People live their lives without too much conscious thought. They do, they act, they eat and sleep and breathe. They want something, they pursue it. They dislike something and avoid it.
I can’t live that way.
My mind swells up and it won’t hold still. Shadows become half-read Norse Myths, the smile of a stranger makes a secret past, the moon on the water is a power to vanquish evil. People who only graze the surface of the consequence of that knowledge, that my mind is hungry for magic, dismiss me. They say, I am enveloped in a bubble, it is not a real bubble, who am I to question the world, why should I think myself superior?
I don’t think myself superior, but anybody can question the world, and I do.
Fort Atkinson is a mindless, racist, sexist, judgmental and clique-based little town. If you weren’t raised in the pram there, forget it. Katie told me that Fort “isn’t much into acceptance”, and the woman hit the nail dead on the head (no pun intended).
It was killing me. I lost who I was when I came to Fort--the semi-graceful girl who had braids in her ratted hair, who wore shoes that didn’t fit and Jeans with holes in them and quoted Sappho--and I left me behind so I would fit in. I made my soul so tired by trying to fit in with the people here, to give up anything they asked, so they would accept me.
They didn’t accept me. I was always a little off, because the Roses were my life then. The Roses, my people’s well-being, was more important than so-and-so’s party to me. I had a future, a secure place, an unquestioned position of respect and honor, and I let that be an excuse for my shyness. I let shyness become an excuse for being afraid to talk to people who didn’t know me for the crown perched on my brow…..
And it was killing me. The air in Fort is filled with self-loathing you didn’t have before you came, anger you had buried safely, a lack of acceptance for anyone different than you. You choke on it. It fills your life like water fills the lungs of drown victims, and there is no reward for it. Amalgamation is accepted, expected, ruthlessly pursued.
You have one window to pass a judgment, and if you fuck it up, you won’t get another one. Period. For example, let’s say you’re involved in something that consumes your entire life. You don’t know how to deal with people, and your words and phrases are old. The ideas that offer themselves to you aren’t normal. You’re painfully shy around people who don’t know to hail you as a Queen of a Roleplaying group, because that’s the only time you feel beautiful, the only time you feel real.
Better let it go, fucker. You read aloud in English class. You’re screwed, because you like education. Or you don’t smoke. Or you don’t drink. Or your hair is the wrong color. Or you wear a Velvet dress when you walk to McDonald’s for a McChicken. Or you think that the best answer to Bieber fever is a fucking shotgun.
It was killing me. The stigma I have in that city is absolutely horrendous, totally unfair, and I can’t escape it. I’ve tried to show people that I’m honestly the same as they are, that I like the same things, think the same ways. I’m witty and bright and charming when I want to be, mostly without thinking about it. I was wilting there. I was a leaf after a draught and I was falling into the gutter, I was a chigger in the leg of a fat guy.
I fell in love. It rescued me. It killed me. It destroyed everything I had and my world fell apart and then I really had nothing, and I cried myself to sleep so often. My eyes were always green, but I’d do mental exercises to keep them grey for company.
Now I’m gone.
Today I put the braids back in my hair, like when I lived in Monona. I wore a moonstone around my neck and stared out the plane window, murmuring the names of the people who matter most to me: Katie, Finley. Like a mantra, I murmured those names to myself, quietly, so you couldn’t hear unless you were listening for it. I was nervous and scared and those two kept me alive, and I owed them everything.
I always will.
When we land, in Raleigh, Wendy, John, Juliette and I go to Cheesecake Factory. I ordered BBQ Salmon with Garlic mashed potatoes, and Juliette takes me for a brief walk around the mall. We discuss what it’s like in Fort, why I’m not happy there (which I honestly tried to avoid in conversation, but she told me I deserved to talk about myself because I so rarely do), and then we went into this place--a bar, really--called Red Monkey. It’s decorated like a wild version of Velvet Lips, only, less classy. There are boys my age inside, drinking up a storm (they don’t check ID there, Juliette explains), and one (complete with Jersey hair), looks at my thighs like he wishes he were closer to them and says, “Thirsty, ladies? Refreshment’s on me.” I smile, say, “We’re just walking out, Sweetie,” because I was thinking about River Song. He says, “Walking out! But you just got here!” And without thinking I said, “Bad Luck for you!”
His man-friends are so proud I’ve humiliated their brethren that they invite she and I to a party, which we decline, since Juliette lives in GreenVille, which is a considerable distance away from where we are.
He thought I was pretty. Me.
We get to my family’s amazing house there (truly: amazing), and Juliette says her friends want to meet me. I change into a Doctor who t-shirt and shorts, throw on a few pieces of antique Jewelry, throw my braids into a pony tail, and we leave.
Yeah: her friends fucking adore me. They think I’m hilarious with my “Canadian” voice and my “fucking weird” jokes. They realize I’m different, but they don’t rub my face into it like I were some drunken chit who’ll commit a school shooting or something. Their behavior is normal for my age group, and I join in. I act like I were at a Revel and they have nothing but compliments for me; even when they’re too drunk to be making it up they’re still saying nice things.
I know it isn’t in my head.
But look at me today! I had sea food for two of three meals today. I wore clothes that made me feel pretty, got hit on, flirted with some of Juliette’s female friends (quite unfair when they’re not so clear-headed XD), and felt like I belong there. Uncle John is telling me that whatever I want to do in New York we’ll do, no question…..
I’m going to sleep. It’s nearly three in the morning here, which is two in Fort.
But all I can think……
My eyes. They’re blue.
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