Midnights Become My Afternoons
If there could just be a single person that’s here who knows me, this could be so much easier. Introducing all that is me, to a person seems like a daunting task and I’m frankly too tired to want to. Giving them an abbreviated version is just another lifetime of lies and half-truths that would likely drain the little life in me.
*
“Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.”
*
Never thought talking to Jo was going to seem so strained. The physical space between us has somehow separated us so much more. I can’t hide from her, she’s quick to call me out on my bullshit. So, she’s the only one I’m completely honest with. There’s no one here making me even be honest with myself. How I didn't see that she was keeping so many feelings bottled up over the years makes it so obvious that she’s the better person and friend out of the two of us. Who knew one of the worst things to happen would open the floodgate.
*
I finally know what it is like to be one of those pinballs. You’re just bouncing between one consuming thought after another. There’s no knowing when it’s going to stop and what level of damage you’ll incur until it’s over. Eventually you’re so disoriented or damaged you plummet into a hole. The only problem is you have to keep going and life launches you right back into the world.
*
Besides Shirley being neurotic and quite bright, I never thought about what living in this time could be like for her. Her thoughts on queerness being transmissible and her compulsive rituals usually clouds a lot of my thoughts on her. There’s a Jewish family at the end of the hall that finally touched base with family overseas. They’ve lost a lot in the past few years and it made me reconsider Shirley. What sparked a single, white, Jewish woman to run off to Chicago to play baseball? The exposure alone would seemingly have terrified her. I can’t even start to imagine how her mother responded to her leaving. I should really make an effort to know her more without getting so annoyed.
*
It’s easy to see how someone like me could drop everything in life - like there was so much in my life that was planned and it was overflowing with obligations… There wasn’t a real plan if it didn’t work out and until Vivienne approached me with this job offer I still hadn’t figured out what was next. But, Maybelle had her three kids that she left back home. She packed so much into everyday. I should really write to her. She’s an amazing friend and always supportive, it’s easy to see that she’s an amazing mother. Life would have been shockingly different if my mother had a sixteenth of the love and compassion May has.
*
Carson once said she was messing this up and she wasn’t. I always mess things up, but I’ve never tried so hard to hold water in my hands. I just need to make it a couple of weeks. She’ll be here in a couple of weeks.
*
“I don’t want to walk without you, baby. Walk without my arm about you, baby. I thought the day you left me behind, I’d take a stroll and get you right off my mind. But now I find that I don’t want to walk without the sunshine.”
*
I just want to watch her stand on 5th Avenue and take it all in. Those bright eyes reflecting the lights, head craning to take in every last building, all of it. I’ll just stand back and watch, leaning against a sturdy wall no doubt.
*
Walked through the park yesterday, took a book to read. I was never someone to carry a book around before a certain person came along. Watched kids play catch instead. I suddenly forgot I’m an adult - I had been transported back to the early days of playing with Jo. Still wore a dress in those days; my mother hated me coming home with scraped knees and a dirt stained dress. But really, she didn’t like anything I did so it was totally worth it.
*
I miss going out to the bars with Jo and dancing until they closed. I don’t miss the guys who didn’t understand I just wanted to dance - ugh. They’re just so handsy. Could never keep a man if I was paid to.
*
I hope I resemble what she’s looking for. I hope I’m enough and not too much at the same time. I hope I’m worth everything she’s ready to sacrifice.
-She’s more than enough for me.
*
Jo will always be my best friend, she’s family. But watching us learn to accept others and realize having more friends of varying degrees gave us the feeling of a full life and days worth living. It’s been invaluable.
*
If I tell myself everyday that ‘I can stay. I can do this. I am reason enough to do this,’ how long will it take for me to believe it? I owe it to myself, after years of denying myself almost everything, to learn and accept these as true. It won’t be easy, but these things never are and I’ve always run before succeeding or at the fear of failing. I now know I can rely on my friends to remind me when doubt inevitably creeps back in.
*
I can be memorable outside of closed rooms and stolen glances. I can live in safety without confiding myself to the shadows. I can thrive and not just merely survive.
*
Being vulnerable is different from being weak. I can remove the armor and still be strong.
*
Perhaps I should fulfill my stereotype and get a cat.
*
I know and accept who I am. I know and refuse to accept that the world isn’t changing fast enough for my purest form of love and devotion to be openly accepted. But, just because the world is cruel doesn’t mean I should continue denying myself the possibility of loving someone and being loved in return.
*
“Sometimes my day is crammed full of people and talk and yet I have the feeling of living in utter peace and quiet. And the tree outside my windows, in the evenings, is a greater experience than all those people put together.”
*
Regardless of what she chooses our fate to be, I will always need her in my life. She’s become too significant to have her disappear. I don’t need anyone else this important disappearing from my life again.
*
I’m waiting for the hard questions to come. The ones she dare not speak in stolen moments. The ones when fear or sadness started to creep across my face. There are so many things to ask her, to know about her. I know the words will flood right out of her the moment I ask her anything. But what is the question I should hold back? What’s the question that pushes her too far? There are just so many that she could ask me that would paralyze me.
*
“Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.”
-but what if one chooses to share the dark side of their moon?
*
She notices everything about me. Captures every look, every reaction, memorizes my body and its language. So there’s no possible way that she hasn’t seen them and hasn’t felt them on my skin. Will she directly ask me what any of them are from? Can I tell her about the scars that aren’t on my heart?
*
“He hadn’t once ceased looking at Daisy and I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes. Sometimes, too, he stared around at his possessions in a dazed way, as though in her actual and astounding presence none of it was any longer real. Once he nearly toppled down a flight of stairs.”
*
The only relationship I’d ever want doesn’t easily yield me having a child of my own in my life. The mere thought of having a husband makes me ill. I’m absolutely repulsed by the thought of a man touching me like that or being inside me. Baseball will only keep these thoughts at bay for so long and keeping her will distract me enough for now. Eventually, it’s going to come up again.
*
“But nothing is so strange when one is in love (and what was this except being in love?) as the complete indifference of other people.”
*
Let’s say the League goes on for several years, look at me being optimistic. What happens if one of us stops playing? Whether it be for a longed career doing something else one of us loved, no longer finding the same happiness in it, or an injury made it impossible to play at the level we’re at now - what then? Knew I’d recognize myself when the optimism faded.
*
Acting always seemed like something I wanted to do and hell I’ve done it in life so long it’s easy to see why. But is that something to just push to the side now? I’d still love to go back to California.
*
The older woman next door keeps playing the same record day in and day out. I can picture her dancing to it with her husband. She still wears a ring, but he’s been gone for several years. I heard her crying through her open window while smoking on the fire escape. I should have her over for coffee or go check in on her. I’d love to hear old love stories. I’ve told myself there’s only love stories behind the tears.
*
“Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.”
-but what if one chooses to share the dark side of their moon?
*
The man with the slicked back hair that runs the corner store keeps flirting with me when I go buy cigarettes from him. Taking a hint is apparently not in his skill set. I should pay one of the teenage boys to go buy them for me. Tommy and Petey always straighten up and talk sweetly to me when I’m leaving the building. I should ask them to go and call it mutually beneficial. Let them dream a little and give them a wink.
*
“Oh I love to climb to mountain and reach the highest peak. But it doesn’t thrill me half as much as dancing cheek to cheek.”
*
I’ve loved dancing for years and it’s one of the many reasons Jo and I went out in every city. Carson and I only had that one night and I want more. I’ll have to lead for a while until she discovers both of her feet. After that, I could dance with her every night.
*
“I walk around, heavy-hearted and sad. Night comes around, I’m still feelin’ bad. Rain pourin’ down and blindin’ every hope I had. This pitterin’, patterin’, beatin’, and spatterin’ drive me mad. Love, love, love, love.”
*
Vivienne has complimented my skills at work on several occasions and has given me additional projects to take on. She’s mentioned me traveling to teach beauty and etiquette classes. She hasn’t said when and how long it could last. That would be an amazing opportunity, but I also can’t fathom leaving here right now.