Can't Take Direction, and My Socks Are Never Clean

I should have left sooner. I always should leave sooner. I’m never very good at goodbye. At the very least we could have salvaged our friendship, but I’m not so great at that sometimes either. We needed to take care of ourselves. I saw it just as much as you did, but I was afraid. Afraid that if I left, you would take it as a sign that we were never meant to be, that we were better off apart than together. And you did. Anyway. We really just needed time. We just needed to heal. We each had to figure out for ourselves why the truck had missed us and killed her, and we weren’t strong enough to do it together. But that was all it meant.

I hope you’ve found it. The reason.

That there is no reason. It just happened. It is just the way the universe works, and we have no control over such things. It’s taken me a long time to get here. Probably too long. I’ve destroyed a lot in the meantime. Love. Relationships. Myself. And all I’ve figured out is exactly what I knew all along – there is no reason. I control nothing other than myself. It’s a hard, clobbering fact that I have spent my life trying to teach myself. Sometimes, I am a horrible student. Sometimes, I refuse to give the right answer just because I don’t like the way it’s been taught to me.

Sometimes, I fail. On purpose. Just so I can be right in the end.

Maybe the Wizard Can Help

I need to go home. I have responsibilities to other people. Obligations. They are depending on me. Always depending on me. I am not ready to go.

I’m not writing.

I have not been able to write for some time now. I mean, I’ve filled up steno pads and the pages of various journals with the ramblings of a crazy woman. Even thrown a few of those up here. But to write, to sit down at the computer and put my thoughts on the screen and be able to do nothing else for hours, let alone days at a time . . .

It’s been years.

I can hardly take it anymore. I am carrying the weight of too many words unsaid. I feel numbed by their force, pressing me down, keeping me down.

I could always write with you. I could always write better, more honestly. But I’m not writing. Not even now. Here. With you.

I am not ready to go home.

I am not ready to go home because I know my home, but I just can’t find my way back.

Hey, I'm Not Trying to Be Nobody

I’m in Texas. Have come to see my dearest friend. I’m wearing a cowboy hat that makes me feel only slightly self-conscious and that I only tried on ironically because I am, after all, in the great country of Texas, but my friend told me it looked great on me (which was not the reaction I expected to get from a woman who has only to raise an eyebrow to portray her disgust at how wrong I look in something I think makes me look fabulous). She insisted I buy it. Was adamant about it, and I had to get it. So I am now sitting on the bed, writing, and looking fabulous in a cowboy hat in Texas and only feeling self-conscious about the fact that I am not wearing it ironically.

Practicing My Purpose Once Again

I stand outside, smoking a cigarette. I’m sure I reek of paint and pot and sweat, and I lean back against the brick wall, exhausted, and blow smoke into the night air. One foot against the wall, I think to myself I must look pretty cool. Like a James Dean poster. Or a Marlboro ad. I hope my friend comes out and sees me. Standing here. Relaxing against the brick wall and smoking a cigarette. She should come outside and see me right now. Take a picture of me, standing here, as if I don’t notice she’s there, taking a picture of me. The kind of picture that would end up being on the jacket of my memoir and would make people want to buy my book simply because I look like the kind of badass bitch who could write a really awesome story. The kind of bitch who has lived a really awesome story.

Yeah, she should come outside and see how cool I am.