things i've wanted

prepare for long entry:

there was a period in my life where i was fully aware i'd always gotten everything i wanted.

i don't mean that in a spoiled rich girl kind of way. i've never been rich. i probably never will be. I had a warm, cozy, well-cushioned but poor life. my mother knew how to turn very little into a hell of a lot. at least in the way that makes you feel 'home'.

but maybe karma wanted to make up to me for the wrench that was my two fathers. because after the age of 15, everything i felt mattered...i managed to receive. . and again, i don't mean anything material. there were many items of clothing, or trinkets...that i coveted and had to do without.

maybe it was that upon finally opening my mouth and telling my dirty-secret about my father... i learned how to make things work for me. I learned how to stop being silent. or how to cultivate the kind of silence that got things done.

I went from having had one friend my whole life. (in vermont, my best and basically only friend was the spunkiest sassiest girl in school. somehow we ended up together anyhow. despite my geekiness and her super-cool. in king city . 11 - 15. nikki [of the crazy-church] was the most beautiful girl in school. again. i have often wondered if it's that i want to surround msyelf with beautiful people or if these beautiful people felt they had no substance in their lives. this is a long parenthetical) to suddenly. upon spurting my secret and moving to a new town. mother-daughter-escape. to having many friends. some sort of blossom happened once i finally picked my own rusty locks and let things spill.

i got the town i wanted to live in. the house i'd always wanted. (with my mother). the friends i'd always missed having. the freedom to finally stop worrying about my mother . about lincoln. about who i needed to protect. and i just acted like a teenager. i drank. i kissed. i drank a lot of coffee. i talked a lot of shit. i met a boy. i kissed him. he wanted to be friends. i kissed him. he wanted nothing too serious. i kissed him. he didn't want me to go to prom with the date i was going with. i kissed him. he asked me to prom. i kissed him. he walked miles to see me and lost 30 lbs. i kissed him. he told me he loved me. i kissed him. we spit new york seltzers at each other and told dirtyjokes. i had sex with him. i loved him. thought i'd marry him. he was always jealous. always suspicious. he played a mean guitar. he was obsessed with stewart copeland and played air drums on my body. he stayed jealous. after 2 years, i left him. and for another 2 years i felt how wrong i'd done it all. and how happy i was he was my first love.

i became a pot head. i tried living alone. i went to community college and took a job. i felt myself losing myself to stuckfriends and too much pot. i moved home.

i saw a boy. in the smoking room at school. my community college was filled with the same cliques that had been in the nearby 4 high schools. he sat alone. he read the newspaper and wore a black jeans jacket with sheepy wool inside. he rolled cigarettes. he was always alone and never looked lonely. he read books. he took siestas in the sun. i watched for him. i stared at him. he never knew. one day , sitting in the sun with my best friend...best friend suddenly took off his boot and threw it at the boy. i lost my breath. he knows him. boy sits up . first words i ever hear "fuck you, i was taking a siesta".

i act neurotic. i talk too much. i try to quit smoking. i tell him my problems. i offer him rides home . 1/2 hour each way out of my way. i make best friend invite him to things. i stare from behind my sunglasses and sigh a lot. i invite him to coffee. driving around town trying to build up guts to do it. i stop at a pay fphone. i get back in my truck . i stop again. get back in the truck. finally i stop at my old high school (im 19 now) and use a payphone there. it's the weekend. "you wanna have coffee?" (pause. he'll say no) "sure". we have coffee. he's not interested still. months go by. sometimes he hangs out. sometimes he doesn't. i take him to my house to watch movies. i try to tell him i have a crush on him and he knows what i'm trying to say and plays with me. i give up. we play basketball. i turn it into full contact basketball, because tackling is still contact. i'm awkard. i'm a dork. he's opinionated, a loner, brilliant. i'm completely intimidated by him and enamored of him. i go away for a weekend of camping and hiking with friends, and we have plans to see some foreign movie when i get back.

i return from a heinous camping trip. call him. we have plans set. i'm glad he's my friend. i've given up on him. i go to see an ex fuck buddy. just to visit. we were still friends. he seduces me with his usual 19 year old flair "willyou give me a massage?" the same come-on line he's been using for 3 years. we have sex. i laugh through the whole thing. he's a little offended.

i leave and go to pick up the boy. we drive around monterey looking for the theater and can't find it. we drive the 45 miles out into the hills to his house, after giving up, and we make mexican coffees and put them in a tall silver thermos. tequila, kahlua and coffee. we go to a meadow to hang out. the moon is near-full-almost-perfect. it's kind of cold out but i dont' care. we drink from the thermos and talk. he lays down and begins to nap. i put my head on his chest and listen to his heart beat. i lay like that for 20 minutes. not breathing. listening to the steady beat of his heart. i lean up and look at his face. he still sleeps. after about 5 minutes, he opens his eyes. we kiss. clothes are removed. we have sex. a few times. we kiss. a lot. we walk to my truck. kissing. he just wants to be friends. i kiss him.

my sweater is filled with burrs. my mother pokes her head into my room the next day and comments on the smell of funk. i am embarrassed. i am happy.

i forget i had sex witha nother boy earlier that day.

we skip classes (he's an amazing student. i am less so). we go to his cousins cottage and explore each other. he just wants to be friends who touch. i kiss him. he just wants to not be in a relationship. i say ok. i kiss him. once, while naked, on top of him. both of us sitting, facing each other. he is inside me and we are staring into each others face. we aren't talking. i start to cry. he kisses a tear.
i leave him alone when he seems to want it. within a month i've whispered that i think i'm falling in love. i don't expect anything back. a few days later he whispers he thinks he is too. i hand him some scissors and make him cut my hair off. he had liked how it tickled his face. i take him to sonoma for his birthday. we don't have reservations anywhere. we drive a lot.

my mother is wanting me to move out. she doesn't know how to handle a family situation where one member is out all the time. i dont' always come home for dinner. i'm going to move in with two girlfriends at the end of summer and he invites me to live with him and his aunt and mother for the summer. i say ok. i kiss him. he says just for summer. i dn't want to live together in monterey. we'll get suck here. i say ok.

i move in in june. we cook and go to movies and make love and sleep curled and i learn to sleep naked.

i tell him months later about the boy i'd been with on our first night. i know i shouldn't. i know he loves me as is. but i , for the first time in my life, have discovered a relationship where keeping anything inside feels wrong. where i want to know me. good and bad.

he leaves the bed one night because of a spider htat keeps biting him. i feel his absence in the middle of the night and pad out, naked, to our separate living room ..where he is on the couch. my hair tousled, not quite awake. i look worried and forlorn. why is he gone. he comes back to brave arachnid teeth.

i love his aunt and his mother. they become my family.

the summer draws to an end. my two girlfriends come back from their vacations. he says don't go. i say ok. we go to ireland. we get our own place a year later. we live together for 3 years. i grow and become myself for the first time. in a way i hadn't yet. i learn who i am and what i think and that it's ok to be. and i start to grow away and i get into the college i want to get into and suddenly i'm not so sure i want him to go with me. i want to be alone. i'm 23 and i've never truly lived alone. i've only been single for 6 months since i was 16. and i love him. and he's my rock and my support system and my best friend.

and i go alone.

and we keep trying. but somehow...somewhere... i clipped something..and it never quite works again even though i move to san francisco to be with him again....

cont.d. later.

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