this is an oldest story

[foxtongue]

sarah boyer - freshmeat
Originally uploaded by Foxtongue.

I have found my laughter from where it was hiding. This time, for the very first time, it's allowed out of the closet with tears still in its eyes. When I grew up, I grew up in a strange canadian cultural vacuum. I would stare out the window of the truck at all the houses gliding past and wonder what real people had inside thier houses. What was on the other side of so many doors? I lived in hotel rooms and on some basic level, they're all the same. Clinical transiency. Fake flowers, soulless bedspreads that match the thick ugly curtains, television remotes that you either find next to the miniature fridge or bolted to the table. Cable is an option, but there's always an ice machine that clunks in the middle of the night. I used to pad out into hallways and sit against them sometimes, because it was a light I could read by. Anonymous. The trick is that they're always anonymous. The furniture is not your furniture, the life you live within those walls belongs to no one. I grew up being not real people.

My body jerked me across my bed when I woke up this morning. An unfamiliar hand had touched me on the shoulder. Left over reflexes I really should work on controlling a little better. I was up late, reading, unable to think about my tomorrow. Too many things. I have a livingroom picnic this afternoon with Brian. We're putting down a blanket and making sandwiches. If I was a better person, I would suggest we pretend we're on a beach somewhere, but I'm not. So I won't. Breakfast today with precious friends led into a pleasant walk up the drive and some actual grocery shopping. It's like my world spun around. A smile has been affixed to my face. Someone I don't know stopped me on the street on my way home with my bags, "I see you all the time on the drive, but I've never talked to you, but today I felt I had to say something. You're really pretty when you're happy". He was my height, with dark brown hair and a slightly crooked baseball hat. I wouldn't recognize him again.

Comments

[antastra.livejournal.com]

You are really pretty when you're happy! What a nice random comment.

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

It was a bit wierd. I was silently glad he lkept walking right after, otherwise I would have been at a loss at with to say.

[ridenowhere.livejournal.com]

"My body jerked me across my bed when I woke up this morning. An unfamiliar hand had touched me on the shoulder. Left over reflexes"

Still?

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

I've gotten better. It's not as violent anymore. The worst that happens is that I grab people by the wrist now, usually, if at all.

[silver-notebook.livejournal.com]

I have found my laughter from where it was hiding
So glad of this.

I sometimes have comments thrown at me from strangers in the street, such as 'give us a smile' or 'life's not that bad' if I'm wondering along on the slightly low side of neutral, and then when I'm smiling they'll comment on that. I guess my face sometimes isn't neutral. It's good to be happy: happiness is such a pretty thing.

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

I'm getting a really wierd side effect of happy days. They melt away all my automatic self defence reactions, and this is sort of a problem, because they're not in place to keep other people out, but to keep me out of myself. I ended yesterday by falling down in the rain miserable, and crying sporadically. It was quite the fall-apart. It's a little alarming.

life's not so bad
Those are the comments I'm used to, especially "life can't be that sad." Oddly, they never happen when I'm actually upset, only when I'm blank. I went home on transit once bawling, crying uncontrollably. No one said anything, hardly anyone looked at me. Society's a strange place.

[silver-notebook.livejournal.com]

falling down in the rain miserable, and crying sporadically
Sorry to hear that. I hope such episodes become rarer for you.

It seems we sometimes get similar responses to our blankness!

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

Secretly I'm growing up to be the country mouse version of you. Beware.

[silver-notebook.livejournal.com]

Oh, honey; you are NO country mouse version of me. Already you are far bolder and braver than I imagine I'll ever be. And if you truly are growing up to be some version of me, it may be you who needs to beware!