But Wait...

My mother met my father in the early seventies, or maybe it was the late sixties. They lived around the corner from one another and neither had another serious relationship. My mother and I look very similar, save a few distinguishing features, mainly my hair. We have similar personalities and nuerotic tendancies that I notice with regret all the more I get older. But my mother was very lucky, she didn't have to go through the same experience I'm both proud and slightly ashamed of.

There are things in my life I am always going to gloat over and regret at the same time. When I think about my strange dating life, all the important sounding men that have walked in and out of it through the years, part of me can't help but have a sick sense of pride. I wear my conquests like a purple heart, all the terrible situations I've jumped in and out of, out of fear, out of desparation, and frankly, even out of bordom. There is a part of me that is very malnurished; for a long time I feared everything would constantly fall to pieces. The bottom always fell out, no matter how hard I tried to keep everything together. There are parts of me I worry I'm never going to recover. And when I look at my mother, all the things she'd tell me through those times, I didn't know how to listen, and she's partly responsible for that, I think. I can;t help but be what she and the world around me helped to create, the spoiled only daughter of a people who didn't quite know what to make of me and gave into my misgivings perhaps for lack of anything else to do. The freedom I've had since a young age had left me to develop most of what I know and think on my own; she didn;t worry about me like she did her other children because she thought I was smart enough to do it on my own. But Ma, you left me out. Ma, you let me think things that weren't true, Ma, you let me believe in a world that didn't exist because I couldn't face reality, that I scared you more than you knew how to handle. Ma, I don't know what to do now.

When I was younger, I decided I wanted to be a trophy-wife. I wanted to walk down Fifth Avenue with my McClaren and Tiffany eternity ring, giving my nanny a day off and showing off my Burberry coat. I equated this with something I didn't understand until recently, and like all things I want, I went after it whole-heartedly. And I'm sorry for all of the men I used, all of the times I didn't feel anything, all of the meaningless words, the numb embraces, the pained smiles. I was so traumatized by the shock of losing everything so young in such a horrible way, too young to understand, that all I wanted was to forget it all. I say he died at the perfect time; I was leaving forever. I was separating myself from everything and everyone I knew. And you let me go, Ma. You helped. Did it bother you ever? Did you watch me slip away? Did you worry what I might be doing to my next few years? Did you hope things would be different? There are so many things I never asked you then, and I won't ask you now. I think you needed to get away from me just as much as I did you. I understand. But I wish you were there. I wish we had gotten along. I wish we were close then, when I needed you, so that things may have been easier now. I know what I wanted then and it's everything I'd like but can't seem to do now. I want to be adored. I want to be molly-cuddled, I want someone to tell me everything is going to be ok, that nothing is going to happen to change who I am or what I'll be. I need this more than you know, perhaps more than I do. And I want to feel. I want to feel all of these things I've denied myself through these years of being a corporate courtesan, I want to be obsessed, I want to be infatuated, I want to go in deep. I don;t know how to nurture, I don't know how to be a part of a relationship because I've spent so much time being ok with endlessly being left alone. I'm ok being alone, I'm very strong, and it's something I'm perhaps too proud of. I want to be held by the hand, I want my back patted, I want to be able to cry again. I'm tired of being happy for everyone else. I'm tired of solving everyone else's problems. I want to be listened to. I want to feel its ok for me to break. I want to feel alright with being vulnerable, sensitive. I don't know how to do this. I'm trying as hard as I can. I don't want to mess this up, but I can't help being who I am.

Please don't go. Please see I'm doing all I can. Please don't go. I want so much to belong to someone, to belong to something. To feel distinguished, to stop worrying the end will come undone and everything will fall apart again. I want to stop expecting that, to stop silently waiting for disaster. I want it so much, I don't think any of you know how much it upsets me to think maybe I won't ever get it. I hate all of you sometimes, you blood-sucking leeches, you take all you can from me and never ask what it's worth. I want to break-out of everything sometimes, I want to leave you all behind and find myself somewhere where there is no such responsibility.

But I'm trying this. This is new, please don't hold me back now. Maybe this can be something beautiful, maybe I can do it better. Maybe like he once said, everything does happen for a reason, and I'm going to be saved. He's perfect, untouched and pure like something I've never hoped to own in my own jaded paradise. You're all angry with me for taking him in, you can stay angry, I don't care, but at least see it. See how pretty it is to have wanted something you didn't know you kept locked away for years. See what it is like to feel again, to feel sorry for yelling, to realize how silly you've been and to wake up from a most elaborate and empty dream to a new and full reality. Maybe I want too much, I let my imagination run away with me, I'm too easily influenced and don't understand what I'm saying. Maybe it's just semi-permanent, a flash of static from the brush in the dark, something singularly beautiful in its alternation, in its swift came-and-go. Maybe I do belong in the Fifth Avenue world of eternity bands and Burberry coats; the cold sounds of his shoes as they hit the expensive tiles, being left for Shanghai once more. But I hope not. I'm crossing my fingers and walking silently. I went into this trying to change what I saw only to be changed. And part of me is sad now, because I have changed. I see all the time I wasted, all the things that might have been, my self-destructive behaviors. I told him he was perfect, and I meant it, I'm not sure if he heard. I can be sweet and unscathed, can't I? Am I wrong to hope for more? Even selfishly, I need this. I was so sad... And I know I'm nagging and I worry over it.

But I'm going to smile about it. I won't worry anymore. I did need this, this is my reason for everything that happened to me. This is what I've been waiting to happen, the Earth-jolting movement, the magic I sowed and has now come to bloom. I can do this, really I can. You watch me fly.

I just keep telling myself, this is mine. This is mine. This is all mine.

Squinting both eyes at the sun and crossing eight fingers beneath my coat. Twirl me around as long as you will, you're perfect, forever beautiful like you always were. You can ahve me as long as you want to, I'll be happy to comply. Keep going, keep dancing around me the way you do, keep speaking. I'm listening. I'm standing still.

Miss Behaving.

So at last the wildnerness years have ended and am proper girlfriend and all and have lessened occurence of morbid fantasies of dying alone. (The one with 78 cats to inherit my millions, saved up from all the Social Security earned from my 457 years of existence, onyl a few gay men and fabulously dressed women to attened my funeral, where "Eleanor Rigby" is played as I roll on down the isle...) Now I take my attention to figuring out how inspicuous I can make my secret bitchiness. Am trying my hardest to tone down my most singular of critical qualities and being nice. I'm smiling as hard as I can and pretending to enjoy sports or at least to understand them. Pepsi cousin is properly miserable.

But I am in a state of bliss.