November 9, 2001
Falling in Love when You're Ten
I wonder if I look forlorn and incomplete to other people. Sitting there, my outfit immaculate and my hair far from, all by myself, trying hard to look mezmerized by the floor, my hands clasped awkwardly in my lap.
I went to the play tonight. Sat in front of two rather snobbish people (one of whom I was previously acquainted with) who mocked one of my obvious favorite movies, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. And I thought, were Ryan here, we would be talking about the same movie. And he would say he hadn't seen it. And we'd maybe rent it tomorrow, and watch it that night.
Or at least the good parts.
I guess that's what made me wonder if I look incomplete to other people. Do they look at me and wonder why I'm by myself? Do they remember that I have a boyfriend? Do they remember, O, Ryan, he went into the Air Force. Shit. I wonder how Jill is coping with that?
And then they look at me.
And I am sitting there with the same look on my face, the faraway look, the look that pleads for someone, anyone, to sit beside me.
No one ever does.
No one did.
But I'm really not depressed or anything tonight. How new. That just occured to me whilst I was sitting in the audience, and I thought it rather odd and entry worthy.
On a brighter note, Mal and I and about eighty other people went to Steak & Shake afterwards and Nick tried to commit suicide with a butter knife, smeared with ketchup, no less, and our waitress was a heinous bitch even though we said thankyou and please and eagerly agreed to a group check.
My brother's girlfriend thinks I'm a crack addict.
Good.
I have a headache right behind my eyes. I don't get those very often. My head feels like it could explode, scattering tears and bits of smile and memories and swallowed laughs all over the living room walls.
Ryan graduated from boot camp today.
He said he'd call me.
He hasn't.
Jenny says I should stop making myself numb to the pain of his abscence, that if I dealt with it I'd feel better. I do deal with it. I pretend it's not there and when I crawl into my bed at night it hits me that I have not felt his kiss in a month in half, that his soft hands are a thousand miles from me, that I cannot anticipate an evening on his living room couch, that I will not ride around in the car with him and listen to the delicate sound of his voice as he sings along with the radio, that the closest I am is to spread his letters out on my bed, to count them, to read the best parts by candlight and hold his single shirt to my face and breath the ghost of his smell.
And then I cry.
astera at graduation