02/13/22:

-

 Surf House Chicama

    I spent all day sleeping because I was hungry and couldn't find any food. Everything was closed. The drawback to being two hours out of a main city, and almost totally isolated. My hair has no conditioner because I forgot it, so I can't comb it. It's a mess. I leave tomorrow, and with the turn things took, I'm worried about the taxi for tomorrow.

    I sent a message to the owner but have yet to receive a reply. I'm worried she's going to forget and there'll be no way for me to get to the Trujillo Airport on time, and I'll miss my flight. I don't want to miss my flight. I want conditioner and good Wi-Fi and food that is open from an early hour.

    Honestly, I want Canes.

    Overall, I'm cranky.

    Bye.

PS: the lady answered, and she'll organize the taxi for tomorrow. Now just the small business of handling the Aunt Patty thing.

Surf House Chicama

    I got in a weird funk, and wrote all these letters instead of packing.

        Dear ____,

        I should be packing, since I leave tomorrow, but I was watching The Princess Diaries 2, and I felt the sudden ache I always feel when I miss you. I think it's because Chris Pine reminds me of you, in that movie at least. The eyes, the hair, the jaw. The aura of safety. And so, I don't want to, but I desperately miss you.

        How stupid does that make me? A notch in your bedpost, and I still dream of you. If I were an outsider, being told about this girl pining after someone who left, not only would I laugh, but I'd insist I'd never be her. Only idiots do that. Only idiots still love someone who left.

        Call me Bobo the fucking clown.

        I tell myself it's okay, because you drunk text, saying you were sorry, and you missed me, and I'm the coward who blocked you every time, only to turn around and be the coward who unblocked you when I missed you a few days later. Too afraid of what you'd say. Take back your words, and then I'd really be a clown. At least right now, I can pretend. I love a good delusion.

        But it's not the same. See, I'm not that stupid; where I instinctively reach for you or something. No. I just want to tell you things. The good, the bad, and all my secrets. I know exactly where I want to tell you all that stuff, too. Your backyard. A White Claw you've opened for me, and a beer for you. A shared blanket. A shooting star.

        Before I go on, ad nauseum, tell me: Does "I Miss You" by Blink-182 hurt when you hear it? Do black cherry White Claws remind you of me?

        It's not your backyard though, huh? You moved. But it'll always belong to you. And so, since I have nothing else to work with, whenever I want to tell you things, I picture us there, your arm around me, all our secrets and the time in the world.

        I say this all the time. I hate that we didn't stay friends. I should've told you that right off the bat. But I thought it would get easier. It was supposed to.

        It did not.

        Jackie

        Mom,

        I see why you didn't want your culture to die in favor of America's. I see why you loved it here-- lettuce aside-- and I wish sometimes I could tell you things, but here, in the belly of the beast, I feel like I understand you a little more.

        That does not excuse what you did.

        I didn't forget. I won't forgive.

        J

        Dad,

        When you took Mom from here, what was it like? You were moving to a place where neither of you had family. Was that intentional? I wonder. Did you want to strike out on your own, see what happened without a safety net? Do I need to tell you it was a stupid idea?

        So much is a mystery, & I only just now got the puzzle pieces. Will I have enough time to put it together, before too many are lost?

        J

        Catherine,

        There are people who don't know I have a middle sister. And I don't correct them. I thought I should open this with that. Is that disloyal?

        Uncle David thought I was you, at first. Looking at his wedding pictures, I currently look like you did then. Uncle Dirk's stage whisper of "they don't talk" was so funny, though I doubt you'd find it as funny as I do. Here, everything is about family. In everyone else's case, they were abandoned by us. In mine, I do the abandoning, and that's how I shake up this place.

        You know what? I don't forgive you either.

        J

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dear Dani: I miss you, I'm sorry, I miss you, I'm so sorry. Why couldn't I go with you?

-
      I have been refusing to make this post since it happened.              The family joke from the day I got Dani is that if she went, I went. I would die when she did. And I poured everything I had into making sure she did not. I poured everything I had into that car. The joke was that I would stop paying for repairs when she needed an engine rebuild, and even then, probably not. I'd probably rebuild it. We traded suffering. She drove me when I needed to cry and scream at night, and I suffered sweat and financial costs when she had some issue on the way to the beach.     I was so, so, so stupidly in love with that car. My pride and joy.     Notice the past tense? Tell me you see where this is going, because I want to cry writing this without even saying the words.     I always thought if Dani were to leave me, it would be in the kind way. One final wheeze to the beach and back, and I could let her g...
Read more

Dear God, It's Me Again, Can't Catch a Fucking Break.

-
    Anyone remember my super devastating car crash? The one that killed my best friend? And still continues to ruin me every time I get drunk enough to remember I am in actually super crippling grief?     Remember that?     WELL GUESS WHO CANNOT FOR THE LIFE OF HER CATCH A GODDAMN BREAK.     And why is it always on a trip to California? California, what are you trying to say? Am I supposed to stay, and that's why I break down? Do you hate me and that's my punishment? Does it matter to me?     So I'm driving to California, right, because I have to go to USC, to see the super misogynistic doctor who is very obsessed with what my medication is going to do to my womb, if I ever bear fruit, as if I'm bearing fruit at all right now.     And I'm driving safely! It's a bright sunny day, dry roads, light traffic, I am in the left lane behind a black pick up truck, with enough space between us to fit an RV. I know this because there's an...
Read more

In Memoriam: Fuck the Ocean, the Universe, and Any Cosmic Entity

-
      Shortly after I wrote the last post, I went to California, on a road trip, in my new Mazda, with Nick.     I wanted to go to Coronado, but I was afraid. Afraid because the beach Dani and I used to go to all the time was going to prop up memories. Afraid to do it alone, but afraid to do it with Nick. I wasn't sure how I'd react, and I wasn't sure he'd be helpful. Not even I know what to do with my grief. How could an outsider know, even one who knows me best?     A little secret: sometimes I blame Nick for the accident.     That's not fair, and that's not true, but in my most irrational moments, I can trace the fault lines all the way back to him on that day, and I can trace them back even farther.     I moved into my new place that day, he came to see it, left and said we should get dinner. I was sweaty. I'd been cleaning all day. It wasn't a fancy place, but it didn't feel right to go to my first dinner as a renter with sweat...
Read more