Sweet, sweet morning. There can't be much better in life than waking up with Greg Steffke in your bed, honestly. I feel so lucky to be able to mentally distance myself to a more objective view, look at him after nearly two years, and still think to myself, "THAT GUY wants to DO IT with ME. WOW." And there he is. Snoring ever so gently and quietly... I shouldn't be writing this... BUT I WILL! ... and wearing my Mary Lee's School of Dance, 1990 "Broadway Melodies" dance recital, turqoise and hot pink t-shirt. Tell me that's not triple-"t" HOTTT. Go ahead. Try.
(Editor's note to whom it may concern: I love you and I'm only sharing this because I think it's so damn awesome. Any time you read something here that you find embarassing, try to keep in mind, "at least she didn't post pictures." smooch)
So here I am in my half-packed office, boxes neatly labelled. Funny, the things you discover when moving. Like, I have three boxes of just college textbooks. If I read these - and I did - then why do I feel so stupid. Or, When in life did I think it necessary to purchase the illicit memoir of some American swinger lady's sexual romps in France?
For approximately 13 years, I was a journaller. Not journalist, mind you. Journaller. An annoyingly obsessive, coffee-drinking, cigarette-smoking, semi-beatnik, LOOK AT ME I'M WRITING ABOUT YOU sort of diarist. I cannot tell you right now exactly how many entries begin with the phrase, "So here I am in the corner/naugahide booth smoking cigarettes and shaking," but once I've gotten an approximate count, I will let you know.
As I grew older and moved and moved again, I learned that the easiest way to keep my memories - and mental illness - with me was to simply keep them in the trunk of my car, rather than packing and unpacking them every time I relocated, which at one point in my life was once, sometimes two or three times, a year. Fuck it. Just leave 'em in the car, 'cause you're gonna get sick of this place in three months. They started off in a cardboard box, then graduated to a few milk crates, overflowed into a used piece of shit black homemade plywood box that now stores my daughter's stuffed animals, and have finally graduated to an even split between my office cabinet and a dirty but sturdy vintage suitcase. Before I start going through the chronicles of bullshit, it is my intent to stack the cabinet notebooks on top of the suitcase, set it on a scale, and find out just how much my teenage years really weigh. Probably two-thirds of my physical weight. Betcha ten bucks.
My best friend, Tracey (hi, Trace!), also kept journals, and we have discussed several times the best way for us to lighten ourselves of the load, to ritually abandon our illicit pasts and destroy possible evidence that our daughters would eventually, inevitably, discover. My idea was to go camping for a night, get drunk and laugh - and shake - at what we find within the pages while ripping them out, one by one, and throwing them into the fire. GOODBYE, BAD ACID TRIP! GOODBYE, DAN HISER! GOODBYE, HALF-ASSED SUICIDE ATTEMPTS! GOODBYE, NIRVANA LYRICS EVERYWHERE! Because of the fact that we are both mothers, however, and (temporarily!) living in two different states, our little camping trip has not happened. I'm pretty sure Trace has gone through much of her adolescence, though, and either stacked it for the furnace or cast it away accordingly. But mine's still here, oh, heavy load, and waiting to be dissected.
Much of it I will keep - and hopefully transform into the book I always said I would make of them - but much will be incinerated. The plan is to spend some time over the next few weeks pre-moving-in-with-Greg, deciding which parts of my life I am taking with me and which parts can go where they belong, in the ether. This is a big move for both of us, and while I CANNOT TELL YOU how excited I am for what we are beginning, there is much that is best left behind. It's one thing to know your girlfriend was on lithium at one point in her life. It's another to read what she wrote in the psych ward, age 17. Those were dark, dark years and I don't want that shit in my life, let alone Greg's.
So I peeked into a few notebooks last night, just a few, and actually found that there was more for the "Save" pile than I anticipated. A Friendship Contract/Agreement written and signed by myself, Tracey Melissa Johnson, and Kelly Arline Olson, solemnly swearing to always love each other no matter where life leads us (check). Some songs I never wrote music to, but the lyrics are pretty damn good, which only makes me wonder yet again how I have become so boring and stupid with age. A letter to a dear old friend, who had just moved to Owatonna "Idon'twanna Live Here", Minnesota, and was undergoing electro-convulsive therapy. That one left me shaking, and I promptly stuffed the notebook back into the case and slammed it shut.
This. Is. Going. To. Be. Painful. Not just wow-this-is-bad-writing painful (although there will be much of that, I know), but truly horrifying and enlightening. This is why I feel so lucky to have you in my life. 1993-1999. This is why.
The plan is to get through it all somehow (hey, I lived it - reading it will be a heck of a lot easier), rip out the unwanted pages, and spend one long, late night at the Clare, tossing them into the fireplace. I can think of no better grave, no better place to say goodbye, than the place that has brought me to my new home. Our new home. A stack of papers, probably some whiskey, some cigarettes definitely, and a roaring fire.
Goodbye, tired old life. You poor, sad, dysfunctional teen. You wanted to kill yourself, and you finally will. You will have your grave, and a loving goodbye. I love you, but I won't miss you.
Here's to never seeing you again.
Posted by stephanie at November 21, 2005 09:21 AM