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aleatoryalarmalligator · 6 years

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Life Story 110

I bought a ring. The ring was meant to be a symbol for some newfound understanding that Josh was going to be near and dear to me forever. This was it for me. This was my marriage to him, regardless if he had a ring for me. This ring symbolized my devotion. His existence in my life would comprise within every fragmented atom in my body. I would never give up on him – and doing so would mean a piece of me would die. I couldn't imagine a life post-Josh. I had been lost my whole life, and now I had found what I was looking for and it was time to shut my eyes to everything else and take the plunge

I was I guess, symbolically through this glass ring – cementing a spiritual bond. I knew it was real. I felt it in the air outside of me, but also in me, and in his eyes. He was just slow to admit it to himself, and too stubborn to accept it. I had a curious faith that the winds of change had already set the scene for us. If either of us tried to walk away, no doubt we would accidentally stumble into one another once more. The part of me that had personal misgivings, I let that die. Living a half-love was no love at all, and I knew deep down that I had simply been afraid. I already knew I was trapped, and truth be told I didn't mind so much. There was no turning back now for him or for me. I had a feeling that soon enough, everyone else would be gone. Morally, things were a little hazy. A year ago, I would have been upset. Three or four months ago, I would have resented the morally ambiguous nature of all that had occurred. I had chosen to stop fighting the cruel indifferent universe though. And in so doing, I felt a strange new set of circumstances, and the ability to do more and be more than I had previous thought I was capable of.

I was taking enormous risk with my own psychological well being, but I reasoned that if it wasn't worth dying for, it wasn't love. I was weaving Josh into the fabric of my core existence and he was always on my mind. I am not sure that I had ever done that before, or had ever felt so connected to someone that I really ever could have. Zack had been a dim candle in a dark world, more of a concept than a concrete person. After a time, it had been difficult to really imagine talking to him, and when that finally happened obviously it was a disappointment. But Josh was more. On a pragmatic level, we were pretty in tune. I actually loved him and saw through him and accepted the imperfections. I didn't have to close my eyes with him, no matter how fucked up or disturbing he might be. There was nothing in the world that had ever felt better than to blindly jump off that cliff into the abyss of being in love. Submitting myself to this goal entirely made me for more real than I ever had in my entire life. I felt purpose pulsating through my veins each morning. A great deal of my past just felt either like fodder that I had been obliged to put up with in order to get to this point – worth a laugh at best. At worse I had to concede that the horrors of my youth were now to be understood as the very building blocks that created this set of circumstances that Josh and I should meet. Everything made sense now - I understood. And for a short time, the world made magical sense again.

Whitney and Allison spent more and more time that winter at my mother's house and for the life of me at first, I could not decipher why that was. There was a great mystery to it, and at first I thought it was just to piss Josh off, and anger Josh it did. The house smelled of too many people. It was dirty and there was always piles of filth on the couches so it was difficult and slightly unsettling to search for a reasonable place to sit. Things were sticky and you never wanted to know why. The lighting was painful and disturbingly dim. There was never any good food to eat in the fridge – just boxed mac and cheese mostly, and more often than not someone was fighting with someone else and they wanted to somehow find a way to get you in the middle of it. Whenever I went there, I was reminded of what I had managed to escape from. I am sure an ere of arrogant distance had succumbed to my person. This was no way to live, and for the life of me how could none of them see that? I had always lived through my dreams. There were no dreams in my mother's home. This was a place to decay.

Not that my life in my own room was great of course. I spent longer and longer hours in the dish pit, more time in Zany Graze than is worth mentioning in any memoir and I felt this sick nothingness when I came home smelling like oily food-water at the end of a lonely night. People seemed to like me for my work ethic. Men liked me because they thought I was cute. I related to no one and I felt sad sometimes. I just wanted to get home to Josh. I wanted to see his sparkling eyes happy and eager to see me. There was a lot of manipulation and negativity in the air, and deep down I was dreadfully alone and sad. But at least I was free from my mother and my father's hell. Working full time was worth the sadness and the bleak futureless painful reality of it all. I had at least my own hell to go home to and not theirs.

One day after work, I walked into the living room and was shocked to see someone, the very last person I ever expected to see in our living room, sitting on the couch with everyone else. It was David. He was there with Whitney and Allison – I assume they must have invited him over, and why he had taken them up on the offer I could not imagine. He hated me. Josh was sitting in the corner in his chair in the corner, surveying it all with a silent rageful curiosity. He looked cynical, insecure and a little on edge. David looked nervous. We made brief eye contact. He knew I was weirded out. His eyes were dilated. Something weird was afoot. There was a poised anticipation for my arrival with everyone. Why was my estranged brother sitting in my living room? Had I not left this behind me?

Everyone must have been aware at just how shocked I would be when I walked through the door, though David clearly anticipated it the most. Whitney was smiling ear to ear and for the most part – perhaps the most mindless of the bunch, Allison was the same as ever, looking delightedly oblivious that this set up was odd in only a way that a very naive child can be. Nothing seemed to be really happening, and yet in the dim lit room where I had been living my post-David life, I was taken aback to see him there. The room seemed charged with electricity. What the actual fuck is my estranged younger brother doing in my living room?

I nervously ran downstairs and got changed into my normal clothes. I was panicking a little, but I had somehow acquired the ability to autopilot while I panicked. I washed my face, looked at my own face in the mirror looking back at me knowingly, like the only other friend in the room that understood my confusion and shock, took a deep breath and then ran back upstairs to low-key investigate the situation. It wasn't going to get any better till I at least knew. I pretended to make a sandwich in the kitchen covertly. Josh was clearly feeling insecure about David's presence, that much was apparent to everyone. He felt like he was being challenged in his throne – which I thought was extremely strange. What did Josh have to worry about about my fourteen year old mentally ill little brother? Josh was twenty nine years old. He had a job. This place was practically his to do as he would with it. He was the leader in a sense. I came to the conclusion that Josh was feeling like he had to express his alpha position in the household, for whatever value he must have thought that merited because David was another male – and I hadn't realized up to that point how touchy Josh was about other men. I had only ever seen Josh comfortable around women. I listened timidly from my spot in the kitchen as Josh cynically bragged nervously about his knowledge of Nietzsche in a manner that was pretentious and absurd – an almost self aware practice in the very opposite of humble, and reflecting more on the reality that, like most people who think they understand Nietzsche, he probably didn't understand Nietzsche all too well at all. Which wasn't even important. What did Nietzsche have to do with any of this?

I stuck around to eat the sandwich but the anxiety of sitting in the living room got to me. How was I to respond? Didn't it seem a little insane for me to just sit there like the whole thing between David and I hadn't happened? And furthermore, as much as I liked Josh, he was acting like some intellectual pimp to seem cool and it was pretty embarrassing. I adored Josh. But sometimes in groups of people Josh could be a bit much for me. So I descended back into my lair downstairs. I had seen all I needed to see. Something was up. David would never ever have wanted to come here at all, partly due to anxiety, partly to my presence and all that entailed (I guess) unless there was a strong reason for doing so. What was David's motives? He hardly wanted to see me at our mother's and for him to come into my place where I lived, it was indication of something very strange indeed. And I guess, at least, it wasn't too long before I found out what that something was.

Allison, poor clueless Allison who had been pulled every which way that year in an attempt to find acceptance that she craved more than anyone I had ever known, had finally found out what was happening, but it came all too late. She came into my room and told me one night in shock when she found out. Her eyes were tear streaked. She was unhappy. She was hurt and confused, and maybe felt a bit used. Perhaps maybe somewhat jealous. Whitney had been courting David. She had been going to my mother's house with Allison in the guise that it would be fun to be with Allison, and in fact she was actually using the time to go down to David's creepy basement room and moving in on my very young, very mentally unwell little brother. And poor vulnerable David was of course ripe for the picking. Whitney must have seemed like an angel. Her age was clearly inappropriate, but David's ego would have it be that he was just that 'mature'. Whitney was in her mid twenties. David was fourteen. It was illegal at the time. David was far too underage, too inexperienced and vulnerable. This didn't seem real. It just never crossed my mind as a real thing that could happen. In a way it felt like my history and my future were melding. I didn't know what to make of that aspect of it all. I knew Whitney was delusional and crazy and kind of disrespectful, but this? What the fuck was wrong with Whitney? In my mind, I saw this pairing as so absurd and disturbing and vulgar on Whitney's part. It made me want to puke.

And David was taking the bate. He was young. He had been suicidal for going on six months. He was lonely, ego driven, angry and confused. I had to see this from his perspective. He was alone in that dark evil basement thinking about killing himself. He had simply stopped going to school. For whatever reason Idaho had simply let David's absence from school go even though he had stopped going by age thirteen. And then Whitney had descended down the steps and angelically seen his despair and weakness and she had become enthralled and intrigued and obsessed with him and he was too young to recognize that she was flattering him in the very empty way that Whitney is known for. They shared an interest in Bjork and Whitney had painted him pictures and moved in on him very quietly and quickly. She had an enormous amount of power over him. It was sick. It really was. It played out in her manipulative hands so well. She loved controlling and taking over Allison and David. I thought it strange that I could see through Whitney very early on, but it didn't seem that clear to my siblings.

Allison felt betrayed. She had seen Whitney as her best friend, and hadn't realized that Whitney had angles or hidden intent. Allison wanted so badly to live in a one dimensional world. It was well meant, but a little sickening. Whitney had been part of Allison's tapestry. She didn't see the layers. Didn't know how to look for the layers even if she wanted to. I am sure it was a terrible shock. I had tried to tell her about befriending Whitney, but when I had tried to tell anyone anything people didn't listen anymore and I was growing accustomed to sitting in the corner and simply smiling and letting people fall into the holes I had warned them about. And even when they fell, I still said nothing anymore. It wasn't worth my time. I had my own goals. I felt chosen for something better. Why waste my breath on people who hated me anyway? I felt sick to my stomach about this though – this was another thing altogether. I literally felt like some sick animal was living in my gut, clawing around desperately trying to escape. I couldn't shut this one off. David's life was kind of at risk here. I couldn't stop worrying about it. I knew this was not going to end well – whenever and wherever the end of it happened. This would wreck him in the end. I saw this as something that would perhaps even kill my brother eventually. David was that unstable – and for Whitney not only to disregard the fundamental age gap, but his stability as well... Whitney was sick.

I deliberated on what should be done. Nobody was really on the level anymore. It just seemed like everyone lived in a blur, including me, but I had to take responsibility and take the glasses off now and again. By this point, the concept that I might make people hate me for doing what I knew was the right thing to do didn't even factor into much for me anymore. It was more or less an afterthought. Everything I did or did not do would upset someone. I couldn't let my passions be dictated by the fear of unstable people rejecting me. Let them hate me. Let them despise me. I had accepted that niche identity of not giving a fuck about pissing off the 'group', and how frivolous and pointless it was to even care. Either it was because someone was mad at failing to control me, I reminded them of something they didn't like to be reminded of, or they felt guilty or jealous in my presence, in any case, I had decided to live less apologetically.

I wanted to go through the proper avenues. I guess I hoped there was a chance that Whitney could be made to back off. She had already fallen into various obsessions and love interests and fallen right out in the short time I had known her u to that point. Perhaps she would do the same with my brother if someone with some legal authority stepped in, like one of our parents. So I told my mother as soon as I could before work one day. I came to the house when I knew nobody else was there and I explained the situation in full. She was sitting at her laptop, hiding and listening behind the screen, as I let her know what was happening. I sat neutrally at the kitchen table, and explained the situation, about David and Whitney. She raised her voice and seemed angered that Whitney was doing this, promised to make it stop like some self-assured king that could yay or nay everyone's actions from her corner of the sofa and all would be done beneath her roar, but of course she never did anything of the sort in the end. In the end, she deliberated on Whitney's involvement in David's life, she talked to David about it, and in the end she approved of the 'arrangement'. Mostly, she just wanted to feel like she was benefiting from this.

The next time I talked to my mother, she was completely on board with Whitney and David's relationship. I was the new enemy for having told her – same old family meaningless drama. She had deliberated and thought it out. She told me that she 'liked' Whitney and thought this would be good for David to be taken in by this older woman. She implied that I was jealous of Whitney. She knew it was illegal yes, but she simply 'couldn't see what was to be done about it', and there was some chaotic element to it that she enjoyed I am sure. She believed David would never give up on the Whitney situation – which she did make a point there. Had she stepped in, she would have scared off Whitney, but David would already be damaged by the rejection. He may have tried to kill himself. I suppose it never occurred to her to have a chat with Whitney. My mother was on board with this chaos. I was furious and disgusted with her. I wanted to punch her in the face, but instead I stood there and listened to her ramble her excuses. I smiled politely and left. I suppose I should not have been all that surprised.

I told my father. He was still working at Home Depot still. He was adjusting to his new life after we had gone, and he didn't hide his drinking anymore. He sported a red well drunken face that hid nothing – and it was clear he felt empty and lost in his addiction but quite ready to follow it on to the bitter end. He seemed to have started dressing better for whatever reason. He wore a dress coat and a slouchy beanie, which made very little sense to who I had known him as, but he looked moderately cooler than he ever had when I had lived with him. It was strange to see him dressed this way. He was still the same asshole as ever of course. I didn't let him know much anymore because he seemed truculent when he was given even a little bit of information that he could use against us, but I was hoping that his adult streak would come through in the end as he at times could sometimes be very responsible.

But he was afraid to confront the situation head on too. And I should have known. He deflected responsibility for David and refused to get involved. He blamed my mother and seemed more jealous than anything that my 'mother and David' were buddies rather than him and David. He then proceeded to tell me the entire story of his divorce with her that had long ended well over twelve years ago – that I had heard a million times before, and been there for in fact to see it all happen. He assured me that he was the victim. He didn't want to face the current situation, that an overage woman was taking in his preteen son as her lover. His final say in the matter was grotesque and selfish. He was proud of David for 'bagging' an older woman. His biggest concern for David had simply been that due to David's love of alternative style and music, that David had been gay. Now that he knew David was not gay he could rest easy.

Both of their responses to me were criminal. Both my mother and father should have been tossed in a cell together, left to tear one another apart. It all could have ended very quickly had either one of them had a selfless bone in their body, and actually cared about David's well being. They could have talked to Whitney in person, looked her in the eye and warned her that there would be consequences if she thought she was simply going to 'have David'. Whitney was a coward more or less, and she was prone to being fairly inconsistent. It could have ended so easily then and there. She would have fled had she known there would be consequences. She was banking on the precise indifference my parents readily gave. In a sense, I felt like she was leeching off my family's dysfunction – something I really hadn't ever expected to happen on top of all the other things I had never expected to happen.

It left a heavy load on my shoulders. I would deliberate on what I should do all day at work, and then I would go home and think about it in my bed. I felt the moral dilemma in me churning sickly at all times. It hurt to think that now I was in the situation to make or break David's life. His life was being shaped forever. And nobody was going to do anything about it. If I made the stand, if I talked to the cops, or to Whitney, it would likely backfire. I felt like in the eyes of others I would be seen as an Iago like character from Othello, some scheming sinister cruel outsider who wanted nothing more than to destroy my brother as an act of jealousy. My mother was outright letting Whitney and David's relationship proceed – she was complicit in the crime. If I turned Whitney in, I would be turning in my mother as well – she had gotten very involved almost as soon as I had warned her.

Turning in my mother was something I had decided I would be ready to do. It hurt, really it did, but so much of her's and my father's life had been getting away with so much. They had caused so much damage. This could be the reckoning they deserved, and maybe a cathartic personal stance against their ways that had sort of wrecked me. I could divide myself off from my family forever – I really felt that disconnected. I loved my mom and the idea of seeing the hurt and shock and fury in her eyes did haunt me, but the idea of David's pain and future haunted me more. I could love her behind bars too, I reasoned. I was almost ready to move ahead with this plan. I would contact the police and turn everyone in. It felt like my mother was pimping my brother out. Essentially she kind of was.

But I didn't go through with the plan in the end. Where would that leave Maria's kids? They were living with my mother. If my mom got into trouble, the state would take them away. They would probably go somewhere bad. That would mean that Jasmine, Chantelle, JT and Ian would be sent away to another foster family – likely far away. I remembered the Smith family who lived next door to Ava in high school. I might never see them again. After all they had been through, they didn't deserve that. This should never have to fall on their shoulders

And I guess I was afraid. I felt complicit as well. Everyone I knew was complicit. Josh and I were the most anti Whitney David couple, but in the end we also complied. Nobody was ready or willing to turn Whitney in. It was hard to see her as a criminal I guess. She seemed in some ways, clueless. Perhaps she was. My parents clearly didn't see the pedophilic nature of Whitney's position with David as a problem – they saw her as an overgrown teenager. They saw Whitney as being David's age. They just fundamentally didn't see a problem with David being taken in by a woman well in her twenties. I couldn't guarantee that I was doing the right thing. I didn't know up from down anymore. Perhaps with all the other developments that had taken place over the course of the year, this was just one of those ugly inevitabilities, like WW1 or small pox. Should I fight against the universe? I felt like I had been fighting against the universe for a long time. I was tired. I was tired of trying to uphold decency in my family. I was tired of caring about everyone, tired of being everyone's moral compass. I just wanted to know myself, and I realized the more and more I knew myself, the less pure I was deep down. Who was I ultimately to say that none of this was not meant to happen?

So much of that whole year had been me reestablishing my morals – and being confused about right and wrong. I felt lost. I felt like the world made no sense and there was a cold and treacherously indifferent nature to the moral ambiguity of this situation and every other that came before and after. I wanted very much to find some core truth – find that golden thread of valued and meaning. I wanted to fight for something big, but when I closed my eyes the only thing I could feel really was this aching self knowing and this intense awareness of Josh. Some kind of external balance in the universe that would sort us all out in the end. We'd all fallen out of order, but gravity would put us all in our places eventually, for better or worse. And if that balance would eventually come, I wanted it to come soon. But I knew that in the mean time, I had to survive this empty and intense obsessive reality I was in. And there were so many battles in life I was not going to win. And what about my life? Was this the balance?

Maybe this was in some ugly way, the universe balancing things. How ugly, but David and Whitney, what if they were made to be together and me trying to be a good samaritan and end their relationship was actually the very nonsense that made this all happen to begin with. I looked back, and I could honestly stem all these situations I was now living in, my core identity, back to seeing Zack in the summer of 2003 by store, his long blonde hair on his teenage version head blowing in the wind. Had I not been in FFA with Zack, perhaps David and Whitney would not be running away together. When I thought about it more and more, the more I realized that I had unwittingly created this entire situation. This was on me. And trying to be some kind of hero, or some kind of cop in this situation wasn't going to just get me out of it. I had opened the door to the chaos.

I hated feeling so powerless. It had been criminal that our lives had come to this place to where it all had fallen on my head and I had to consider the gray in it all. A decent parent would have shooed Whitney away. But we were alone. Or perhaps everyone was alone, and morals were always gray, but for some fortunate people, they never had to fully question themselves. Someday, I knew on the outskirts of my awareness, David would understand how wrong and sick this had all been. That bothered me the most. Someday, when the tide came in, when we were two different people reshaped by our experiences and the decisions of today, we would look at one another and we would know. He was too young to see it now, but he would later. I knew that. I wanted so much to reach and talk to that incarnation of David – a version of him that was the age I was then, a young man that had some understanding. But he wasn't here yet. David was a ball of hatred now, more or less still a child. He was totally consumed by Whitney, and he had the approval of our mother and father. And Whitney was the only good thing in his life – it was impossible for him to understand otherwise. He would at this point never understand if I legally took recourse against them. And he might never understand.

Furthermore, I had to realize that if I took legal action against Whitney and David, my family would turn against me. For all my good intentions, nobody was going to back me up. They would cover it all up to save themselves, to save my mother's involvement, to save Whitney from the repercussions. Even Josh and Allison might turn against me. I had to see that in a realistic way. I didn't wield the biggest sword. If I made that move, there would be moves made against me. I didn't have the strength to fight anymore. I was starving in my room, I was lovesick half the time, I was miserable and sad after work in a way I didn't even know was possible. I could think lofty thoughts, but I knew I would break if everyone ganged up on me, regardless if I really cared or not anymore.

I knew my word against several other people's word might really mean nothing. It would be my word against theirs. And at this point Whitney and David could just be called friends. There was nothing illegal about Whitney talking to David after all. They could deny everything else. And Whitney seemed so sweet. I doubted judges or juries would look at her blonde self and want to put her behind bars. She wasn't what you would typically associate with a pedophile, with her blonde hair in pig tails and her big green eyes with long lashes. She seemed middle to upper class. It would be her and everyone else we knew against my word. I knew that. Nobody actually wanted to see Whitney incarcerated for having sexual relations with a minor, not even me. I just simply wanted her to get away from David. Unless I had concrete proof though, then nothing legally could actually be done. And it was doubtful that the state of Idaho was going to care about this, considering they didn't seem to bother with the fact that David had quit school three years before it was legal to do so. Idaho didn't care about people like David or me.

Having to morally step down from doing the right thing in this situation was one of the most difficult aspects of life I had to balance within myself and it permanently broke me a little bit. I woke up everyday feeling evil. Eventually it just became a part of who I was. I felt continuous guilt and shame. To this day I still struggle, after the struggle has long since died. I felt like I had to swallow a cold solid stone. It felt wrong and it choked me, and I felt and knew myself to be a weak person for not being willing or able in the end to actually go through with what needed to be done. I failed myself. And in the end Whitney and David's relationship was left to proceed without my having lifted a real finger to end it.

Josh kicked Whitney out soon after. For Josh, I think it was a double edge sword. He was at the grips of his manic depression and everything he was doing that winter seemed unhinged. He had been obsessed with Whitney all over again. He simply seemed like a man who was losing his mind. I was growing to understand that part of loving someone complicated and unwell like Josh in particular, was that things would not always be fun for me. I loved him and respected him and I would follow him into the abyss, it would be exciting and intriguing. I would grow and benefit in strange ways from knowing him. But he would not make me happy in the traditional sense. And maybe that was better. A life full of happiness is generally not the life of the artist. Josh brought the chaos out of me, the ugly and beautiful stuff that made my life meaningful. I would not always enjoy or agree with his behavior. But I wanted to be on the other side of the vale with him just the same, when the rest of the world was hostile. I wanted to protect him. I was committed and when I looked into his eyes, it was as though it had only ever been him. There was no past or history for me. Perhaps it had all been an illusion. My selfhood seemed shaky. And there was a strange brilliance and clarity, and vulnerability in Josh that I never found in anyone else. How could I ever leave this?

He would stomp around. I would come into the kitchen and find broken glass everywhere. I would hear him leave the house at one in the morning, which I later learned that Josh had a gambling addiction and was spending all the money he had and didn't have. He hadn't paid the electricity bill in months. There was a certain silent rampage with Josh that's hard to explain unless you knew him. He was rarely ever violent or loud, but you could feel his rage consume everything in the room when he was mad. I was particularly sensitive to it. Eventually I gained an inner thermostat to what he was feeling, before he even got home sometimes. I just knew his internal workings better and better. He'd passive aggressively lash out at us all – though of course my Cromwellian tendencies kept me safer than everyone else.

He and Whitney would fight the most. That was all the did anymore. Nobody wanted to chill and watch Saturday Night Live anymore. I could never tell if he was responding more to the inappropriate situation of Whitney and David's relationship and to some moral code that it was horrible and wrong – which he did seem more aware of than anyone else at the time, or if he was simply jealous that a younger man had come in and taken what was 'his' – which I was simultaneously aware was gross and stuff, but also I had a strange sympathy for. Maybe it was both. He was going crazy, and I didn't feel like I could really communicate with him at the moment, mostly because I needed my time to digest this new turn of events. But I wasn't going to leave him. At any cost I would never do that.

Whitney at first planned on moving with her father after Josh kicked her out, but then she ended up staying with David at Wes's. It was development I would not have imagined in a million years. Had someone explained this scenario to me when I had been thirteen and Whitney had been that cute cheerleader a year older than me who was Zack's older sister – that my little brother who was just about seven years my junior, would be who he was and they would be living together in one of my mother's client's houses while he was in the nursing home, and Sarah was pregnant with Zack's baby and we weren't really friends anymore, and I loved Melissa from my class's older brother Josh and we lived together in a house in Clarkston, I wouldn't have believed it. Life had just become too fucking weird. But in that chaos it was almost as though something calm was at the center of it. I realized I had become kind of strange throughout the last several years. I was able to use chaos around me to balance myself out – and I found relief in that, even as it involved a lot of self reflection and risk taking. It was a full time job for me to use insanity around me to create sanity. When people were losing it around me, it was then that I felt most calm and most in control.

What actually messed me up was the quiet times and the strange chaotic energy that I had inside of me that caused me to self sabotage. I found that I was less impulsive while all this was going on. I didn't need to yo yo between eating and sticking my finger down my throat. I could just eat less than I previously thought I had been capable of. So I stopped making myself throw up, and just pushed myself to starve harder. I killed the bulimia I was developing and went into anorexia. But in the eyes of everyone around me, being thin gave me more value. I saw more value in myself when I looked into the mirror.

David spent one more time in the madhouse before Whitney and eventually everyone left. I wasn't there for most of it, but I guess what happened was, Whitney kissed David in Allison's bedroom, and Josh had decided for some reason to go outside the house like a freak and watch this happen from a window. He then confronted David in the kitchen later that evening and told David that Whitney would cheat on him like she had all her other boyfriends. David resented it and hated Josh for then and forever.

I was getting ready for work later that day, and I walked past Whitney's bedroom door which was open. David and Whitney were cuddled up together watching some Flaming Lips video Whitney had sitting around. David gave me eye contact – the first time we had really looked one another in the eye since early spring. He looked lost in love and confused, but highly aware at the same time. It was surreal to me, and horrifying. David wasn't even fully grown yet and seeing Whitney, fully grown with David was disturbing in the weirdest way. It lay somewhere between seeing something so baffling you want to laugh in horror, but at the same rate you want it dead. But attacking it only made it stronger. Because I knew at this point that nobody was going to stop this. I would have no support. I believe Whitney saw herself as a teenager – I could see that in her face. I think her obsession in fact with staying young had been part of David's appeal for her. She had a child for a boyfriend. In a way she thought it made her a child as well. She felt she could suck his youthful essence from him and have it for herself.

The last fight I was ever around with Whitney and Josh before she left, Josh was trying to tell Whitney that she was never worth anything to him, and that he would replace her. It was so absurd that I momentarily had troubles imagining why I thought this guy was attractive. I guess he was just hurt. He put on this outdated polo shirt that he probably went to bars in back in the late nineties, and he made out like he was going out to 'find Whitney's replacement'. It was unstable, and absurd and if I hadn't cared about my own living situation, it was kind of funny in a gross way. Josh looked so stupid in that polo shirt.

Whitney screamed at Josh that if he really wanted to replace her with anyone, it should be me. She yelled at him that he had already replaced her with me, and as far as she was concerned, it felt sometimes like we were already dating. Like we were already a couple. It was so strange to hear her say it. Everyone felt that when Josh and I were around one another. Even when he prioritized Whitney, even when I quietly sat back, it always came down to him and I, and I hadn't been so crazy after all for having realized it early on. Allison and Whitney knew. Josh and I knew. Things were happening so fast. I had not anticipated this. I sat in the stairwell listening to all this go down. Josh didn't deny it, which put me in an awkward position. They didn't know I was listening. I awkwardly hopped into my bedroom to contemplate and be alone. Later on, Josh came to my door. He was still wearing the polo shirt. He seemed confused. He asked me if there was anywhere I needed to go. I wanted to say yes, but the truth was, Lewiston and Clarkston were lame. There was nowhere for us to go. So I told him I was fine. I guess it was a bad move on my part. I was turning him down. But it didn't feel natural. I felt like Josh was talking to me because Whitney had suggested it. I didn't feel like I had the control that I needed. I needed Josh to love me so much that I drew him to me and he wouldn’t leave me alone, not at the whim of the idiot girl he pined over who wasn’t me.

PART 109 - https://tinyurl.com/ydyc2p95

PART 108 - https://tinyurl.com/y8n3xvnb

PART 107 - https://tinyurl.com/y8uyusr7

PART 106 - https://tinyurl.com/ycqhlqsy

PART 105 - https://tinyurl.com/ybjvm23b

PART 104 - https://tinyurl.com/yauo5f78

PART 103 - https://tinyurl.com/yblwsv3p

PART 102 - https://tinyurl.com/yc5m3cq7

PART 101 - https://tinyurl.com/yafyhse2

My Life Story in Chapters, PARTS 1-100 (this link below will lead you to a list of all the chapters i have written thus far).

http://aleatoryalarmalligator.tumblr.com/post/168782771574/life-story-sections-1-100

#text #long text #life story #writing

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blackcoffee-floweringsoul · 5 years

Text

Cycles

January

& she looked at him, wide eyed and innocent,

like he held the answers to why her heart bled every time she fell in love

his eyes looked everywhere but into hers.

because he knew - very well -

that he was the reason for her tears when she cried waterfalls at night, wondering why she wasn’t enough for love.

If only she could see

She was much more than enough; Yet she emptied her love into those undeserving, as if she had infinite love for everyone but herself

she was beautiful… not just in the way she dressed but in the way her thoughts came together when she poured ink on her journal, trying to piece together heartbreak, the kind that dulled the gold sparks in her emerald green eyes when she spoke of her passions, of her father, of the last book she read.

She felt every ounce of goodness, of kindness, of compassion on this earth until her bones were shaking with the existential understanding of what it meant to be human.

And in that intrinsic wisdom, he was never the answer to her roots of humanity.

February

Coffee- Tinted Breath

he took me to breakfast on a Wednesday at a quiet little cafe in the middle of town but

he orders his coffee the same way you did

two cream, one sugar.

and his kisses tasted like yours

As my head swirls in a cream- colored mess of forgotten jokes and unspoken memories I faintly hear a whistling in the background- my tea kettle is boiling.

March

Found: My First Love

If you look hard enough, you will find him.

he is tucked in the folded corners of my favorite novel, he is in the bottom of the wine bottle that I finished in the bath

he is curled up in my covers, and stuck to my teeth he is crawling on my skin and dripping in the sweat down the back of my neck

you won’t find him in my smile, or in my laughter, or in the sun

but i promise if you look hard enough you’ll find him: For he is the one.

April

maybe i hold onto the way i loved you because i like who i was back then better

May

I am 15 years young. A cool rain drenches me on a warm spring night. The sky tells me it should be dark, but the lights on the stage are projecting at just the right angle to illuminate the beautiful details of your face: the lopsided grin, the brown, all-knowing eyes - you are all I see. There are thousands of people in this stadium, but at this moment there was just two: you and I. My body gravitates towards you like you are the Earth and I am your Moon. Through an endless crowd of screaming souls, you take my hand and lead me away, until we find an empty space (Row 15 - Section 9.) You begin to spin me, to the rhythm of the bass player on stage, and suddenly the crows goes quiet. It is like the seconds before an ocean waves crashes the shore. The entire stadium watches us in silence; two young lovers moving together with such fluidity and ease that its hard to distinguish where his star dust separated from mine in the creation of the universe.

This is the moment my mind falls on when rain drops hit me or that song plays on the radio. That moment will always be ours.

June

kisses aren’t meant to hurt.

they’re supposed to wake sleeping princesses, or melt into a delicious chocolate puddles, or ease the pain of the scrape you got when you fell of your bike.

kisses aren’t meant to hurt.

but when you grabbed my hair with your red stained teeth and sucked on my neck like my blood gave you life, the black and blue you left said otherwise.

July

this year i learned that even kind people can be toxic.

when you have a soul filled with aching wanderlust, bursting with emotion,

mediocre doesn’t satiate you.

your lips will always be parched, no matter how many times he kisses you, no matter how many times you say you love him.

he is kind, but he is not enough for you.

and maybe you’re too much for him.he might dehydrate you, but you might drown him.

August

Dear Brian, its always been you.

Dear Kyle, you kept the gum you were chewing the night of our first kiss in your dresser drawer for six years. You still adore my scent with trembling lips.

Dear Peter, im sorry for biting your lip. i am still learning how to be a woman.

Dear Ryan, im sorry I used you as duct tape, but your heart kept mine from breaking countless times.

Dear Brian, its always been you.

Dear Nick, i only liked you because you reminded me of him

Dear Brandon, I wrote my college essay on the night you took me to watch stardust disintegrate and planets spin from millions of miles away

Dear Chris, I though I loved you because you walked me home

Dear Brian, its always been you.

Dear Austin, we were at church camp. the only one I was getting on my knees for was Jesus

Dear Andres, fuck you

Dear Ethan, thank you for loving me enough to let me go.

Dear Ethan, im sorry for fucking your best friend,

Dear Colin, I only kissed you to make him jealous. it worked.

Dear Brian, its always been you

Dear Anthony, i cared more about your little brother’s dreams than your own

Dear Cole, I hate that you tried to save yourself inside of me

Dear Lucas, I enjoyed hurting you

Dear Zack, we will only ever be friends

Dear Shane, I don’t care how many times we prayed together those hands don’t belong in my pants

Dear Tommy, I never thought I could connect intimately with a drug dealer

Dear Kyle, I hope you learn to love yourself

Dear Brian, its always been you

Dear Qazi, you didn’t love me

Dear Oliver, you could’ve loved me

Dear Brian, but its always you

September

I still fuck my ex because it makes me feel unforgettable

the high I get knowing he still yearns for my naked body, knowing I can give it to him without reaching deep beneath ribcage and offering my heart as well

he might not remember the spring afternoon we spent laughing with frosting in our hair

but he will never forget the way I taste

the sweetest: that, I promise you.

October

in a drunken haze I pulled my black Honda into his driveway, I found him waiting for me, letting his perfect hair fall flat in the pouring rain. He pulls me inside and tells me its too cold for pretty girls like me out there, but instead of getting me a towel he takes me clothes right off my body and throws them in the dryer. Laying there naked on his kitchen table, surrounded by Italian liquor bottles and home made tomato sauce, he makes love to me. When he comes he screams in Italian, and for a moment I forget where I am. He is my little Italian getaway, his bed my escape.

November

Kate, my new, young, bright, flower-loving, effervescent therapist, told me I need to work on setting boundaries, letting go, and loving myself. She assigned me homework for this week: to write down ten things I love about myself. They have to encompass my internal and external features and qualities and must come from a place of self-love. So, here are 10 things that I truly do love about myself, body and soul.

1) I think that I have really pretty green eyes. I think that my eyes are unique, and that they really are a glimpse into the best parts of my soul.

2) I love that I have an innate ability to connect with and make friends with all walks of life. I am able to find friendship in all types of people, from stoners to geeks to athletes; I do not judge anyone and love people for who they are.

3) I love that I am a soon to be nurse; I think that I fit the role of a nurse well, and I can really see myself being a successful nurse, changing people’s lives for the better. I am proud of my profession

4) I love my heart. I think that no matter how many times people hurt me, and no matter how many times I am disappointed, I remain positive that there is good in the world and that people are innately good.

5) I like my smile. I think that my smile radiates positivity and that it shows my kindness.

6) I like my writing. I think that they way I put words on a page, especially when its about my own emotions and how I feel about things is articulate and I have a way of making sentences flow into analogies that make sense to me.

7) I love that I ask questions. I think that this is something that allows me to bond with people, and I know that my asking questions and being genuine with others is something that I should love about myself because it makes people feel welcome.

8) I love my butt :) I am confident about it

9) I love that I am curious about all aspects of life. I am a life long learner and this is something that I never want to lose.

10) I love my eyelashes; they are long and beautiful.

December

there are days when you have to celebrate the small victories

like not texting him on his 22nd birthday

like staying home with your best friends even when your heart is crawling out of your chest, inching its way to the bar he drinks at on Tuesdays

like taking the long way home so you don’t see him walking back from main street with a new girl in his arms

every small victory, no matter how small,

self love, self love, self love

they say it takes two weeks to create a habit

like not texting him on his 22nd birthday

like not spending the night in a man’s bed on his 22nd birthday

or drinking until I forget its his 22nd birthday

like choosing myself for once, on his 22nd birthday

a small victory.

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snarktheater · 7 years

Text

Movie review — Power Rangers

Say, did I ever mention I was a Power Rangers kid? Because I was. I was a little too young for the original generation, but when Zeo aired, I was so into it it was kind of embarrassing. I watched as religiously as a small child can when he doesn't know how to VCR a show and has to rely on his parents remembering to record the episodes. I played pretend Power Ranger a lot. I had (and…still have) more toy Megazords than I am fully comfortable listing. And I'm pretty sure I still played with them into my late teenage years, because I am exactly that kind of dork.

Ahem. Point is, a Power Rangers movie reboot came and I was…intrigued, but mildly scared too. This series is not exactly top quality, and the wave of nostalgia-driven adaptations hasn't really led to great stuff that often.

Does the movie hold up? Well, honestly…yes.

Mind you, Power Rangers the movie (does it have a proper name? I wouldn't know) isn't high art or anything. But it's probably better than anyone expected when they heard about this movie in the first place.

This movie does a good job at striking a balance between recreating the original show and doing its own thing. Part of that is due to the media transfer (we can't tell the same kind of story in a show and a movie), but part of that is clearly a creative effort on the part of the crew.

So, the aesthetic is something most people have been critical of. "The suits look bad", and so on and so forth. Honestly, I'm on the fence on this one, but I have to admit that it's the only Power Rangers we could have gotten in 2017. I mean, look at the Flash in those Justice League trailers. This is just what's in vogue. I don't mind the suits, honestly.

No, if we're going to talk bad aesthetics, I have to point out that this movie is another victim of the "MAKE EVERYTHING DARK" trend of this decade. And I don't mean "dark" as in "serious and gritty". The movie has a fairly light tone overall, if you look at it honestly, but the color palette is washed out and the brightness is dialed down way more than it needs to be. That's an issue.

But aside from that, the adaptation strikes in world building as well. And that's actually my favorite part of it. We get backstory for Zordon and Rita (which I fully approve of), they worked in the Zeo Crystal as a plot device that's more than a McGuffin to give the Rangers new powers. Oh, and of course, the Green Power Ranger is already established here (although saved for the potential sequel), and Rita is given a connection to it that she didn't have in the original show. They even thought to explain why the Zords are modeled after prehistoric creatures!

It makes the world feel a lot more cohesive, rather than the "let's just pick a Super Sentai series to adapt and invent a connection" method that formed the plot of the original Power Rangers seasons. Not that I don't understand why the original series had to do it, but it's good to see that they decided to up the storytelling game for the remake instead of relying purely on the franchise name and nostalgia value.

Speaking of storytelling, the plot. After some backstory to the time Rita first wreaked havoc on earth, we skip to present day, and meet our teenagers with attitude, all the while witnessing Rita's return. It's a pretty standard hero's journey, if we have five heroes who stand almost (almost) on equal footing and follow a similar path.

Most of the movie is spent with the Rangers first finding out about their powers, then, once they meet Zordon and Alpha (i.e. the mentor figures), trying to master them. All the while, we cut back to Rita's progress. It's better than it sounds.

Allow me to elaborate. First, we spend a considerable amount of time introducing the protagonists before they're even chosen to be Rangers. Second, they don't just get picked by Zordon; instead, they actively make their way into becoming Rangers, first by finding the Power Coins, then by seeking out answers as to why these coins gave them the abilities they have. Active protagonists! It's important to have them.

Third, while Rita's earlier scenes are fairly standard and mostly serve to establish her motivation, powers (and rules thereof), and the threat she poses, she doesn't stay separate from the Rangers forever. She does clash with them halfway through the second act, gives them a more personal reason to fight than saving the world, all that jazz. Not that they weren't on board beforehand, but it's important.

Because…see, these Rangers have actual characters instead of being blobs who each wears a different color. They have personal conflicts, and while they're not exactly all resolved by the end of the movie (which is probably a tad overconfident by counting on sequels), they do progress. The Rangers make the right decision to save the world, but giving them a personal stake is what gives them resolve to fight the final battle. This is good, it's exactly how you should blend character motivation with heroism.

Speaking of personal conflicts, let's talk about these teenagers for a moment. The phrase "teenagers with attitude" associated with the show (which I already quoted above) is much more applicable here, when…you know, the protagonists actually have issues instead of being perfect role models. I understand that different times mean different sensibilities and I guess the original cast was more palatable to the 90s, but I'm glad about the change.

So we have Jason, the red ranger and leader of the group. He's the gold star athlete student of Angel Grove—big enough to be in the local papers, apparently. His issue is…basically an existential crisis of "is this what I want, or what everyone else wants from me?" Well, kind of. He's already past this issue at the start of the movie, since we meet him in the middle of acting up. I guess his conflict is actually more trying to reconcile the two, putting the things he's good at (i.e. leadership) to the service of something he actually wants to do (being a Power Ranger) instead of something he's expected to do. It works…mostly because he's definitely a little more central than the rest of the crew. Which is a negative point on the movie. I'm sorry, but you have a diverse cast, and you choose to focus on the white boy? Boo.

But on the plus side, this is a conflict we've seen done a lot, and I think this movie manages to do something new with it. Mostly by being more subtle about it. It lets the movie avert clichés (you know, the "No, dad, it's your dream!" speech), and it makes the whole progression feel a lot more natural when it's all understated. When the Rangers bond together, he doesn't even need to say his problem, because everyone knows. Including us. It's almost meta in its self-awareness.

Moving on. Kimberly is the pink ranger, and while I mentioned that all out protagonists are flawed and have conflict, she's the only one who's actually done something bad. In two words: revenge porn. Yeah. It's pretty bad. But…she owns up to having done something terrible, and grows from it. It's sort of put aside rather than actively being resolved, but again, I think this is more because the crew expected sequels. Oh, also, that kiss between her and Jason from the trailer was cut out of the movie. No romance here. Apparently focus tests finally showed that an unnecessary straight romance wasn't something people wanted!

Zack and Trini, the black and yellow rangers, are the least developed members of the team, by virtue of being the last to even show up in the movie. Not that they lack personality, mind you. If anything, them being a little harder to decipher feels intentional, since Zack stays out of school to take care of his sick mother, and Trini is "the new girl" (who's been here a year, but that's just details) and kind of self-ostracized, in a "don't let them in, don't let them see" kind of way.

They're still both pretty enjoyable characters. Zack is the brash comic relief archetype most of the time, but seeing his sweet side with his mother was a nice addition to the trope (also, having him speak Chinese, I approve). Trini is implied to be some shade of not straight, although I think the cries of "yellow ranger is gayyyy" were a bit exaggerated. More importantly, she's the one Rita chooses to go after first because she's more guarded than the others…and Trini does the right thing and ask for her team's help. Just like with Jason, it's a subdued kind of character development that I like a lot. No one goes "wow, you trust us now?" like it's some kind of grand change. She just trusts her team, and the others accept it. I like that. Also, she calls out her younger brothers' casual sexism, that's cool too.

Which leaves us with Billy, who I think is pretty unanimously the audience favorite. One, he's a black autistic guy, unambiguously so, which is already pretty rare. Two, his autism actually feels…you know, real. It's consistent, it shows itself in symptoms that make sense, but it also doesn't define all of Billy's character. His interests are his own, even if they express differently because of his autism. And three, and perhaps most importantly, he's the group's emotional core. That's pretty groundbreaking as far as autistic characters go.

And I don't mean he's the poor autistic kid that everyone feels pity to and therefore stick together to help—he's an active participant in it. He's the one who discovers the Power coins and gets several of the other protagonists involved (he definitely brought Jason, attracted Zack's attention, and I think Trini also followed him to the quarry), he's the first to embrace that they're Rangers and a team and he's the one who works to make everyone else work together. So hey, that was nice.

As for Rita…she's a little bit of a mixed bag. First is the whitewashing issue, on which I will…choose to remain cautiously silent aside from mentioning that, yes, Rita Repulsa was originally portrayed by a Japanese woman by virtue of all her footage being dubbed over from a Japanese show, and the movie cast Elizabeth Banks as her. Make of that what you will.

She is the biggest aesthetic departure from the original, which is partly because of her retconned backstory, but frankly? I think it's probably for the best because of the aforementioned whitewashing. Maybe my standards are low, but at least she's not trying to pretend like she is Machiko Soga at all. If you get my drift. And if you don't: I mean Hollywood loves to pass white people as Japanese (or other Asian ethnicities).

Far from me to claim I have a final say on this issue, of course.

But as a character on her own, I actually liked her a lot. She felt threatening in a way show!Rita never really did, probably because, you know, she actually does things instead of staying cozy on the moon and sending monsters to do her work. They established her powers more clearly, which is good, because rules means we know what she can do and we can feel the threat she poses, instead of having her pull random shit at us.

And yet, in spite of having a more threatening villain (including her underlings) and higher stakes (i.e. world annihilation, more or less), the movie manages to retain its light tone I previously mentioned. Which is…hit or miss (the very first present-day scene includes a particularly tasteless joke, if you ask me), but it's still less cringey than the original show, while keeping with its spirit.

So overall, I'd say the Power Rangers movie is a pretty successful adaptation. If we must keep readapting everything in the name of nostalgia, I hope we get more work like this. I wouldn't be too optimistic about it, though.

#power rangers #power rangers 2017 #movie #movies #review #reviews #movie review #movie reviews #st: movie reviews

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