28 November 2001
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I had an entry topic all planned out, but then I checked my email and heard some news from Kimi. Levi got married. To the girl - the one he had "to take a chance" with - Heather. It's weird to say, but my heart hurts at the news. And reading what I wrote then, I want to cry a little. Not because I'm necessarily sad, but just, it's cry worthy, I think. I was so mixed-up then, not knowing what I wanted, what I needed. I think I know now, and I'm certainly happier than I've ever been - lonely sometimes, but happy always. But then, those days? I can really only explain them to you in colors, and even then, not very well. One minute I was red - on fire, passionate, alive, hot - the way you feel when your blood is just below the surface and the Earth seems to tilt at your whim. Red, red, red - so much red. Then, sharply, blue - cold, alone - and then black. The black parts are hardest to remember. My fingers feel cold when I try. I was so crazy then, running around trying to fill something, find something. Just love like crazy. There was a lot of laughter and hugs and morning-afters spent commiserating with my partners-in-crime. We girls who were often called "Trouble." The nights and the mornings, always in juxtoposition. The black on the red. I broke some hearts, surely not as many as in turned cracked mine a little, and I turned my cheek on all of that, continuously searching for the red, just to protect myself. I wouldn't have said so then. I would've told you that I was just having fun and that I loved being single and young and free, which I did. I would've told you to fuck off - that women can have physical relationships just like men. That it doesn't mean anything - that it's just how things are done in college. It's how we operate. To some extent, perhaps that's true. But those times? Those stories? They're the ones full of red on black. In some way I'm glad to have those days, which is why I both loved and hated myself. You know I was super skinny then because for about six weeks I barely ate, right? It wasn't a conscious thing, like - if I don't eat, I'll get skinny. It wasn't intentional. I was interning in D.C., living in a dorm without any sort of meal service or little fridge or anything. So I'd just grab an apple, sometimes a muffin, rarely both, at Fresh Fields before hopping on the Metro to go to the Hill, and then I'd eat lunch and that would be it. Every night I'd come home and run down the hill in Tenleytown and then walk back up. By the time I came back to Ohio, around my 21st birthday, I was the thinnest I'd ever been as a woman, and certainly since. Suddenly I felt full of power. But that kind of power is dark, and my memories of it are hidden in white dusty shadows. Doors opened up around me. I was uber-desirable. That was the summer I met Levi. That story, of course, has been written. It wasn't until he told me that he didn't want me that I realized I truly wanted him. He wasn't my "type." He wasn't what I envisioned for myself. Sure, I wanted him to take me places and give me fraternity party favors and drive me around in his Jeep, and I certainly wanted him to love me, but I wasn't even ABOUT to give him that back. So well, duh, it's no wonder he made the choice he made. And I was so ugly about it, I was. Through choking sobs I asked him why he would choose a scratch-off Lotto ticket when he could have the Powerball. I actually said that. I think more than once. And he just sighed and apologized and stayed on the phone while I cried it all out. And then it was done and I'd lost my friend and little did I know that he'd chosen his wife.
The notify and I are exchanging Christmas cards! If you're not on the list, and you'd still like to participate, send me your address and I'll email you my mail drop. Mail is fun. But only when it's anthrax free.
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