the comedy of distance

Tonight I went to bed earlier than usual due to a sudden splitting headache that made it hard to stand. I waited a few extra minutes until mom and Adam got home from the airport with our dear old friends the Badleys, and then I collapsed into my tiny little bed which is slowly accumulating so many pillows that accommodating my body has become a low priority. Once in bed, I tried to blur the sounds of my mom, Ken, and Jo talking in the kitchen below my room, but out of the fog in my mind a few sentences came through. It wasn't the words that got to me, so it must have been the sound of the voices; I was struck by a beautiful wave of familiarity.

I then found myself in one of my increasingly-less-rare weeping spells. The ones that creep up on you before you know what's even happening in your heart. The ones that feel like hormonal tears, but aren't. 

As the air caught in my chest and the mucous gathered flatteringly in my nostrils, I realized that there is something about my life right now that is completely new: I can no longer run to my people.  I don't mean this in a metaphorical way whatsoever.  I mean I cannot wake in a panic in the middle of the night and run to Maddie or Mary or Lauryn anymore. At some point in my life, I have been within walking distance of the people who remind me of what I am. I have even lived with them and slept beside them. When I feel myself drifting away into the world at the back of my head that is mine alone, I cannot reach out to them to stop it. I cannot take a walk that has any kind of promising destination, just an arrival at my own front door. 

I have been separated from these girls in one way or another for a good many years now, but there is a permanence to it at this stage that is unfamiliar to me. Lauryn isn't coming home for summers anymore, but is actually living in Montreal. Mary is making a name and a home for herself in Ontario. Maddie is getting married, and if she comes back here when she plans to, I may not be here. I am entering what could well be the turning point of my life, and my heart as I know it is nowhere to be seen. It is hard to accept the permanence of this lack of familiarity in my own country, and as much as these incredible women remind me of why I am choosing to try for a new life in Los Angeles, my love for them is making it hard for me to imagine anything in my future other than a happy reunion with my people. 

"Why must love play games with geography?"

I guess it's all just training for the real journey.

at the weekend

The August long weekend was devoted to my lifelong best friend's bridal shower, but despite that fact we managed to mostly avoid talk of weddings and marriage and even fleeting singleness. Seven girls including myself fled the city and took refuge at Lisa's cabin outside the town of Sundre. We were all excited to relax and drink and tan and swim in the river without worrying about the male gaze. Some of our number became quickly comfortable and relapsed into a state of partial nudity without a backward glance. Others, myself included, were spiritually willing but fleshfully reticent to join the trend.

I spent a lot of time analysing my reticence, even after I finally gave in. I was not surrounded by perfectly groomed, manicured, and polished supermodels, but normal girls with whom I shared laughter and interests. For the whole weekend we saw no trace of male humans, so I couldn't attribute my discomfort to them, either. I couldn't shake the sense that I was being judged, appraised, categorized. And I couldn't stop acknowledging that I have always attributed that sense, however indirectly, to the male gaze. My situation forced me to reconsider.

I have come to the conclusion that I was frightened for these women to understand my secret. Not some hidden mole or skin condition or hairy growth or third nipple. I mean the reason behind my failures, the one thing I've never been able to grasp myself. I thought, however fleetingly, that they would be able to see why I have managed to remain unloved, and that the answer would be written on their faces. 

I can't decide whether I'm relieved or aggravated that no such answer was written anywhere by the time we drove away Monday afternoon.