He's The Reason For The Teardrops On My Guitar, The Only One Who's Got Enough Of Me To Break My Heart
--"Teardrops on my Guitar", Taylor Swift
Having friends is kind of like managing a baseball team. You can't use everybody for every situation, nor should you want to. Everybody comes with certain aptitudes and the real trick is sizing these skills up. You have to know when a certain friend would be far more useful for your purposes than another friend.
The other trick is to recognize someone who is going to contribute to your life in a sizable way and to get them aboard to your team as soon as possible.
----
When I first met Ilessa, it wasn't at some party or at some restaurant. I met her like a lot of people I meet these days, online. I had seen or she had seen my Myspace--I don't remember which--and saw that I had graduated from USC. What also binds us together is that I had grown up about five miles from her in the San Gabriel Valley. In fact, it was the idea that I had worked at Crown Books in La Canada, which was only six blocks from her high school and about two exits from where she lived that got the ball rolling for us. At first, it was just polite messaging--well, as polite as Miss Nancy Drew can ever get--and random IM'ing, but soon we started texting and call each other every once in awhile for those first two weeks. I don't know what drew me to her initially. She's very forthright and very abrasive at times, but I knew there was something about her that was keeping me interested in her.
It wasn't until the day I decided to leave Bally's early to go watch the Dodgers play the Twins that I found out what it was. On the spur of the moment, I had made a choice to make that game the first game I saw during the 2006 season. I knew Ills was a big Dodger fan so I asked if she wanted to tag along, fully expecting her to say no since Dodger Stadium isn't the easiest place to meet-up at and doesn't make for the best of circumstances when you're still trying to get to know someone new. For all I knew, it would have just been three hours of silence punctuated by the occasional comment about the game.
When I first saw her, I'm not going to lie, she was prettier than she looked in her pictures. But, to balance that out, she's way more pushy when she talks in person. She's basically a person that takes self-assuredness to a whole new level. I mean--Breanne's a confident person and she always speaks her mind. But Breanne also knows how to be courteous and well-mannered when addressing other people. It's this second quality that I fear Ilessa was born without. At the game she had no fear of speaking her mind. Not once did she try to couch her words into something gentler or less caustic to spare my feelings or those of the fans around us. Truthfully, I was starting to believe the whole day was going to be a bust because, let's face it, who wants to be around a person that is always running roughshod over the environment with her mouth?
But then she started to speak about something that I could latch onto.
"But I say screw him. I'm not losing any sleep over his ass anymore."
"Who's that?"
"Oh, some guy that I've been dire over for the last few months... or years, I forget."
Here was something I could wrap my head around because if there's one thing I know, it's all about pining for someone who isn't pining for you. Hell, I've basically turned this whole site into a mecca for that kind of writing. And there I was talking to somebody who seemingly knew my secret shame as well. For the first time in the evening I began to turn my attention slowly away from the game and began to give it to my companion.
Her thoughts on the subject could fill volumes. It isn't so much that she has a lot to say on the subject, it's that the manner in which she speaks about it lends an air of authority to her. Especially on that day, I found myself hanging on every word she was spewing. Fairly soon, the game became but the merest backdrop to the real show playing itself out next to me.
"I've had this thought that's kind of been my guiding principle, Patrick. And here it is. Fuck him. I don't care how I feel about him or how it may end up, fuck him. It isn't important to me that I find happiness with somebody else. I got myself and I can party plenty good on my own."
"So there's no one you'd reconsider for?"
"Not a soul."
I didn't know it at the time, but I think her stance towards people taking a dislike to her or brushing her off was formed really young. Since that game I've come to find out that she was beat up pretty badly by her older brother on a regular basis when she was younger. Because of that I think she had to build up this tough exterior, this bravado that she can't allow herself to turn off. Since she's lived this life basically 24/7, it's extended itself into everything she does. She cops this take it or leave it persona that I know she knows is off-putting. But you know what? I've come to discover it's her test for people. She intentionally puts on this rude act to drive people away. Most people take the bait and leave. But the people that ride it out, like myself, discover she has this whole other layer to her that isn't quite so strong, so tough, and so hard-boiled.
"For me, I wouldn't know how to walk away. It's too built up. I'm too invested."
"But, ask yourself honestly. Would it really kill you to walk away?"
"Sometimes I think it would, Miss Ilessa."
"Pussy," she laughed.
We talked throughout the remainder of the game. I don't even remember what the score ended up being. But I do remember the fact that the longer she talked, the more I wished I could emulate her devil-may-care attitude. It really seemed like she had built this teflon shield around her skin. Nothing I said, no scenario, no what-if, could permeate that thick counting. She refused to concede that, given the right guy and the right situation, she could allow herself to fail with somebody else. Her whole point was that, if she was to fail, she'd rather do it on her own, where nobody could see her.
She has this philosophy where she wants to live for the now, which, in itself, isn't a bad philosophy to have. She doesn't want to temper that hedonistic attitude with having to worry about how it's going to affect other people and especially one other person. That would only slow her down. To place the fate of her happiness in somebody else's hands, even if only partly, would be akin to death for her. She doesn't want to give somebody that control. More importantly, she told me, she doesn't want to give somebody that responsibility. She wouldn't want to burden somebody with the task of trying to please her when she already knows how difficult she is to please.
By the time the game let out, I thought I had heard everything she had to say about the subject. Truthfully, I was agreeing with a lot of her points. It made sense not to care so much. It made sense not to allow myself to feel the pain to such a degree where it becomes a distraction. The more you allow somebody in, I knew all too well, the more they can leave you hollow when they go, the more they can use to break you apart from the inside.
I found myself wishing I didn't care so much and so easily for people.
It wasn't until we had made it to our cars, said our good-byes, and both had become ensnared in the gridlock of trying to leave the stadium that she called me on my cel with a caveat to her earlier claims.
"It isn't that I never had anyone I cared about. I just never had anyone who cared about me enough to believe that it was worth it. Hmmm. Maybe if I found that guy I could take the hit and suffer through it."
"I never thought about relationships as being something one had to suffer through, Ilessa."
"Are you kidding me, Patrick. Nothing fucks you up like a good heartwrench. There's no greater pain than seeing the person you've decided to pull stakes with turn their back on you. Nothing compares. It isn't even a contest. Not even close."
"Yeah, I got that."
"But the opposite's true too. Nothing rocks your socks like finding that one person who, well, rocks your socks. I guess it's all about control, like I said. It's all about letting people get the best of you. You can either allow people to get the worst of you and pretend to be shocked when they don't want any part of you."
"Or?"
"Or you can allow somebody to get the best of you and hope they don't run off with it someday. You never get that shit back, you know? Once you've given them that small portion of you at your best, at your weakest, at your most vulnerable--you never get it back. It stays with that person. And if they're a good person, that's jim dandy. But if they're a bad person, then you're SOL."
"I take it you've run into a lot of bad people?"
"Patrick," she said solemnly, "they've all been bad people."
At that I thought she would have hung up, so acrid was the bitterness in her voice. But again she surprised me with a small amount of optimism peeking through.
"Yeah, but, it only takes one, right? It only takes one," she said before saying good night and turning towards home.
----
As first meetings go, it was definitely one of the most interesting times I've had. It's also set the bar on what the rest of our get-togethers are like. Now I wouldn't say she's the easiest person to get along with. She's very fun and she's very lively, but beneath it all is this sense of cynicism that is as wide as it is deep. It's almost bottomless. There are a lot of times when I find myself wondering why I even hang out with, why I even try. There's a part of me that knows being around her tends to bring me down and bring out some of the most dour thoughts I've ever conceived.
However, if there's one person who I think understands how it feels to be so utterly alone that you kind of miss the solitude when you're out with people it's her. She may be the center of attention and the one people congregate to, if only on the off-chance she'll do something crazy or stupid (or both), but she really does feel like she's fighting everything on her own.
That's what I go to her, for advice on what it's like to be left wanting by people and how to go on being strong when all you want to be is weak and fragile. That's what I talk to her about, that's her special gift.
She only knows how to be strong and that's an attitude that I sometimes need more of, especially when I'm trapped in one of my dour and wallowing funks. She makes me want to be a stronger person... sadly, if only not to end up as bitter as her.
Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers
Having friends is kind of like managing a baseball team. You can't use everybody for every situation, nor should you want to. Everybody comes with certain aptitudes and the real trick is sizing these skills up. You have to know when a certain friend would be far more useful for your purposes than another friend.The other trick is to recognize someone who is going to contribute to your life in a sizable way and to get them aboard to your team as soon as possible.
----
When I first met Ilessa, it wasn't at some party or at some restaurant. I met her like a lot of people I meet these days, online. I had seen or she had seen my Myspace--I don't remember which--and saw that I had graduated from USC. What also binds us together is that I had grown up about five miles from her in the San Gabriel Valley. In fact, it was the idea that I had worked at Crown Books in La Canada, which was only six blocks from her high school and about two exits from where she lived that got the ball rolling for us. At first, it was just polite messaging--well, as polite as Miss Nancy Drew can ever get--and random IM'ing, but soon we started texting and call each other every once in awhile for those first two weeks. I don't know what drew me to her initially. She's very forthright and very abrasive at times, but I knew there was something about her that was keeping me interested in her.
It wasn't until the day I decided to leave Bally's early to go watch the Dodgers play the Twins that I found out what it was. On the spur of the moment, I had made a choice to make that game the first game I saw during the 2006 season. I knew Ills was a big Dodger fan so I asked if she wanted to tag along, fully expecting her to say no since Dodger Stadium isn't the easiest place to meet-up at and doesn't make for the best of circumstances when you're still trying to get to know someone new. For all I knew, it would have just been three hours of silence punctuated by the occasional comment about the game.
When I first saw her, I'm not going to lie, she was prettier than she looked in her pictures. But, to balance that out, she's way more pushy when she talks in person. She's basically a person that takes self-assuredness to a whole new level. I mean--Breanne's a confident person and she always speaks her mind. But Breanne also knows how to be courteous and well-mannered when addressing other people. It's this second quality that I fear Ilessa was born without. At the game she had no fear of speaking her mind. Not once did she try to couch her words into something gentler or less caustic to spare my feelings or those of the fans around us. Truthfully, I was starting to believe the whole day was going to be a bust because, let's face it, who wants to be around a person that is always running roughshod over the environment with her mouth?
But then she started to speak about something that I could latch onto.
"But I say screw him. I'm not losing any sleep over his ass anymore."
"Who's that?"
"Oh, some guy that I've been dire over for the last few months... or years, I forget."
Here was something I could wrap my head around because if there's one thing I know, it's all about pining for someone who isn't pining for you. Hell, I've basically turned this whole site into a mecca for that kind of writing. And there I was talking to somebody who seemingly knew my secret shame as well. For the first time in the evening I began to turn my attention slowly away from the game and began to give it to my companion.
Her thoughts on the subject could fill volumes. It isn't so much that she has a lot to say on the subject, it's that the manner in which she speaks about it lends an air of authority to her. Especially on that day, I found myself hanging on every word she was spewing. Fairly soon, the game became but the merest backdrop to the real show playing itself out next to me.
"I've had this thought that's kind of been my guiding principle, Patrick. And here it is. Fuck him. I don't care how I feel about him or how it may end up, fuck him. It isn't important to me that I find happiness with somebody else. I got myself and I can party plenty good on my own."
"So there's no one you'd reconsider for?"
"Not a soul."
I didn't know it at the time, but I think her stance towards people taking a dislike to her or brushing her off was formed really young. Since that game I've come to find out that she was beat up pretty badly by her older brother on a regular basis when she was younger. Because of that I think she had to build up this tough exterior, this bravado that she can't allow herself to turn off. Since she's lived this life basically 24/7, it's extended itself into everything she does. She cops this take it or leave it persona that I know she knows is off-putting. But you know what? I've come to discover it's her test for people. She intentionally puts on this rude act to drive people away. Most people take the bait and leave. But the people that ride it out, like myself, discover she has this whole other layer to her that isn't quite so strong, so tough, and so hard-boiled.
"For me, I wouldn't know how to walk away. It's too built up. I'm too invested."
"But, ask yourself honestly. Would it really kill you to walk away?"
"Sometimes I think it would, Miss Ilessa."
"Pussy," she laughed.
We talked throughout the remainder of the game. I don't even remember what the score ended up being. But I do remember the fact that the longer she talked, the more I wished I could emulate her devil-may-care attitude. It really seemed like she had built this teflon shield around her skin. Nothing I said, no scenario, no what-if, could permeate that thick counting. She refused to concede that, given the right guy and the right situation, she could allow herself to fail with somebody else. Her whole point was that, if she was to fail, she'd rather do it on her own, where nobody could see her.
She has this philosophy where she wants to live for the now, which, in itself, isn't a bad philosophy to have. She doesn't want to temper that hedonistic attitude with having to worry about how it's going to affect other people and especially one other person. That would only slow her down. To place the fate of her happiness in somebody else's hands, even if only partly, would be akin to death for her. She doesn't want to give somebody that control. More importantly, she told me, she doesn't want to give somebody that responsibility. She wouldn't want to burden somebody with the task of trying to please her when she already knows how difficult she is to please.
By the time the game let out, I thought I had heard everything she had to say about the subject. Truthfully, I was agreeing with a lot of her points. It made sense not to care so much. It made sense not to allow myself to feel the pain to such a degree where it becomes a distraction. The more you allow somebody in, I knew all too well, the more they can leave you hollow when they go, the more they can use to break you apart from the inside.
I found myself wishing I didn't care so much and so easily for people.
It wasn't until we had made it to our cars, said our good-byes, and both had become ensnared in the gridlock of trying to leave the stadium that she called me on my cel with a caveat to her earlier claims.
"It isn't that I never had anyone I cared about. I just never had anyone who cared about me enough to believe that it was worth it. Hmmm. Maybe if I found that guy I could take the hit and suffer through it."
"I never thought about relationships as being something one had to suffer through, Ilessa."
"Are you kidding me, Patrick. Nothing fucks you up like a good heartwrench. There's no greater pain than seeing the person you've decided to pull stakes with turn their back on you. Nothing compares. It isn't even a contest. Not even close."
"Yeah, I got that."
"But the opposite's true too. Nothing rocks your socks like finding that one person who, well, rocks your socks. I guess it's all about control, like I said. It's all about letting people get the best of you. You can either allow people to get the worst of you and pretend to be shocked when they don't want any part of you."
"Or?"
"Or you can allow somebody to get the best of you and hope they don't run off with it someday. You never get that shit back, you know? Once you've given them that small portion of you at your best, at your weakest, at your most vulnerable--you never get it back. It stays with that person. And if they're a good person, that's jim dandy. But if they're a bad person, then you're SOL."
"I take it you've run into a lot of bad people?"
"Patrick," she said solemnly, "they've all been bad people."
At that I thought she would have hung up, so acrid was the bitterness in her voice. But again she surprised me with a small amount of optimism peeking through.
"Yeah, but, it only takes one, right? It only takes one," she said before saying good night and turning towards home.
----
As first meetings go, it was definitely one of the most interesting times I've had. It's also set the bar on what the rest of our get-togethers are like. Now I wouldn't say she's the easiest person to get along with. She's very fun and she's very lively, but beneath it all is this sense of cynicism that is as wide as it is deep. It's almost bottomless. There are a lot of times when I find myself wondering why I even hang out with, why I even try. There's a part of me that knows being around her tends to bring me down and bring out some of the most dour thoughts I've ever conceived.
However, if there's one person who I think understands how it feels to be so utterly alone that you kind of miss the solitude when you're out with people it's her. She may be the center of attention and the one people congregate to, if only on the off-chance she'll do something crazy or stupid (or both), but she really does feel like she's fighting everything on her own.
That's what I go to her, for advice on what it's like to be left wanting by people and how to go on being strong when all you want to be is weak and fragile. That's what I talk to her about, that's her special gift.
She only knows how to be strong and that's an attitude that I sometimes need more of, especially when I'm trapped in one of my dour and wallowing funks. She makes me want to be a stronger person... sadly, if only not to end up as bitter as her.
Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers
Labels: Ilessa, Longing, roles, second choice
posted by mojo shivers @ 12:04 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home