I Don't Want To Take Advantage, Or Do You Any Damage, But I'm Not Sure I Can Manage To Stay Away
--"Return To Send Her", Camera Obscura
speaking of things I don't think I've forgiven myself for yet...
It wasn't so much the look in her oceanic blue-green eyes that hurt the most. Nor were the tears she was trying so hard to hide the root cause of my regret. I wasn't contemplating on whether or not I'd really hurt her or if I'd get in trouble. The guilt I was experiencing did not have its beginnings in the actual result of my actions. No, what prompted my panic at the site of her lying prone on the side of the highway was the fact I was still highly motivated to finish out the trip and not to turn around. It should have been about her and the damage I caused her, but, no, I was still thinking about me.
Three rules everyone should have regarding whether physically harming someone is appropriate. You don't hit somebody in anger when they haven't done anything to harm you. You don't hit individuals who are smaller than you. Most importantly, you don't hit individuals who you supposedly love.
I'd managed to break all three rules in one unforgiveable moment.
When Breanne told me she had this idea to hike from Macon to Atlanta over the course of five days and four nights, I told her she was crazy, but I still loved the idea. Of course, it made perfect sense to me that we should celebrate her birthday in this fashion. It was so original and spontaneous that I had no doubts that it was just the thing to turn this birthday into a memorable one. Upon further review, I should have known it had all the makings for a very uncomfortable and potentially dangerous outing. Not only had I not liked lugging around a thirty-pound hiking backpack when I was in the Boy Scouts, but the thought of sleeping in a tent four nights in a row wasn't very pleasant either. All that I thought I could overlook because I was willing to humor her wishes in this endeavor if it meant making her birthday special. I didn't want to be the one who brought up having trepedations at basically camping where we didn't have a permit to camp or hiking through cityscapes and countryside alike when we only had the most general of ideas how to get there. There was no Mapquest, no GPS tracking, or any of the modern conveniences that could have assisted in our journey tremendously. All we had was a basic route along Interstate 75 to track and various recommendations of the locals as to convenient places to set up our hopefully inconspicuous two-man dome tent. I didn't want to ruin a plan that seemed fraught with adventure.
What I hadn't counted on was the heat being so unbearable nor how a person's voice can become tiresome after an extended period of time, no matter how close the bond you feel with that person.
That first day, while I was still growing accustomed to the notion that our impulsive sojourn actually had a chance of being successfully completed, I regressed to my time in scouting. Instead of looking forward to that sense of accomplishment we were sure to feel once we survived our first day, all I could concentrate on was how tired and sore everything on my body felt. All I could focus in on was how hot, sweaty, and apparently smelly I was becoming by the second. It was not merely the fact I was hating every second of it, it was the fact that with every second that passed I become to blame her more and more. Yet the more I tried, for both our sakes, to remain silent about my petty gripes and whining complaints, the more she seemed to revel in how exciting it all was and how much fun she was having. She had the easy part. She had the small knapsack we had commissioned for small snacks and bottled waters we would go through while walked, in-between stopping for meals. She also wasn't burdened with the thought of trying to please me as I was trying to please her. This was her idea and hell-be-damned if I didn't like it. To be sure, that's not how she thought. I knew she would have turned around if I'd raised a serious complaint. But in my head, my seemingly murderous thoughts were centered on those facts--how easy she had it and how she didn't care about my welfare. In my mind, she was intentionally trying to hurt me in some way.
The only thing I can compare it to is the time I had to do community service for the whole month of July one year after I'd been in that hit-and-run. That whole month I was pissed off at my friends for what felt like ditching me even though it would have been totally uncool and unfair to ask them to give up their summers. In much the same fashion I couldn't have asked them to not go out without me that July, I couldn't have asked her to give up the trip just because I was being an over-sensitive brat. And in much the same way I spent that July thinking of different means of exacting my revenge on my so-called friends, I spent a good deal of time walking along that April thinking of ways to get even with Breanne for forcing this labor upon me.
I don't remember where it was on the first day. Possibly, it was four or five hours into the walk. I'd read somewhere that, walking at a brisk pace even with a backpack, a person could cover four miles in an hour. We allowed ourself a pace where three miles an hour was acceptable and lunch each day on the road. That gave us somewhere in the vicinity of eight to nine hours of "go" time. It was an insane pace made even more insane by the fact that we were trying to do this five days in a row. It had to be four or five hours in, though, because I remember it was just long enough for me to bring up the subject of stopping for lunch. I thought it was a good idea. We'd been walking non-stop since eight that morning and we weren't due to stop till five or six. I thought stopping at one for lunch was a good idea.
When she said no I was considerably upset. I was tired, hungry, and I really didn't care any more about following her lead. I just wanted to eat, that's all. It's been pointed out that I'm not exactly the most level-headed person when I'm on an empty stomach and that day proved that thesis in spades.
We argued for ten minutes about the idea of stopping for lunch. I pointed out there was a perfectly good Chick-fil-A in the area where we had stopped. To me it made absolute sense to break up the day where we were. As aforementioned, she had other ideas as to our itinerary. She implored me, one more hour. Back and forth it went. The more I stressed my unwavering hunger and intent to eat something before I went, the more she pleasantly asked if I couldn't just hold off a bit longer. When I finally relented, it came as a dagger to my heart when she succinctly capped off her victory with that innocuous catchphrase of hers, "please, thank you."
I'd always the way she said those two words was cute. She could never say them apart. Yet when she said it that time, it hurt. It felt like she was rubbing it in my face that she had all the power on this trip. More than that it felt like she was throwing it in my face that she had all the power in our friendship. She could say no to mean, but woe betide me if I ever tried to say no to her.
So when I came up behind her, I didn't see the chestnut tresses that had always been the highlight of my imagining her back at home. I didn't see the dimples or the slight frame. I didn't see any of that. No, I didn't see the person who was both my friend and confidante that I managed to always picture with a smile on her face. All I saw was the bitch who was standing in my way of being happy. I wasn't even trying to be happy, I was just trying to be comfortable. I would have settled for comfortable.
I didn't just bump into her to show her I was unhappy, I practically tackled her to the ground--which, with a thirty pound pack on me, was a considerable amount of force to run into someone several inches and more than several pounds lighter than me. The only saving grace for not making the experience any worse than it already was, was the fact that I did knock into her from behind. That way I didn't have to see her face right away. The hurt, the shock, the accusatory stare--all those I didn't have to see until well after the realization what I had purposefully done had sunk in. She didn't only fall, she fell onto the pavement of the parking lot. She didn't only fall, she fell forwards onto her knees, scraping them in the process. She didn't only fall, she fell without warning. She didn't fall at all.
She was pushed. Hard.
I don't know if you have ever seen a small dog, who has only known love and praise from its master, that gets kicked for the first time. It's a face of surprise and pain. But mostly it's a face of sadness--as if it had been inconceivable to them beforehand that their owner could ever cause them pain in any way.
That was the look she gave me when she turned around.
It was everything about that face that should have told me to stop and apologize. It should have never gotten to the point where she had ever to wear the face to get me to say I was sorry. I could have gone my entire life without seeing her countenance on that day. I could have spent that entire day hating her for making me do something I didn't want to do and still feel a hundred times better than I felt at that exact moment.
By that time I'd known her almost two years. From the time she was thirteen until that day, until her fucking fifteenth birthday, I'd gone without hurting her like that. Sure, we'd argued and fought. However, those were petty disagreements about who was more committed to making what we had work. Those had always been petty squabbles between people who cared for each other, but didn't always agree with what the other thought or felt. Our disputes up until then had been akin to the disputes you had with a colleague or co-worker; it never got any more personal than the argument itself. It never felt like a backstab or underhanded attack.
What I did was worse than I had ever done to her up until that point. What I did was what one did with someone you despised and couldn't care less what happened to them. What I did was what one did with, exactly, a dog one didn't like. For the briefest of moment she cease to be Breanne. She was only an obstacle to me, an obstacle I had to go through to get my way. It didn't matter how she felt or what her reasons were. She wasn't letting me do what I wanted. That was all I knew and needed to know.
If there's any God-given talent I've ever developed, it's the ability to make the people who care about me the most cry. I've disappointed, hurt, or otherwise made pity everyone who has ever loved in any way. From my parents to my relatives, from Jina to DeAnn, from new friends to old friends, I always manage to show the worst side of me at absolutely the wrong time.
Slamming DeAnn's arm in that car door is probably the worst I've done as was spraining her wrist by pushing her off the bed. Those were my absolute lows in terms of being petulant and violently aggressive when it came to not getting my way.
This time with Breanne ranks right up there, though.
Up until that point, she was always this beautiful creature. She was always ready with a smile. She always had a way of managing to laugh through things that would bum or otherwise frustrate most people. Up until that point, I could count on her good nature to counteract whatever glum disposition I had been experiencing. Up until that point, she really had been Little Miss Chipper no matter the obstacle or circumstances.
I had taken that positive attitude away from her in that one second. She had to come to count on me in a way she hadn't counted on very many others. She had put her trust in me on the basis of the fact I had never hurt her like that before. In that one second, I had broken all of that trust in me.
I was discussing with Carly tonight how in a situation where one person is more immature or petty or otherwise emotionally undeveloped, it's always the person who has the infantile personality who brings the more well-balanced individual down--at least, at first.
That was me and Breanne. Instead of her upbeat nature rubbing off on me, I had shown her this dark side to my character and wiped away all her romanticized illusions about what kind of person I was. From that point on, even if I never exhibited that behavior again, she knew I had that side to me and, knowing I had that side, she knew it was capable of awakening once more.
Yes, I helped her up, more out of trying to salvage the trip than genuine concern. Yes, I spent the rest of that day apologizing profusely and hollowly promosing it would never happen again. Yes, eventually she did forgive me before we pitched the tent for the night. And, yes, the next night we shared ourselves in multitude of ways that showed that sometimes how a trip begins isn't often how it concludes. Yet the thought that by pushing her down on the ground lingered on in the background of her memory still persists in my conscience. Maybe she hasn't brought it up as often as I thought she might have and maybe she has never used it against me when I've recalled times when she wasn't exactly kind to me. But there it persists like some ticking clock or telltale heart.
I know it's crazy to believe that, even after ten years and many more happy, sad, and painful memories having transpired between us, this incident was the catalyst to the way in which our relationship and friendship developed. It may be crazy, but a huge part of me still believes that if I hadn't hurt her on that day she would have been mine. I still think that losing that first piece of trust set the pattern in which every other time I hurt her it became that much easier for her to see I wasn't going to be the one. It was almost as if before that day what we had was flawless and, by my hurting her in that fashion, I'd placed that first crack in the dam.
That's why I don't believe people can ever forgive other people. You always remember when somebody's hurt you and, even if you don't think it bothers or colors your judgment about them, it does. I know I can't let go of that day in the same fashion I can't let go of her. I can't walk away from something or someone that meaningful to me.
Now I know you can't regain trust; you can only lose it. Sometimes it's the briefest of seconds that can define a lifetime. Sometimes all it takes is one little push to lose a happy ending.
Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers
speaking of things I don't think I've forgiven myself for yet...It wasn't so much the look in her oceanic blue-green eyes that hurt the most. Nor were the tears she was trying so hard to hide the root cause of my regret. I wasn't contemplating on whether or not I'd really hurt her or if I'd get in trouble. The guilt I was experiencing did not have its beginnings in the actual result of my actions. No, what prompted my panic at the site of her lying prone on the side of the highway was the fact I was still highly motivated to finish out the trip and not to turn around. It should have been about her and the damage I caused her, but, no, I was still thinking about me.
Three rules everyone should have regarding whether physically harming someone is appropriate. You don't hit somebody in anger when they haven't done anything to harm you. You don't hit individuals who are smaller than you. Most importantly, you don't hit individuals who you supposedly love.
I'd managed to break all three rules in one unforgiveable moment.
When Breanne told me she had this idea to hike from Macon to Atlanta over the course of five days and four nights, I told her she was crazy, but I still loved the idea. Of course, it made perfect sense to me that we should celebrate her birthday in this fashion. It was so original and spontaneous that I had no doubts that it was just the thing to turn this birthday into a memorable one. Upon further review, I should have known it had all the makings for a very uncomfortable and potentially dangerous outing. Not only had I not liked lugging around a thirty-pound hiking backpack when I was in the Boy Scouts, but the thought of sleeping in a tent four nights in a row wasn't very pleasant either. All that I thought I could overlook because I was willing to humor her wishes in this endeavor if it meant making her birthday special. I didn't want to be the one who brought up having trepedations at basically camping where we didn't have a permit to camp or hiking through cityscapes and countryside alike when we only had the most general of ideas how to get there. There was no Mapquest, no GPS tracking, or any of the modern conveniences that could have assisted in our journey tremendously. All we had was a basic route along Interstate 75 to track and various recommendations of the locals as to convenient places to set up our hopefully inconspicuous two-man dome tent. I didn't want to ruin a plan that seemed fraught with adventure.
What I hadn't counted on was the heat being so unbearable nor how a person's voice can become tiresome after an extended period of time, no matter how close the bond you feel with that person.
That first day, while I was still growing accustomed to the notion that our impulsive sojourn actually had a chance of being successfully completed, I regressed to my time in scouting. Instead of looking forward to that sense of accomplishment we were sure to feel once we survived our first day, all I could concentrate on was how tired and sore everything on my body felt. All I could focus in on was how hot, sweaty, and apparently smelly I was becoming by the second. It was not merely the fact I was hating every second of it, it was the fact that with every second that passed I become to blame her more and more. Yet the more I tried, for both our sakes, to remain silent about my petty gripes and whining complaints, the more she seemed to revel in how exciting it all was and how much fun she was having. She had the easy part. She had the small knapsack we had commissioned for small snacks and bottled waters we would go through while walked, in-between stopping for meals. She also wasn't burdened with the thought of trying to please me as I was trying to please her. This was her idea and hell-be-damned if I didn't like it. To be sure, that's not how she thought. I knew she would have turned around if I'd raised a serious complaint. But in my head, my seemingly murderous thoughts were centered on those facts--how easy she had it and how she didn't care about my welfare. In my mind, she was intentionally trying to hurt me in some way.
The only thing I can compare it to is the time I had to do community service for the whole month of July one year after I'd been in that hit-and-run. That whole month I was pissed off at my friends for what felt like ditching me even though it would have been totally uncool and unfair to ask them to give up their summers. In much the same fashion I couldn't have asked them to not go out without me that July, I couldn't have asked her to give up the trip just because I was being an over-sensitive brat. And in much the same way I spent that July thinking of different means of exacting my revenge on my so-called friends, I spent a good deal of time walking along that April thinking of ways to get even with Breanne for forcing this labor upon me.
I don't remember where it was on the first day. Possibly, it was four or five hours into the walk. I'd read somewhere that, walking at a brisk pace even with a backpack, a person could cover four miles in an hour. We allowed ourself a pace where three miles an hour was acceptable and lunch each day on the road. That gave us somewhere in the vicinity of eight to nine hours of "go" time. It was an insane pace made even more insane by the fact that we were trying to do this five days in a row. It had to be four or five hours in, though, because I remember it was just long enough for me to bring up the subject of stopping for lunch. I thought it was a good idea. We'd been walking non-stop since eight that morning and we weren't due to stop till five or six. I thought stopping at one for lunch was a good idea.
When she said no I was considerably upset. I was tired, hungry, and I really didn't care any more about following her lead. I just wanted to eat, that's all. It's been pointed out that I'm not exactly the most level-headed person when I'm on an empty stomach and that day proved that thesis in spades.
We argued for ten minutes about the idea of stopping for lunch. I pointed out there was a perfectly good Chick-fil-A in the area where we had stopped. To me it made absolute sense to break up the day where we were. As aforementioned, she had other ideas as to our itinerary. She implored me, one more hour. Back and forth it went. The more I stressed my unwavering hunger and intent to eat something before I went, the more she pleasantly asked if I couldn't just hold off a bit longer. When I finally relented, it came as a dagger to my heart when she succinctly capped off her victory with that innocuous catchphrase of hers, "please, thank you."
I'd always the way she said those two words was cute. She could never say them apart. Yet when she said it that time, it hurt. It felt like she was rubbing it in my face that she had all the power on this trip. More than that it felt like she was throwing it in my face that she had all the power in our friendship. She could say no to mean, but woe betide me if I ever tried to say no to her.
So when I came up behind her, I didn't see the chestnut tresses that had always been the highlight of my imagining her back at home. I didn't see the dimples or the slight frame. I didn't see any of that. No, I didn't see the person who was both my friend and confidante that I managed to always picture with a smile on her face. All I saw was the bitch who was standing in my way of being happy. I wasn't even trying to be happy, I was just trying to be comfortable. I would have settled for comfortable.
I didn't just bump into her to show her I was unhappy, I practically tackled her to the ground--which, with a thirty pound pack on me, was a considerable amount of force to run into someone several inches and more than several pounds lighter than me. The only saving grace for not making the experience any worse than it already was, was the fact that I did knock into her from behind. That way I didn't have to see her face right away. The hurt, the shock, the accusatory stare--all those I didn't have to see until well after the realization what I had purposefully done had sunk in. She didn't only fall, she fell onto the pavement of the parking lot. She didn't only fall, she fell forwards onto her knees, scraping them in the process. She didn't only fall, she fell without warning. She didn't fall at all.
She was pushed. Hard.
I don't know if you have ever seen a small dog, who has only known love and praise from its master, that gets kicked for the first time. It's a face of surprise and pain. But mostly it's a face of sadness--as if it had been inconceivable to them beforehand that their owner could ever cause them pain in any way.
That was the look she gave me when she turned around.
It was everything about that face that should have told me to stop and apologize. It should have never gotten to the point where she had ever to wear the face to get me to say I was sorry. I could have gone my entire life without seeing her countenance on that day. I could have spent that entire day hating her for making me do something I didn't want to do and still feel a hundred times better than I felt at that exact moment.
By that time I'd known her almost two years. From the time she was thirteen until that day, until her fucking fifteenth birthday, I'd gone without hurting her like that. Sure, we'd argued and fought. However, those were petty disagreements about who was more committed to making what we had work. Those had always been petty squabbles between people who cared for each other, but didn't always agree with what the other thought or felt. Our disputes up until then had been akin to the disputes you had with a colleague or co-worker; it never got any more personal than the argument itself. It never felt like a backstab or underhanded attack.
What I did was worse than I had ever done to her up until that point. What I did was what one did with someone you despised and couldn't care less what happened to them. What I did was what one did with, exactly, a dog one didn't like. For the briefest of moment she cease to be Breanne. She was only an obstacle to me, an obstacle I had to go through to get my way. It didn't matter how she felt or what her reasons were. She wasn't letting me do what I wanted. That was all I knew and needed to know.
If there's any God-given talent I've ever developed, it's the ability to make the people who care about me the most cry. I've disappointed, hurt, or otherwise made pity everyone who has ever loved in any way. From my parents to my relatives, from Jina to DeAnn, from new friends to old friends, I always manage to show the worst side of me at absolutely the wrong time.
Slamming DeAnn's arm in that car door is probably the worst I've done as was spraining her wrist by pushing her off the bed. Those were my absolute lows in terms of being petulant and violently aggressive when it came to not getting my way.
This time with Breanne ranks right up there, though.
Up until that point, she was always this beautiful creature. She was always ready with a smile. She always had a way of managing to laugh through things that would bum or otherwise frustrate most people. Up until that point, I could count on her good nature to counteract whatever glum disposition I had been experiencing. Up until that point, she really had been Little Miss Chipper no matter the obstacle or circumstances.
I had taken that positive attitude away from her in that one second. She had to come to count on me in a way she hadn't counted on very many others. She had put her trust in me on the basis of the fact I had never hurt her like that before. In that one second, I had broken all of that trust in me.
I was discussing with Carly tonight how in a situation where one person is more immature or petty or otherwise emotionally undeveloped, it's always the person who has the infantile personality who brings the more well-balanced individual down--at least, at first.
That was me and Breanne. Instead of her upbeat nature rubbing off on me, I had shown her this dark side to my character and wiped away all her romanticized illusions about what kind of person I was. From that point on, even if I never exhibited that behavior again, she knew I had that side to me and, knowing I had that side, she knew it was capable of awakening once more.
Yes, I helped her up, more out of trying to salvage the trip than genuine concern. Yes, I spent the rest of that day apologizing profusely and hollowly promosing it would never happen again. Yes, eventually she did forgive me before we pitched the tent for the night. And, yes, the next night we shared ourselves in multitude of ways that showed that sometimes how a trip begins isn't often how it concludes. Yet the thought that by pushing her down on the ground lingered on in the background of her memory still persists in my conscience. Maybe she hasn't brought it up as often as I thought she might have and maybe she has never used it against me when I've recalled times when she wasn't exactly kind to me. But there it persists like some ticking clock or telltale heart.
I know it's crazy to believe that, even after ten years and many more happy, sad, and painful memories having transpired between us, this incident was the catalyst to the way in which our relationship and friendship developed. It may be crazy, but a huge part of me still believes that if I hadn't hurt her on that day she would have been mine. I still think that losing that first piece of trust set the pattern in which every other time I hurt her it became that much easier for her to see I wasn't going to be the one. It was almost as if before that day what we had was flawless and, by my hurting her in that fashion, I'd placed that first crack in the dam.
That's why I don't believe people can ever forgive other people. You always remember when somebody's hurt you and, even if you don't think it bothers or colors your judgment about them, it does. I know I can't let go of that day in the same fashion I can't let go of her. I can't walk away from something or someone that meaningful to me.
Now I know you can't regain trust; you can only lose it. Sometimes it's the briefest of seconds that can define a lifetime. Sometimes all it takes is one little push to lose a happy ending.
Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers
posted by mojo shivers @ 2:44 AM
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