July 15–August 3, 2004 — Our little disasters

There was a span of two weeks when more happened to change the way I behave around people than had happened in the two years before. I wish I’d written about it sooner, but it was all pretty memorable, so I think I’ll be fine even now. You’ll have to let me know how I do.

I guess it started in the middle of July. I decided to see Cuff The Duke in Oshawa, and I called Jeff the day of the show to get directions. I didn’t realize it until I was on my way there, but the directions he gave me were the same as the ones Kerry had given me the first time I visited her two winters ago. I realized this at about the same moment as I realized I’d started listening to songs from the first mix tape Kerry sent me, but without consciously picking those songs for that reason.

So it was a bit eerie when Kerry was at the show even though she’s living in Winnipeg for the summer. (Though you probably saw this coming; why would I go through that last paragraph if we weren’t going to end up here, after all.)

I guess I should probably sneak something in here about having promised a long time ago not to write about Kerry anymore because I’ve said too many things already, most of them meant to be hurtful and none of them what she deserved. In the two-year span between the last time I spoke with her and the night I’m describing now, I saw her twice: Once we mouthed hello to each other, and once we pretended not to see each other. And that’s about all the context there is; I hadn’t spoken to her in more than two years, since the morning I left her in Guelph when everything was still fine, the morning I still go back to every now and then.

I’m not sure when I decided I had to talk to her. I’m not sure why the same decision had seemed impossible the other times we were in the same room. I wonder if it had something to do with E        , with realizing that there are worse things a person can do than what Kerry did, and that the way I’d behaved since was more vicious and malevolent than anything Kerry had ever done.

When I said hello, my heart started to ache a bit. Or maybe just dropped. I wouldn’t have been able to convince myself to talk to her if I’d known how much power she still had over me. Eventually she asked if me approaching her meant we were making peace with one another. I forget what I said. I knew she’d tried to make peace with me a long time ago; I knew it was me who’d made that impossible.

The show was still happening, but I lost track of it. I hugged her and told her about the songs on her mix tape that I still liked and listened to. I was on the verge of collapse.

When she left, I stood alone for a few minutes. Eventually I went outside to lie in the van and to wait for the equipment to be loaded into the trailer so I could go home.

When I woke up the next day, it was easier to get out of bed than it had been in a long time.

I’m sure all of the reasons are more complicated than I’m making them out to be; it wasn’t just because of E         that I was able to talk to Kerry again, and it wasn’t just because of how I felt after talking to Kerry that this next bit happened. But I still think it might have been part of it.

Starting the next day, though, I wanted to talk to people again. When I ran into a group of people I knew or sort of knew on my way home two nights later, I walked with them for a while. I ended up on the roof of a house at a party where none of us seemed to know any of the people who owned the house, but somehow that was okay. I looked down into the backyard three stories below us and thought about whether I’d’ve ended up on that roof a week ago if I’d run into the same people under the same circumstances.

After I’d finished entertaining myself by throwing roofing nails into the backyard, I talked to R         for the first time in more than hellos and goodbyes. Even that surprised me — I’m not very good at more than hellos and goodbyes.

A few days later, we’d arranged to meet up during the week. We walked through a ravine, got caught in the rain and went to my house where we ate leftovers from a strange dessert that my roommate offered us. I wasn’t used to feeling so comfortable around someone so quickly, and I wasn’t sure if I’d changed or if it was her.

We met up twice more. By then I’d heard too many variations on, “So what’s up with you and R        ?” and on the same pieces of gossip. At the end I was being told she liked me on the same day as hearing she was avoiding me, and I hated how many people seemed to be taking an interest in things not involving them. We walked through the city and I couldn’t tell if she was spending time with me to be nice or because she wanted to. I don’t think I’ll ever find out, and I think it might be better this way because so long as I don’t know for sure part of me can still pretend I didn’t embarrass myself as much as I did.

So in the end I guess not much has changed: I’m no more social than I was before because I feel embarrassed around all of the people who said one thing or another about me trying to spend time with R        , and I still blush too much and feel very awkward in groups of people.

But in theory, I’m better. I think I could do it now if I made an effort. I think it’s circumstances more than a part of my personality that’s keeping me from doing well in social situations. Or at least circumstances are more of a factor than before and my personality is less.

Or is even that too optimistic?

Within about an hour of writing those last few paragraphs (and now two weeks since I last spoke to R        ), I got an email from someone I haven’t seen or heard from in more than two months in which she said she’d heard that R         and I were an item and asked how that was going.

So in conclusion, gossip is ridiculous and I’m sick of people.

Except maybe for R        . I still think she’s pretty alright.

But I’m just about through with everyone else.

This fucks up my original conclusion which was much more positive and talked about feeling lighter and whatnot, but sometimes it’s better to let a passionate moment of frustration cap things off instead of focusing on a lasting change in how I feel about the last two years.

So yeah. Fuck people.

But I really wish I had the old ending back.