EPTI'm not sure what motivates me to share something so personal with TL, but my lurking suggests that it's a supportive community, and at the least there's no harm in sharing.
So like I said, a few short episodes still stand out to me from that relationship. I finally got around to writing the first one down. The plan is to write little vignettes about each one as it occurs to me, but I may never find the time or energy to write more of them. This one's very short.
+ Show Spoiler +
Let me begin at the end. The light has a kind of dim, yellow tone to it. It is late. More than a hundred kids in black pants and white shirts are milling around, most carrying violins or flutes or clarinets. I turn towards the exit, a narrow hallway leading outside.
I recognize a familiar face entering as I leave. I smile and wave as I walk by. She, with equal sincerity, waves back. I step out into the cool night air. Slowly, the bitterness, hurt, and anger which should have been immediately associated with her face rise up. But now it all seems somehow small and unimportant. This woman’s daughter treated me like dirt and she worshipped me, and I’m now quite sure I hate her. She gave the last year of my life a vibrant, often terrifying intensity. And ultimately, she hurt me deeply. But when I waved, I forgot all that in the little, reflexive joy of recognizing a friendly face in a crowd. If such a small thing can be more powerful and immediate than all the pain of recent months, then it can’t have been such an awful thing after all. Maybe it could even be a game, two kids playing at love and at heartbreak and at disgust and hatred and fear. A game which goes back on the shelf with no winner. A game which ends with the participants shaking hands and saying goodbye. No hard feelings.
It is beautiful outside. Street lights and clouds and stars and lonely cars, each carrying the infinite cares of lives I will never know. I take a deep breath of the clean night air, and walk to my waiting parents.
I recognize a familiar face entering as I leave. I smile and wave as I walk by. She, with equal sincerity, waves back. I step out into the cool night air. Slowly, the bitterness, hurt, and anger which should have been immediately associated with her face rise up. But now it all seems somehow small and unimportant. This woman’s daughter treated me like dirt and she worshipped me, and I’m now quite sure I hate her. She gave the last year of my life a vibrant, often terrifying intensity. And ultimately, she hurt me deeply. But when I waved, I forgot all that in the little, reflexive joy of recognizing a friendly face in a crowd. If such a small thing can be more powerful and immediate than all the pain of recent months, then it can’t have been such an awful thing after all. Maybe it could even be a game, two kids playing at love and at heartbreak and at disgust and hatred and fear. A game which goes back on the shelf with no winner. A game which ends with the participants shaking hands and saying goodbye. No hard feelings.
It is beautiful outside. Street lights and clouds and stars and lonely cars, each carrying the infinite cares of lives I will never know. I take a deep breath of the clean night air, and walk to my waiting parents.
. MOAR BLOGZ PLS, in other words haha.
