#catie overanalyzes her own writing

[alchemistc]

It is 5 in the morning and my insomnia is rearing it's head and I just stumbled upon these and I'm crying a bit about it.

The sweet leaf series owns a whole chunk of my heart and this is such a wonderful thing to say. The thing I love about outsider POV is that even the fly on the wall views everything through their own lens.

In Carol's we see her struggle with the fact that she hasn't closely examined her past, is stuck in her hometown at the cusp of adulthood because the lifestyle she wants to live can only be achieved by proxy of her parents, watching Steve and Eddie strike out on what may be a pipe dream with found family they love, and she feels angry and embarrassed and stifled, and it's only much later in life that she can view them and enjoy the reminder of an old friend living out a beautiful life, his dream realized.

In Tommy's we see him already on his journey - his best friend a catalyst of change - confronted with his own past mistakes while he maintains a friendship with someone he'd like to be more. Even then Tommy notices the large group gathered at some concert he doesn't give a shit about with surprise, notices the snapshots - literal and figurative - of a life his mistakes were a bit of a pushing off point for Steve. He notices the similarities between the people he and Steve have decided to love. He's still comparing, sizing up, falling into the trap of agreeing to whatever it is Steve Harrington suggests he do - but then he breaks free of that old attitude, drops some apologies without ever expecting forgiveness, because he's trying, because he has changed, because he's seen the damage old Tommy could and maybe did cause for other people and he regrets those old choices. And later, when he sees them again, he's got his best friend at his side and a beautiful girl on his shoulders and Steve and Eddie do something so stupidly brave that his best friend is reminded that he's not alone in the world and Tommy is just happy to be along for the ride.

In Patricia's, we see a woman who failed miserably at being a mother and always knew it, maybe reproached herself for it, but was never brave enough to change it. She makes excuses, finds ways to put herself above it, thinks about her forty year old son she never got a chance to really know and regrets the fact that she hadn't been there to celebrate in his success because she's selfish and wants his connections. She doesn't know him, or his family, actively misrepresents what she DOES know about them because she's still a bit petty and cruel in the face of a son who strayed from the path she'd expected him to take and forged a family and a life without her. And only because the people he's surrounded himself with love him fiercely enough to try does she ever get a chance to know him at all.

In Gareth's we see the small moments - the life Steve and Eddie are beginning to build - and Gareth, old enough to move past high school grievances but young enough to still look to others for examples of how he should live his life, keeps falling back to the jealousy and confusion of realizing Eddie was the one person he put on a pedestal. Eddie was his fucking hero, and consciously or not he'd spent a chunk of his life building his personality around the things Eddie liked. And in those quiet moments Gareth got to see that Eddie isn't perfect, isn't flawless, had a boyfriend who acknowledges those flaws and works with them - unscrewed the cabinet doors and spackled over the holes so he'd stop bumping his head into them when Eddie inevitably left them open, wrote reminders at the door because Eddie's the one home in time for trash to go out and because Eddie forgets his keys biweekly and ends up freezing on the front stoop waiting for Steve to get home, organized the shelves with his and Eddie's things so that Eddie didn't spend hours searching for something because it was a shelf too low and he sometimes forgets to look for anything below chest level. Even then Gareth mostly notices Eddie - the way Eddie beams about Steve, the way Eddie's life is panning out, the way Eddie isn't at all like Gareth remembers him and yet is still achingly familiar. The way Eddie notices the pinched look in his eyes, the way Eddie's farfetched dreams could (and then do) become a reality. But then it's Steve who calls him back up, brings him back into Eddie's orbit, Steve who inspired songs that have become a fundamental part of Gareth's life, Steve who tells him that love isn't perfect or easy and sometimes you gotta grit your teeth and compromise. Steve who notices (or needles out of Eddie) the sort of things Gareth might like in a girl so he can introduce him to someone who might let Gareth's small role on the sidelines be large enough for her, and we close on Gareth reaping the rewards of that unexpected connection to a man he'd hated, been jealous of, been envious of, and then sort of forgotten because he wasn't a fucking rockstar - Gareth doesn't ever even notice that he's paralleled with Steve the entire way.

I have a few more of these in my pocket half-written atm - and a few other ideas for more rattling around in my brain - and a whole lifetime of pockets of time to tell those stories in, so there will hopefully be a few more surprising, heartwarming (or heartbreaking?) moments along the way.

I'm so glad you've enjoyed what's been written so far and I can't wait to bring you more!