Don't Talk To Strangers

I’m crazy. I am outside waiting for my friend to come out of the vintage shop that was making me claustrophobic, so I came outside to wait for her. We just came from an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. My friend used to be “a member,” but no longer is. I, today, just for today, am a recovering alcoholic, and I hope to always be this. I will always be an alcoholic, but recovery is never eternally guaranteed.

My foot is asleep. I think I might be high from the Iced Cafe Mocha that I just got at Espresso Royale. It’s one high that’s okay for me to indulge in today.

I hardly ever am in this city. I am here tonight because I am trying to push through the fear of bumping into my ex downtown. My friend, who is with me, shares my same issue of possibly seeing her ex here.

We are battling our fears side by side tonight. Us against the world, or at least downtown.

I am a typical, average person; I live a common American lifestyle, I have traveled nowhere spectacular, and I have never accomplished anything extraordinary. Yes that is perfectly fine. I have come to realize that I don’t have to “be somebody,” as in somebody famous, worldly, or “popular.” Someone taught me this once: All that truly matters is being somebody special to just one person—touching just one person’s life in a way that no one else can. My life has been touched, and I have been blessed. To others it may seem ordinary, but to me what has happened in my life and all the people who have affected my life mean the world to me. So this is an average story, about my average life, but to me my life is far from ordinary. Much more is to come, and I can only hope that I one day will touch the life of another in a way that no one else can!

When I was young I spent a lot of time in hospital waiting rooms. My mom was ill, you see, and so it was inevitable. Since, she has passed away and it’s been a long time since I have had to sit in those rooms with thin generic chairs and TVs eternally programmed to CNN. Now, though, I work in the hospital and whenever I pass the waiting rooms I have an odd sense of nostalgia, neither sad nor mournful, just simply nostalgic. An ache, perhaps, of something gone now. Then, I was so young that I didn’t know those rooms were supposed to be scary. So, even now, I have nothing but absurd ambivalence towards them; ambivalence and, of course, nostalgia. I don’t look forward to the day when I have to learn better of those rooms.

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I just moved to Ann Arbor last week. I have lived in Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan, New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. Whenever people ask me where “home” is I never know how to answer. The idea of going “home,” or being “home” is completely foreign to me. People always say they can’t wait to go home. I love moving place to place so much and meeting new people. I never want to go home. I only want to keep moving.

I’m a freight train rider. I’ve been to three continents, three countries. I’ve been on the road for 16 years. Saw many people and many places. 32 and still looking for life.

I woke up this morning and gave myself a look and realized I hated the person who I was. So I got the fuck out of my house and struck out on my own.

I want to travel and see places. Not really see, I guess, but know. I want to know people, places, their stories, and the histories that they create. There’s something tangible, vulnerable, human, and real about what isn’t written. I will give up meat completely if it will help offset the environmental impact of traveling. I hope that it will be worth the trouble of giving up a meat addiction.

I’ve never met anyone who I’d live my life for. There are a lot of people who I care about and who I would die for, but no one really who I could imagine the world without. I hope that it all changes. I don’t know if those kinds of interactions are weak—like the really passionate connections. It makes me believe that it’s real and I shouldn’t give up yet, but maybe there are problems with any kind of connection. We just idealize stuff to make it better. There are some people who I really love though. People that have come close. I just wonder. It makes me not want to stop meeting new people ever. Never give up! I never want to have to use another person, though. It has to be mutual. It scares me not knowing what’s real, though. I know I’ve believed and trusted things, people, and ideas that don’t mean anything, but maybe it’s because I don’t let them, or maybe it’s because because they just don’t. Maybe one day everything will fall apart, and I’ll just know that what I feel is 100% real, no lies, but maybe when I wake up the next day, it won’t mean anything. I want to know that the moment when it felt right was real and not just a brainwashed feeling. I don’t know if it even fucking matters, no one has really made me feel that way. One day… One day, though.

Three weeks ago, the man I thought I was going to marry left me. It isn’t his absence that bothers me. It’s the fact that I believed he was a good person and I was wrong. He lied to me about loving me, needing me, and wishing that I would be his partner. He was answering women online and seeing two other women, for how long, I don’t know… I always thought I could count on him but the only thing I actually rely on him for was being completely unreliable. I won’t be so naive next time, so goodbye, predator. Life will get back at you better than I ever could.

So, my boyfriend of forever and ever just broke up with me. More like, it was mutual but I don’t want to admit that I had anything to do with it. I’d rather be the victim, but at some point I have to admit that I have been self-sabotaging our relationship for a couple of months. I just don’t have the guts to break someone’s heart. I’ve dated one guy or another for five years straight and really do NOT know how to be single. Here’s to hoping I don’t wake up in a stranger’s bed this weekend.

I have never been to this town before. I came here to tell a woman that I love her. I let her go months ago and shortly after realizing my mistake I have been chasing her since. She says she’s moved on. I have been here three days already and she doesn’t want to see me. I’m trying to make the best of it. The only reason I sit down to write this is because it feels therapeutic. Four more days to go… I wonder if she’ll change her mind.

My boyfriend does not think I am interesting. That’s just because we had completely different childhood experiences. I don’t mean to be this way, but I have too many responsibilities and financial concerns to be as open-minded. Hopefully one day we will meet in the middle. One day! But I still love him. He makes me the happiest I have ever been.

I never really want to grow up and I cling to irresponsibility and childish things. The real world is stressful, wouldn’t you rather watch some cartoons and just relax? I like a lot of things I probably shouldn’t and my girlfriend reminds me everyday. There is nothing wrong with ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,’ professional wrestling, or ‘Star Wars.’ Period.

Sometimes I feel like I’m the only crazy person of my kind. Lately I’ve become so much more impatient, easily annoyed, OCD, sadistic. I’m pretty sure I’m angry at the world and about 99.9% of mankind. Other people piss me off. Like this pen pisses me off… perhaps you should look into getting a reliable ballpoint, something along the lines of a R.S.V.P. By Pentel.

On another (and completely different) note, if there is a God, I will be a dentist within the next ten years (OK, make that seven, I don’t think I’m patient enough to wait ten). There is something about teeth/improving lives that is absolutely indescribable.

Sometimes (most of the time), my mind is in this giant hazy bubble. I feel like I’m dust floating along. Sometimes I don’t even know if I can feel, well, as long as I’m hazily floating in the right direction.

So I want to write about when I realized that nothing is fixed and your life is your own. Like, no circumstances make things more predestined, but your actions do.

I went to Europe. I was desperate for a break from my life. Like, school and loneliness and feeling like I had nothing to look forward to but no one to tell.

So I ran away. I bought an expensive ticket to somewhere chic and European and I ran. When I got there, I was elated. Life was so novel because things looked different. But after awhile, it wore off. I was miserable again, this time 1,000 miles from home. I was worse off than before because I thought that if I couldn’t be happy in Europe, I had failed as a person.

But then something happened. I connected to a person whom I’d previously scoffed at. And that person became a source of comfort and I realized that I could control my own destiny. And that may seem cliche, but it changed my life.

I’m a 26 year old recent grad living in the state of Michigan. I have no idea what I want to do and no idea how to do anything. I know I’m born to do it bigger than this… A recent meeting with the dean of my school (former) has led to new inspiration: the meeting went as such…

Me: Whine whine whine, how do I make something of myself… Whine whine whine…

The Dean: Get the fuck out of Michigan. Go to California by following the sun west… Life is an adventure and if you don’t live it, who’s going to tell your story?

Me: … (speechless)…

The Dean: Again, get the fuck outta Michigan…

My next moves are so unplanned… but my mind if now focused on leaving to live an adventure.

One day, I was walking back to my dorm in a bad mood. I looked up and saw a man heading in the opposite direction. In his hands was what appeared to be a live lobster. He held it the way you’d hold a cat, sort of under the armpits, and when he saw me looking, he raised one of its claws in a little wave (I waved back).

This is why I love this town—it seems like, whenever I start to get really discouraged, the city of Ann Arbor steps in and says, “Here, have some whimsy on the house.”

The fiddle makes me friends wherever I go. I just unpack it on a street corner or a picnic table or park and the folks come around and smile and talk. If you ever need a friend, pick up a fiddle.

I fell in love with a girl last year. She has big, almond-shaped eyes that are brown, and she hates that they are brown because she thinks brown is boring. She is beautiful because she likes to sing in public and wear clothes from her grandmother’s closet and because she LOVES listening to Lil’ Wayne. She taught me so much about myself–about how good it feels to share a walk or go to a fancy restaurant for crepes and talk about Westward settlement and the dead-end at California. She is always caring about the whole world’s loneliness on her slender shoulders and will not let it down, she will not give up her burden for anyone or anything. I told my mother that I was dating her and my mother told me that I’m not a lesbian–she told me that it’s different and that I’m still in love with Andy and that I’m just taking my love elsewhere. I’m no longer dating her and I still think about her every time I talk to some employee behind the register, because she used to do that and I always admired her for making human moments everywhere she went. She used to break into show-tunes and dance like she was in ‘Chicago.’ I will probably never be close to her again because I hurt her so much, and I’m not in love with her anymore, but she has affected me permanently.

Falling in love is the most important thing I’ve ever done.

Although I was only tired and hungry, my face must have shown more than that. Out of nowhere, this boy walked up and said, “Yes, sometimes life is pretty hard and rotten, but it’ll pass. Things will get better, just wait and see. Meanwhile, this always helps.”

He hands me a cupcake and walks away before I can say anything.

Years later, I still don’t know who you are, but I’ve been wanting to find a way to say thank you.

When I was six, my best friend taught me how to have sex. She would take my hand and lead me to her bed before school every day. I thought it was fun and normal for girls our age. I started playing “boyfriend-girlfriend” with my other friends. I started telling people about the game. It led to a trial, then expulsion from Catholic school. It wasn’t until I was ten and I was old enough to understand, that I decided I had been “molested.” For years I harbored feelings of guilt, blame, and hatred towards the girl who had robbed me of my innocence, and even against the other girls who let me do the same to them. Now, as an 18 year old bisexual, I know that my friend, myself, and my curious experimentations are innocent, and that though for years I had considered myself a victim, as well as a perpetrator, I was only a young girl, having what I thought to be a damned good time.

I love my mother, but I hate her. This duality is the defining point of our relationship. She doesn’t know I hate her, but she does know the vast majority of my psychological problems stem from her. How cliche. I once thought how freeing it would be if I could completely free myself from her, but I’m afraid of leaving my siblings behind. I’m even more afraid of what my life would be like if she weren’t in it. So, I sit and suffer in silence, thankful that I have her in my life at all. I am an emotional cutter.

I remember her telling me when I was around nine years old that she wished she had killed herself. How dare she dump her problems on me?! I was only nine, but knew then that I had to be the one my mother leaned on. A role I did not and do not want. I love my mother, but I hate her.

As a child my mother and I traveled cross-country in a car. Once I remained silent for awhile and she asked me what I was doing.

I replied “I’m praying.”

She asked “what are you praying about?”

And I said to her “I’m praying it’s not genetic.”

She laughed so hard she had to pull over. Yeah, that was me, age 8.

Tragically the insanity is genetic.

I’m 17 trapped in a 22 year old’s body, with the maturity of a 30 year old and the imagination of a 3 year old. It used to drive me crazy. I used to get confused. People never quite grasp my complexity. But I’m learning—sure it’s crazy, and hellishly (is that a word?) confusing, but it’s my life. And I’m seeing it in many different views.