But I Know My Luck Too Well, Yes, I Know My Luck Too Well, And I'll Probably Never See You Again, I'll Probably Never See You Again
--"Hand in Glove (live)", The Smiths
One of the principles I've always believed in was that you can't escape your legacy. Anything you wrought before will come back to haunt you. This is a different idea than karma, which I do not believe in, because karma implies that your comeuppance will come in a vastly different form. My belief is that no matter what you do somebody is going to know or somebody will find out and that very same thing is what will bite you in the arse. It doesn't matter how much you try to avoid it. It doesn't matter how much you try to deny it. Fairly soon somebody's going to have the whole story one way or another.
For example, I've made a living out of doing away with the old and ushering the new. Be it school, jobs, or elsewhere--there hardly has been a situation where I've made a conscious effort to retain anything of the old lifestyle that was connected to these places. For schools I don't bother with going to reunions or visiting the old places for memory's sake. For jobs I hardly ever consciously wish I was back at a previous job. Especially with people, once I leave a place all the friends I may have made there I don't have a nagging desire to see again. It seems to me the people I can remain friends with the longest are the people I don't associate with any one chapter (i.e. school or job) in my life, people who are outside of classification as belonging to any one section of my life. It's inevitable that I'll move on. I'm just the type of person who's constantly bucking for something new and something different. Once that need becomes overwhelming, I sever any and all ties. If something is bad or old, I don't want anything reminding me of that fact once I've moved onto something else.
You can imagine my consternation then when presented with a mother who insists on updating with the goings-on of each and everyone of my elementary school classmates every opportunity she gets. Just this past week she informed me that my old friend Tommy now has a kid and that his parents are always visiting him to babysit. This is coupled with the constant updates I get of my old friend John who--wouldn't you know--had the luck to find a job in the very same building where my mom works at. Don't think I find out more information than I care to know stemming from the act of serendipity. Thank the gods that she has much more limited access to the daily shenanigans of my high school classmates or else I might start receiving dossiers on each and everyone I've ever met eventually. I mean--she couldn't have managed to track down the people I might care a whit about--like Erin or Nicole, Jennifer or Stephanie. Nope, it has to be the people that I've spent years trying to distance myself from due to the very fact I think of those people as my past and, quite frankly, I didn't like who I was in the past. More specifically, I didn't like who I was in elementary school/junior high.
And yet, there always seems to be one person who manages to sneak through the wall I build around myself. People like Jeff or Albert from Bally's who I only worked with all of eight months and yet have remained on relatively close speaking terms with for almost three years now. Even though I've lost touch with everyone else in that department and company, those two seem to have snuck their way into being at least a little bit a part of my daily plans.
The same holds true for Casey Weatherfield.
As much I hold a bitter taste for St. Rita's, students and faculty, Casey seems to have wormed her way through to being a separate entity from all involved there. The sad thing is we weren't even friends there. We weren't even anything there. I didn't hate her. She didn't idolize me. We just didn't travel in each other's circles. We were basically off each other's radars. I knew her name. Aside from that, I was clueless. To give you an idea of how far removed we were from each other in those days, my mom doesn't even bother to tell me information about her. This is the same woman that thought I would be interested in the news that so-and-so just learned to play the guitar, even though so-and-so and I haven't spoken in twenty years now.
In fact, if it wasn't for the graduation dance I doubt we would have even been comfortable enough to approach each other when we did meet a few months back. If you recall, that was the incident where Sara asked me to dance because. of everyone in my class, I was the only one too shy to dance with anyone for that first hour. You'll also recall how as soon as I got out onto the dance floor my whole class "oohed" and "awwwed" enough to drive me scurrying for the nearest bathroom in embarrassment. As aforementioned, St. Rita's was not my finest couple of years. Well, after I'd calmed my nerves down after about a half-hour in the bathroom, it was Jennifer and Sara, and one other person who basically held my hand through the aftermath. That person, of course, was Casey. I don't know if I would have ever had the nerve to face everyone out there if it hadn't been for those three. They did what was necessary to make me feel like I hadn't blundered egregiously only minutes earlier. I don't even know what I was worried about; it wasn't like I would be seeing any of them a week later after we had all graduated. I guess one's reputation with one's immediate peer group, no matter how temporary, is always at the forefront of one's motivations. Whatever the reason, I came out of that bathroom better for not having to immediately trot out to the dance floor. Instead, I was ushered to one of the tables that had been set up and the four of us just talked about everything else besides getting back out there.
Eventually within ten or fifteen minutes, Jennifer and Sara were pulled away by their other friends, but Casey and I sat talking at the table just a few minutes longer. No, it wasn't enough time to make up for the six or seven years we has basically ignored each other. But it was enough for me to realize that perhaps I should have gotten to know her a little bit better before the last week of our time together in Sierra Madre. She was sweet. More importantly, she showed genuine concern for me, a person she hardly knew up until that point. I remember talking with her about her plans for high school the following year. She wanted to stay in the Pasadena area, but her parents were pressuring her to attend somewhere closer to the San Marino area. This, of course, lead into the requisite discussion about staying in touch the following year and the years following that. Those were just empty promises made by two kids too young to realize that nobody stays in touch with their elementary school friends. No one. "Real" friends aren't made until high school. Yet promise we did.
Nope, I never did get to dance with her that night. In fact, I was scared off from dancing with anyone else that night. It wouldn't be until freshman year of La Salle that I ever got to dance with someone of the opposite sex, which has always been a secret shame of mine.
I'd like to say that I upheld my word and made a conscious effort to stay in touch with her. I'd like to say she made that huge of an impression on me from one conversation that I made it a point to keep her in my life. I'd like to say that, but I can't. Like I said, St. Rita's was my old school by that point and I wanted a clean break from it all. Casey Weatherfield fell by the wayside just like all my other fellow Raiders. It wasn't anything she did. It was entirely me and my need to distance myself from the scared, shy kid I was when I was there.
I don't know what it was about that school that made me that way. All my guy friends from there managed to transition fairly well into adolescence. I pretty much was the shyest kid there when it came to all the guy-girl stuff. I remember one incident where my four close friends--Paul, Phillip, John, and Tommy--were all calling me up to come to this party that was being held by Andy, another classmate of ours. They kept trying to convince me that it would be good for me to come. I wouldn't be convinced, though. I couldn't be convinced all stemming from the fact that I knew it was going to be a boy/girl party and that, frankly, was too much pressure for me to take on. It's not like I had any discernible mannerisms that would have embarrassed me. I didn't stammer when I talked to girls. I didn't keep my eyes from looking at them. I didn't do any of that. My biggest faux pas was an inability to be comfortable around them. I just couldn't focus my conversation with them in that type of setting. Talking at school was easy and talking about non-sexual things was a breeze. It was just for some reason in that carnival atmosphered where I was expected in a very specific manner, I couldn't act in that very specific manner. It wasn't the pressure. It had more to do with the loss of control. It had to do with the idea that I wasn't free to be how I wanted with my own agenda in mind. I felt like I had to have a different agenda, one that I wasn't entirely comfortable having. Then again, it just might have to do with the fact that I've almost always been more comfortable the less people I have hanging on my every thought or deed.
It also might have to do with the fact that in that school I always felt like an outsider. I wasn't somebody that belonged to groups until high school. At St. Rita's I always had the impression that the majority of people there got to know each other outside of school. Whether it was sports, church, or some other function, I never had a set of parents who were keen on acclimating me to life outside school with my classmates. Sure, they'd take me to my friends' house, but they almost never were up for doing anything school-related that involved driving me anywhere after class had let out. I can't say I can blame them; a lot of the time when I get home from work the last thing I want to do is leave the house again. Yet this had the effect of limiting my contact with everyone else. I always had the skulking suspicion that everyone knew each other better from this time and that I was always the poorer for it.
Maybe then I would have gotten to know Miss Weatherfield better before I did.
However, I must not have been too much of a wallflower because when I was over at National's over near Buena Park back in the thick of football season, who should I see but a certain dirty blonde? I mean--it was bound to happen sooner or later, running into somebody I knew from Sierra Madre days again. After all, it was one thing to run into Erin at The Only Place in Town while I was in high school, but going fifteen plus years without seeing anyone else from that school is pretty ridiculous, especially considering that I go back to my hometown at least once every few months and had been living there off and on in the interim between elementary school and now. She just walked right up to me, gave me a hug, and asked if I remembered her. I recognized her right away. She wasn't the prettiest girl in my class, but I don't think I'll ever forget that stupid graduation dance incident for as long as I live, including Casey's hand in it. It turns out that her and her girlfriend hadn't even meant to stop in at that National's on that day. They'd only popped in when their other Sunday plans fell through. I don't know--it's funny how chance happens like that. If I hadn't been so silly and locked myself in the bathroom, I doubt she would have even thought I was worth walking up to. And if she hadn't had her plans cancelled I probably could have gone the rest of my life without knowing anything else about her.
As it is, I think she knows too much about me. Her impression of me is unlike anyone else's I know. She basically knows the me before the real me, before I grew more confident and less worried about appearances. She knows the sheltered, scared version of me that I was before I went to high school and beyond. It's kind of scary, actually. She says she doesn't think about those days very often, but when we've talked she's always saying stuff like how she wouldn't have imagined me saying something like that ever. Or she'll show honest amazement at some of the crazy (and mean) things I've done in growing up. When I told her i was involved in a hit-and-run accident she practically flipped out. "But you were always so timid. You're the last person I would've thought would turn into a criminal." And when I told her that I'd managed to visit the emergency room with three different girls I've dated because of things I'd done in anger, she almost walked out. Yes, I have an easy time talking about such incidents, but it's also because most people I tell those anecdotes to have no history to compare it to. She's in the unique position of judging me by how I was when I truly was struggling to find myself. Even Breanne knew me when I was practically out of high school and well on my way to forming my current curmodgeony and stubborn personality. it's funny to see how much she remembers of me back then, because I really sound like a different person now.
From talking to her she doesn't share the same trepidation I possess. To her St. Rita's was an okay school and she had an okay time there. She doesn't share the horror stories I have. She doesn't share the sense of almost loathing that I have for it. In her mind, I'm overblowing a great many aspects about it.
That's exactly why I choose to ditch people I used to know, because as soon as most people are removed from a situation they look back with fondness upon it. I, in the meanwhile, tend to look with either sadness or regret. I almost never approach a memory with reverence. I almost never see the bright side to things being over. I'd rather forgive and forget everything I ever learned. I don't see the point in hanging onto unpleasantness longer than I have to.
And yet, for the foreseeable future, I plan on staying in touch with her. We're not eating buddies or anything, and I highly doubt she'll ever be someone I can just call up and ask if we can hang out. But she is in Los Angeles, which, right now, is a sight better than most of the people I call friends. And, unlikely as it is, it has been fun at times reminiscing about the good 'ole days (or bad 'ole days, depending on who you are). It's like being able to read the same book written by a different author. What's else, it's fascinating to get to know a person for the second time. I'm making the best of a situation that I think secretly I've always felt bad about. She was there for me at the hour when I needed somebody immediately. I've never forgotten that even if I've managed to forget much of everything else.
I've wanted to block out the years of 1982-1989 for a long time now. A lot of who I was back then I'm not too proud of.
She's my past catching up with me.
I thought it was all bad and that there was nothing worth saving. I'm finding out more and more there were pockets of joy in there. I thought there wasn't one single person worth still knowing, not a single one. I'm finding out more and more that there is at least one person. I thought I was done with my past, done with revisiting my youth, done with all of it.
I'm finding out that your legacy will always be something that outlives you no matter how far you come and how much you grow.
It's always going to be one surprise hug away from finding you.
Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers
One of the principles I've always believed in was that you can't escape your legacy. Anything you wrought before will come back to haunt you. This is a different idea than karma, which I do not believe in, because karma implies that your comeuppance will come in a vastly different form. My belief is that no matter what you do somebody is going to know or somebody will find out and that very same thing is what will bite you in the arse. It doesn't matter how much you try to avoid it. It doesn't matter how much you try to deny it. Fairly soon somebody's going to have the whole story one way or another.For example, I've made a living out of doing away with the old and ushering the new. Be it school, jobs, or elsewhere--there hardly has been a situation where I've made a conscious effort to retain anything of the old lifestyle that was connected to these places. For schools I don't bother with going to reunions or visiting the old places for memory's sake. For jobs I hardly ever consciously wish I was back at a previous job. Especially with people, once I leave a place all the friends I may have made there I don't have a nagging desire to see again. It seems to me the people I can remain friends with the longest are the people I don't associate with any one chapter (i.e. school or job) in my life, people who are outside of classification as belonging to any one section of my life. It's inevitable that I'll move on. I'm just the type of person who's constantly bucking for something new and something different. Once that need becomes overwhelming, I sever any and all ties. If something is bad or old, I don't want anything reminding me of that fact once I've moved onto something else.
You can imagine my consternation then when presented with a mother who insists on updating with the goings-on of each and everyone of my elementary school classmates every opportunity she gets. Just this past week she informed me that my old friend Tommy now has a kid and that his parents are always visiting him to babysit. This is coupled with the constant updates I get of my old friend John who--wouldn't you know--had the luck to find a job in the very same building where my mom works at. Don't think I find out more information than I care to know stemming from the act of serendipity. Thank the gods that she has much more limited access to the daily shenanigans of my high school classmates or else I might start receiving dossiers on each and everyone I've ever met eventually. I mean--she couldn't have managed to track down the people I might care a whit about--like Erin or Nicole, Jennifer or Stephanie. Nope, it has to be the people that I've spent years trying to distance myself from due to the very fact I think of those people as my past and, quite frankly, I didn't like who I was in the past. More specifically, I didn't like who I was in elementary school/junior high.
And yet, there always seems to be one person who manages to sneak through the wall I build around myself. People like Jeff or Albert from Bally's who I only worked with all of eight months and yet have remained on relatively close speaking terms with for almost three years now. Even though I've lost touch with everyone else in that department and company, those two seem to have snuck their way into being at least a little bit a part of my daily plans.
The same holds true for Casey Weatherfield.
As much I hold a bitter taste for St. Rita's, students and faculty, Casey seems to have wormed her way through to being a separate entity from all involved there. The sad thing is we weren't even friends there. We weren't even anything there. I didn't hate her. She didn't idolize me. We just didn't travel in each other's circles. We were basically off each other's radars. I knew her name. Aside from that, I was clueless. To give you an idea of how far removed we were from each other in those days, my mom doesn't even bother to tell me information about her. This is the same woman that thought I would be interested in the news that so-and-so just learned to play the guitar, even though so-and-so and I haven't spoken in twenty years now.
In fact, if it wasn't for the graduation dance I doubt we would have even been comfortable enough to approach each other when we did meet a few months back. If you recall, that was the incident where Sara asked me to dance because. of everyone in my class, I was the only one too shy to dance with anyone for that first hour. You'll also recall how as soon as I got out onto the dance floor my whole class "oohed" and "awwwed" enough to drive me scurrying for the nearest bathroom in embarrassment. As aforementioned, St. Rita's was not my finest couple of years. Well, after I'd calmed my nerves down after about a half-hour in the bathroom, it was Jennifer and Sara, and one other person who basically held my hand through the aftermath. That person, of course, was Casey. I don't know if I would have ever had the nerve to face everyone out there if it hadn't been for those three. They did what was necessary to make me feel like I hadn't blundered egregiously only minutes earlier. I don't even know what I was worried about; it wasn't like I would be seeing any of them a week later after we had all graduated. I guess one's reputation with one's immediate peer group, no matter how temporary, is always at the forefront of one's motivations. Whatever the reason, I came out of that bathroom better for not having to immediately trot out to the dance floor. Instead, I was ushered to one of the tables that had been set up and the four of us just talked about everything else besides getting back out there.
Eventually within ten or fifteen minutes, Jennifer and Sara were pulled away by their other friends, but Casey and I sat talking at the table just a few minutes longer. No, it wasn't enough time to make up for the six or seven years we has basically ignored each other. But it was enough for me to realize that perhaps I should have gotten to know her a little bit better before the last week of our time together in Sierra Madre. She was sweet. More importantly, she showed genuine concern for me, a person she hardly knew up until that point. I remember talking with her about her plans for high school the following year. She wanted to stay in the Pasadena area, but her parents were pressuring her to attend somewhere closer to the San Marino area. This, of course, lead into the requisite discussion about staying in touch the following year and the years following that. Those were just empty promises made by two kids too young to realize that nobody stays in touch with their elementary school friends. No one. "Real" friends aren't made until high school. Yet promise we did.
Nope, I never did get to dance with her that night. In fact, I was scared off from dancing with anyone else that night. It wouldn't be until freshman year of La Salle that I ever got to dance with someone of the opposite sex, which has always been a secret shame of mine.
I'd like to say that I upheld my word and made a conscious effort to stay in touch with her. I'd like to say she made that huge of an impression on me from one conversation that I made it a point to keep her in my life. I'd like to say that, but I can't. Like I said, St. Rita's was my old school by that point and I wanted a clean break from it all. Casey Weatherfield fell by the wayside just like all my other fellow Raiders. It wasn't anything she did. It was entirely me and my need to distance myself from the scared, shy kid I was when I was there.
I don't know what it was about that school that made me that way. All my guy friends from there managed to transition fairly well into adolescence. I pretty much was the shyest kid there when it came to all the guy-girl stuff. I remember one incident where my four close friends--Paul, Phillip, John, and Tommy--were all calling me up to come to this party that was being held by Andy, another classmate of ours. They kept trying to convince me that it would be good for me to come. I wouldn't be convinced, though. I couldn't be convinced all stemming from the fact that I knew it was going to be a boy/girl party and that, frankly, was too much pressure for me to take on. It's not like I had any discernible mannerisms that would have embarrassed me. I didn't stammer when I talked to girls. I didn't keep my eyes from looking at them. I didn't do any of that. My biggest faux pas was an inability to be comfortable around them. I just couldn't focus my conversation with them in that type of setting. Talking at school was easy and talking about non-sexual things was a breeze. It was just for some reason in that carnival atmosphered where I was expected in a very specific manner, I couldn't act in that very specific manner. It wasn't the pressure. It had more to do with the loss of control. It had to do with the idea that I wasn't free to be how I wanted with my own agenda in mind. I felt like I had to have a different agenda, one that I wasn't entirely comfortable having. Then again, it just might have to do with the fact that I've almost always been more comfortable the less people I have hanging on my every thought or deed.
It also might have to do with the fact that in that school I always felt like an outsider. I wasn't somebody that belonged to groups until high school. At St. Rita's I always had the impression that the majority of people there got to know each other outside of school. Whether it was sports, church, or some other function, I never had a set of parents who were keen on acclimating me to life outside school with my classmates. Sure, they'd take me to my friends' house, but they almost never were up for doing anything school-related that involved driving me anywhere after class had let out. I can't say I can blame them; a lot of the time when I get home from work the last thing I want to do is leave the house again. Yet this had the effect of limiting my contact with everyone else. I always had the skulking suspicion that everyone knew each other better from this time and that I was always the poorer for it.
Maybe then I would have gotten to know Miss Weatherfield better before I did.
However, I must not have been too much of a wallflower because when I was over at National's over near Buena Park back in the thick of football season, who should I see but a certain dirty blonde? I mean--it was bound to happen sooner or later, running into somebody I knew from Sierra Madre days again. After all, it was one thing to run into Erin at The Only Place in Town while I was in high school, but going fifteen plus years without seeing anyone else from that school is pretty ridiculous, especially considering that I go back to my hometown at least once every few months and had been living there off and on in the interim between elementary school and now. She just walked right up to me, gave me a hug, and asked if I remembered her. I recognized her right away. She wasn't the prettiest girl in my class, but I don't think I'll ever forget that stupid graduation dance incident for as long as I live, including Casey's hand in it. It turns out that her and her girlfriend hadn't even meant to stop in at that National's on that day. They'd only popped in when their other Sunday plans fell through. I don't know--it's funny how chance happens like that. If I hadn't been so silly and locked myself in the bathroom, I doubt she would have even thought I was worth walking up to. And if she hadn't had her plans cancelled I probably could have gone the rest of my life without knowing anything else about her.
As it is, I think she knows too much about me. Her impression of me is unlike anyone else's I know. She basically knows the me before the real me, before I grew more confident and less worried about appearances. She knows the sheltered, scared version of me that I was before I went to high school and beyond. It's kind of scary, actually. She says she doesn't think about those days very often, but when we've talked she's always saying stuff like how she wouldn't have imagined me saying something like that ever. Or she'll show honest amazement at some of the crazy (and mean) things I've done in growing up. When I told her i was involved in a hit-and-run accident she practically flipped out. "But you were always so timid. You're the last person I would've thought would turn into a criminal." And when I told her that I'd managed to visit the emergency room with three different girls I've dated because of things I'd done in anger, she almost walked out. Yes, I have an easy time talking about such incidents, but it's also because most people I tell those anecdotes to have no history to compare it to. She's in the unique position of judging me by how I was when I truly was struggling to find myself. Even Breanne knew me when I was practically out of high school and well on my way to forming my current curmodgeony and stubborn personality. it's funny to see how much she remembers of me back then, because I really sound like a different person now.
From talking to her she doesn't share the same trepidation I possess. To her St. Rita's was an okay school and she had an okay time there. She doesn't share the horror stories I have. She doesn't share the sense of almost loathing that I have for it. In her mind, I'm overblowing a great many aspects about it.
That's exactly why I choose to ditch people I used to know, because as soon as most people are removed from a situation they look back with fondness upon it. I, in the meanwhile, tend to look with either sadness or regret. I almost never approach a memory with reverence. I almost never see the bright side to things being over. I'd rather forgive and forget everything I ever learned. I don't see the point in hanging onto unpleasantness longer than I have to.
And yet, for the foreseeable future, I plan on staying in touch with her. We're not eating buddies or anything, and I highly doubt she'll ever be someone I can just call up and ask if we can hang out. But she is in Los Angeles, which, right now, is a sight better than most of the people I call friends. And, unlikely as it is, it has been fun at times reminiscing about the good 'ole days (or bad 'ole days, depending on who you are). It's like being able to read the same book written by a different author. What's else, it's fascinating to get to know a person for the second time. I'm making the best of a situation that I think secretly I've always felt bad about. She was there for me at the hour when I needed somebody immediately. I've never forgotten that even if I've managed to forget much of everything else.
I've wanted to block out the years of 1982-1989 for a long time now. A lot of who I was back then I'm not too proud of.
She's my past catching up with me.
I thought it was all bad and that there was nothing worth saving. I'm finding out more and more there were pockets of joy in there. I thought there wasn't one single person worth still knowing, not a single one. I'm finding out more and more that there is at least one person. I thought I was done with my past, done with revisiting my youth, done with all of it.
I'm finding out that your legacy will always be something that outlives you no matter how far you come and how much you grow.
It's always going to be one surprise hug away from finding you.
Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers
Labels: Casey, legacy, Past, personality, The Smiths
posted by mojo shivers @ 1:59 AM
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