vinylgirl's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Loved, feared or hated I do a double take. He's untagged himself from the photo of us at our high school prom. I wondered how long it would take for it to happen. Deep down I hoped we were both grown up enough to let the record stand. All my insecurities become restless inside me. Why did he untag himself? Does he still hate me for breaking his heart? I pluck a couple memories from our file. One mutual friend lamented, "I liked you guys. You were my favourite couple." One year post break-up, I think, standing in a run-down suburban club. [I couldn't help but go; I wanted to see her. ] I am talking to another mutual friend, the sensitive one who gets most of the girls, I ask him if he hates me. He says, "I don't know, but you were the first person he really connected with." What lingers is the pangs of fear his friend used to induce. He never liked me. Thought I was a ball and chain. That I changed him. All the usual cliches from the macho best friend. He still bothers me. It was a cold night and we were wandering the quiet suburban streets looking for something to do. We were standing on the sidewalk outside the plaza. When I felt a chill, I plunged my arms inside your jacket and around you. Your macho friend was just saying I was going to cheat on you when I went away to school. He laughed, but it felt sinister. He practically willed me to do it. I did it for my own reasons though: insecurity, loneliness. The truth is even if I do not like someone, I want them to like me. I can't accept being hated or disliked. I agonize about the gossip people might be spreading about me. The snide remarks. The jokes. The cruel nicknames. It was January and I was back at school. In my third year settling into my new apartment. I had been out with friends at the school pub. Came home tipsy and misty-eyed. A sudden rush of goodwill warmed over me as I emailed him. Be happy with her I said. I said I didn't deserve him and that I was sorry. It must have read awful on his end. He never let me know it. I don't know what I was looking for. Not closure. I was never that bent out of shape over our break-up. I wanted to be okay in his eyes. I wanted him to look back on our relationship with a warm heart: his first love. Our first love. Like I do. It made me nauseous to think he despised me. How arrogant is that? We all move on with our lives. We date other people. We feel in love with other people. We meet new people and make friends with new people. We move to new places and become new people. I hate this part of myself. Almost as much as I grimace after I gossip like a lady at afternoon tea. It's ugly. It's like a giant pus-filled pimple sprouts on your face at lunch. You try in vain to dollop powder on it. To hide it. But that makes it worse and it pops and oozes down your cheek. The pus hardens and forms a scab. People wince when they look at it. Not a lot, but a little. I've thought about going to therapy, but as I've said before, it makes me feel damaged. So I do the only thing I can and admit my misgivings here. With a pinch of hope I can then overcome them. Digitally pasting them to the wall and throwing darts at them. Lots of people do horrible things. And I'm not talking about genocide or other atrocities. Just little things. Like a mean joke about your friend. Or passing on a rumour. Or telling a secret that's not yours to tell. People do horrible things all the time and I bet few waste any brain waves on it. But me. I make a last-ditch interview request to a stubborn source (a pretty common practice in journalism) and make the unfortunate errors of: a) saying I don't give up easily and b) pressing an irrelevant issue. Sure enough I get a nasty response. Any hope I had of an interview liquified. Splash. My heart sinks. Oh, Allison, why couldn't you leave well alone. I find myself asking another source, who is friend's with the first, if he hates me. She says he doesn't hate me, but he thinks I was too aggressive. Some reporters wear this as a badge of honour: "I was aggressive and never gave up, and I got my source and my story. Ha!" Not me. I used to. I certainly never shy from a debate, but now I find my heart racing after a stern comment (my own). I hope my face isn't flushed. My leg bounces jarringly and on its own. Embarrassed. I was too hard. My only hope is to catch myself and reign myself in: from nasty remarks, escalating comments, overly passionate interjections, insecure fishing. Allison 1.5 might have said, "Fuck it. I don't care what they think." But I did and Allison 2.0 is honest enough to admit it. But she's a beta and I'm not sure I know how to fix the bugs.
<3 Allison 5:20 p.m. - 03/18/2009 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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