty hideous. I
LOVED fabrics that made not sense back then, I really kind of still do. It was
aqua blue, light green, and purple, with a large and semi-realistic-looking
fish print. (He told me the other week that it also had tiny turtle buttons, a
detail I thoroughly enjoy.) It was the most structured thing I ever sewed, with
a collar and buttonholes and all kinds of ironing and steps. There is NO WAY I
would ever have the patience for all those steps today, good job teenage me.
