Someone recently wrote a blog about how we should keep a journal. And I do. And I wanted to share one of my more recent entries. I am quite proud of my writing, and while I realize most of my subscribers won't get through this whole thing, it's fine.
Comment if you like :)
Becca and I had an immediate connection. The kind of connection that didn't require us telling our long stories.
Those come later, she says.
Honestly, Becca is just one of those people who does everything backwards and upside down. And then you realize that the world is more beautiful from that angle. Softer. Glowing. Maybe it's that wrong and backwards is actually right and frontwards. Or maybe it's just because all the blood is rushing to your head and you can't see straight anymore.
With Becca, you are who you are. No apologies, no exceptions. She brings out the most genuine in all that surrounds her. Human truth serum. I think I could create a thriving perfume business if I could just bottle her. Retire at the ripe old age of 30 with millions of dollars to spare. You see, there is something unassuming, warm, and malleable about her. She makes you more of you. Because she is all of herself.
They're best friends. And its creepy, he says. The man with either the best or worst timing in the world. He seems to find me only in my specific moments of weakness. Specific because those are my only emotional moments. And he has witnessed them all.
That first meeting, she wore green. Man, can that girl rock green. Not the kind of green that I can rock – the springtime-olive that redheads can pull off and blondes can try, but the bright green that only looks good on black girls. And Brazilians. For me, when there is a new woman admitted to a group I already know, my instincts take over. I have to sniff her out. I'm usually suspicious, consistently stereotyping, and constantly unforgiving. This is my group, I have already placed the people in it into mental pens; animals in a zoo. The dangerous stay near my forehead; if they do anything reckless, they can be easily disposed of. Pulled out from between my eyes and cast aside. The gentler towards the spine; they can be trusted to be nearer to my cerebral cortex. They would never intentionally cause harm. The few to which I am indifferent. They just exist.
They come, they leave, and I barely notice. Is that bad?
Anyway, back to the story at hand. I walked in, and I saw a new face. Correction: I saw a new back of the head. All I knew is that it was female, it was attractive, and I was having none of it. I walked in determined to place her in either the first or last categories – hopefully the last. I was hoping she would be able to be overlooked. I don't know if it was that day or the next, but it wasn't too long after that she nestled herself not anywhere in my brain, but in the random and select few that actually take up a space in my heart.
You see, scientists have done studies. Well, that's a given. But they've done studies specifically on the size of our brains and the amount of people about whom we care. According to said “scientists”, humans are capable of having significant interaction with around 150 people. We have, on average, about 12 close associates about whom we actually care. This is why we can read about genocide and feel a slight twinge of sadness, and yet, when someone we have personally met undergoes a tragedy that pales by comparison, we feel it deeply. I like to think of the former group, the 150, as the brain- friends. The ones that hold a place somewhere within my skull, sunken into grey matter, interrupting my synapses and re-routing them so that I actually care. The 12? Those are my heart friends. The ones that either find themselves unwittingly burrowed into a ventricle or atrium. Snuggled into the lining somewhere, sometimes totally isolated from the others that have found their way in, sometimes nearer to the others. My life blood flows around them, rapidly warming and comforting them in the truth and simplicity which only those 12 can see. There is nothing really unique or special, I have a heart just like anyone elses.
After everything with Stooph and the MTC, there was a gaping hole. Anna just kind of tripped and fell in. My heart was the whale shark, she was the collateral plankton. No, because she wasn't the usual or expected. She was the humuhumunukunukuapua'a. The surprise color, the color and taste and feel of substance, after so many microscopic usuals passed by.
Cami? She somehow punched and kicked and found her way in. When I picture what that looked like, it looks like this; its as if she found a hold that she could fit all the way through, until she got to her sizable chest. And then she just got stuck. And so I had to choose to let her the rest of the way in. It took some time.
Men rotate in and out. It's quite painful when they pass. It blocks the life – blood from flowing. It stops me from processing anything for a while. But then it passes. It never really changes anything. They come. They go. They float. Sometimes they almost become heart people; almost, but not quite.
Becca just kind of found her way in through my ears, and from there into my brain. Soon, she entered my bloodstream. Bit by bit. And when each little bit got to my heart, it held on. Attached itself to the soft, fleecy lining. Wrapping itself up, before I even realized what was going on. By the time I did realize? There was too much of her there to prevent it. Not that I would have. She is all too rare to push away. How is it that men are so stupid? That she isn't being swarmed by eligible, wealthy bachelors at all times? The point is, she came slowly. She came in fragments. She came as willingly and unpretentiously as I received her. Parts of her still remain in my brain, the long stories I guess. Those things we don't actually need to know about each other.
She is a wonder and a gem no matter what she has done and who she has been.
You are a beautiful writer, and a beautiful person, she tells me. Sometimes I feel like I need to apologize. For being what I am. I tried with her. She disregarded it, my apology, but not because she doesn't care. Because she sees it as superfluous and unnecessary. She understands. Quickly.
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