Old/New

Not too long ago, someone that had once been important to me contacted me, after a fairly extended silence, over the internet and out of the blue. It was weird. Exceedingly, uncomfortably weird. I would have never contacted them of my own choice, I dreaded the possibility of running into them at the grocery store or the movie theater or any other number of innocuous locations where we'd be forced to make polite conversation, and then, poof, there they were again. No explanation. And, well, I guess that was fine. The message they sent was polite and fluffy, the subtext saying both “I miss you” and simultaneously “I'm a liar.” I didn't know how to respond. I didn't respond. I found myself wishing, with surprising desperation, that I had something stunning to report. That I had won a prestigious award. That I had a book being published by a top company, and forecasts suggested it was going to be a hit, both critical and monetary. That I was engaged to someone startlingly attractive and rich, or at least startlingly intelligent and fun. That I had a life. I did not, in fact, have any of these things. Not even close. Suddenly, with that single, unexpected communication, I felt separated from myself, and when viewed from outside, my life's horrible shabbiness snapped into clear focus. What was I doing? What had I done? For years I had insulated myself carefully, working earnestly on my writing, surrounded, for the first time, by like-minded individuals, it seemed I was, perhaps, not so terribly mediocre as I often feared I was. My parents were constant supporters. Their pride that I was in college, that I was going to finish college (one of the only people in my extended family to have done so), had been such a constant, buoying force that, for the most part, I brushed aside questions of whether I couldn't be doing something better. Somehow, this brief message erased all that. I could count the number of times I had been outside of my home state on one hand, on half of one hand. I had never visited another country, had never even been on an airplane, or seen the Pacific Ocean. For God's sake, I couldn't drive.



I know, in theory, that these are not the things which necessarily make a person interesting, or signify success. I know that Emily Dickinson wrote some of the most sophisticated poetry in the English language and barely left her home. I didn't have to feel inadequate because I wasn't some extraordinary figure who did extraordinary things. I didn't have to look good on paper. In theory. That's not how I really felt, though, not how I really feel. Graduation gaining close, I felt suddenly suspended in the ether. I was too old not to have done something better, or at least to have a clue how to accomplish the things I wanted. I was, at the same time, too young. I was too young for anything, too young to feel defeated or tired. And I did feel weirdly tired. “I don't want to be a dried up old cunt” I said to a friend, and I felt I was in immediate danger of becoming just that: a dried up old cunt before the age of twenty-three. I spent so much of my time tucking myself away to work on my creative pursuits, and for what gain? It all felt, suddenly, very silly. Very small.



Then nothing happened. Or rather, lots of things happened, quotidian, minor, occasionally beautiful, but not record-breaking. No one offered me a book deal. No one gave me any awards. I graduated, and then I came back home to my parents. I moved into my old room. Cleaning and re-organizing at the beginning of the summer, I found all sorts of strange detritus, perfectly preserved. Drawings from my sophomore year of high school. Old notes. Some things, the more uncomfortable remembrances, I threw away, quietly and without ceremony. Most things my mother insisted we keep. My mother seems to have been preparing my entire life, saving every evidence of my creative urgings, for an unnamed future where I will be famous and far away. All I thought, digging through notebooks and piles of sketchpads, was that I did not feel any different than I did at seventeen. It seemed as though circumstances had shoved me back into the approximate position I was in during high school, the same players on the board, the same location, when I was endlessly confused and felt impossibly, conspicuously out of place. And now, several years along, I still felt endlessly confused and out of place. Reading over my old writings, I thought about the person I thought I would become. I was nowhere near that sophisticated. I had imagined myself turning into a woman of immense confidence. I knew I would never be a great beauty, but I pictured myself gaining a sense of poise. I would walk into a room with all sorts of bangles on my wrists (I always imagined myself as the sort of lady who would wear great, exotic silver bangles on her wrists) and people would want to know who I was. They would know I was someone, they would sense how smart and funny and cultured I was, and would pass glasses of nice champagne into my hand. Here I was though, sweaty and thirty minutes away from the nearest town, peeling through old magazines on my hands and knees.



To tell the truth, what I have right now is an absurd luxury, and I am grateful for it. What I have right now is time. Time to sit around and write about things and think about them and analyze. College seemed such a brief, shocking interlude, an extraordinary dream. I pull my diploma out of its hiding place occasionally so that I can run my fingers over its lettering. Yes, it was real. I have the time right now to do that. To breathe. It's funny to be back here again. It's funny the way everything has changed and yet nothing has; I am still five-foot eight-inches tall, still awkward at introductions and confused by directions. I like the quiet here, away from the hustling world. There is time, now. I listen to the sounds of my mother canning beans in the kitchen. In the afternoons, I notice the growth of the hibiscus. I miss you. I'm a liar.