12/22/98
oh the taking stock of our lives. oh the examining under intense scrutiny the minorest of details. like the time i slipped and fell at the christmas holiday party and fell in the ice bucket. and then i felt young and pathetic. like i was a drunk shame faced teenager who couldn’t handle the alcohol. and i was anxsty over it for days. oh the intense scrutiny.
and now beckah is home from london. and i didn’t even realize how normal it was, it is, to have her in my life. it feels like it always felt. like this is someone who will be with me forever. the kind of friend who you’ll forgive, no matter what they do. because there’s that much water under the bridge. and there’s something to be said for that water. really.
sometimes it runs crystal clear. sometimes it runs so smooth you can see every rock on the bottom and you watch their colors change as the sunlight moves.
“with a shorter path, there’s a greater hurry. let the moment last, no need to worry… cause just when you’re sure, life can change right before your eyes.”
and the times you were sure you never wanted to let go. and the friends you thought you’d never leave, or stop understanding.
“oh caitlin, my caitlin” i miss his voice. i want to call him captain back. i want to give that to him. let him lead, let him steer, and trust that he will do well with the responsibility. maybe i get to grab the wheel when he sits down. when he gets tired, when life feels old. i want to be an old woman with him. i want to be ninety and sit on his lap. knowing no one would dare tell a ninety year old empress what to do or not to do. i want to be so old propriety doesn’t apply to me any longer. do i want to do that with him? do i want to go swing dancing with him when i’m sixty? do i want to skinny dip with him in a brook at 45? are these all things i can see us doing? what would ian and i do at 60? i don’t know him well enough to tell yet. i don’t know what he would be like even at a party over new years. and i know how jonathan would be. is that me falling back on what i know? or is that me looking forward to my future and liking what i see. “i still like who i am when i’m with you. i love it that we laugh so hard in the middle of discussions.” god i really miss him. i still wake up with him in the morning. not every morning now, but many mornings.
god here i am deciding things about myself and the two of them, and they could be thinking anything at this moment. maybe i’m too high strung for ian. maybe he’s sitting around at this very moment, 3000 miles away, and thinking that he’s not compatible with a girl this high strung. maybe jonathan is thinking the same thing i thought about him: if she doesn’t recognize how valuable i am, do i really want to be with her? do i really want to keep chasing after someone who’s already turned me away. “i’m gonna win you back caitlin. i’m not letting you go. what do you want from me?”
“i don’t know. i don’t know what i want.”
“yes you do. you know.”
“no, that’s just it. i’ve never asked myself what i want.” i’ve never let myself the liberty of answering that question. why should i be worthy of the answer? why not just try to be the girl he needs me to be? that’s why they stay in my life. that’s why i break up with them i suppose. and on my christmas card. opening it with a chill in my gut. “[Merry Christmas] i wish i were spending it with you, either curled up by your fireplace or showing you my hometown. good luck with this weekend’s parties. i hope you get everything you want and deserve. this christmas. all my love, jonathan.”
wow. how can i stay with ian? how can i pledge my love to him? goddamn it, i don’t even know the man. who he is, what he’d be like when he’s ninety, he can barely handle my freak outs now. shit. what right does he have to deman this of me? what right does he have to demand my instant love? i suppose every right. i suppose he’s thinking thanksgiving should have been enough. but didn’t i tell him, no, i forgot to tell him, what thanksgiving does to me? how i long for that person over thanksgiving? how i wish i had found him already, every year? franz, rob & steven o’donovan (different years.. consecutively) god and don’t forget cindy’s cousin david. shit, thanksgiving is my ho day. ironic isn’t it? ho day at daddy searles house. i never even thought of that. thus all the long walks. thus all the hide and go seek and sardines in the basement, or out doors if it was raining.
i’m taking a shower. i need to be with him now.