There was a brief contemplation on my way home of the confidence that street lights instill in me. I consider myself an overly-observant person to begin with (constantly feeling as though I'm the only one seeing certain things, details and nuances others I'm with don't notice; always the one to say, "Holy shit! Did you see that?") I feel as though my senses are naturally on edge and attempting to pick up every last frequency available from my surroundings. So the fact that I scan the sidewalk for shadows of others behind me comes quietly and as no surprise.
When I see others ahead of me, boys of maybe 18 if I want to give them the benefit of the doubt, I cross to the other side of the street. Why? When surrounded by others, I revel in confrontation, any excuse to give my razor tongue a sharpening, tell them how I don't talk to boys whose balls haven't dropped yet. But alone, I stray. This is not the first time that I consider myself a coward.
That must be what this is, my front of strong, confident, unafraid young woman, ready to kick a man in the gonads the second he makes an inappropriate statement. I'm all about image. Has my father really passed that on to me as well, along with his temper, self-dissatisfaction, and alcoholism?
I know now that the reason I loved Tristan so, why I still carry that concealed torch, is because he saw this. He was the first to draw it to my attention (though I knew on some level that my stand-offishness, my gruffness, was only a mask, something to hide my self-consciousness and uncertainty behind). He was the first, the only, to call me out on not being who I portrayed. Trist saw it, and being so close to me, was unafraid to say it. I miss that.
I woke this morning in Shae's arms, happy briefly but overcome with grief, again at the cause of unremembered, hazy fog-thick dreams. That, coupled with my fear of a baby and the general depression of the last week (grandfather losing it, falling and bruising himself, lost of short-term memory, compounding my
When I see others ahead of me, boys of maybe 18 if I want to give them the benefit of the doubt, I cross to the other side of the street. Why? When surrounded by others, I revel in confrontation, any excuse to give my razor tongue a sharpening, tell them how I don't talk to boys whose balls haven't dropped yet. But alone, I stray. This is not the first time that I consider myself a coward.
That must be what this is, my front of strong, confident, unafraid young woman, ready to kick a man in the gonads the second he makes an inappropriate statement. I'm all about image. Has my father really passed that on to me as well, along with his temper, self-dissatisfaction, and alcoholism?
I know now that the reason I loved Tristan so, why I still carry that concealed torch, is because he saw this. He was the first to draw it to my attention (though I knew on some level that my stand-offishness, my gruffness, was only a mask, something to hide my self-consciousness and uncertainty behind). He was the first, the only, to call me out on not being who I portrayed. Trist saw it, and being so close to me, was unafraid to say it. I miss that.
I woke this morning in Shae's arms, happy briefly but overcome with grief, again at the cause of unremembered, hazy fog-thick dreams. That, coupled with my fear of a baby and the general depression of the last week (grandfather losing it, falling and bruising himself, lost of short-term memory, compounding my
