For some reason, the closer I get to where I am right now, the harder it is to write about all of this. Huh.
Anyway.
The last few years of the millennium found me doing a lot of changing around (I suppose that’s what a lot of people were doing for the last few years of the millennium). My relationship with my dad just kept getting worse. He set me up in an apartment in midtown (ATL, yo) to get me out of the house and his business, and the way he got me to go along with it was by fixing it so I could go to school.
I went to art school for a quarter – it was awesome! I had never felt so normal anywhere in my entire life. It was a beautiful experience realizing that I was an artist. What kind of artist, I had not figured out yet, but I was definitely an artist. I was very good at all of my classes and with all of my assignments, but I’ve never been one for managing my own life very successfully.
I ended up only going for one quarter. There were a lot of reasons, but a big one was that I couldn’t handle living on my own with Wes and having the rigorous schedule and work load of full time art classes – having all art classes meant I was up all night a few times a week working on projects. Even after all of that, I still didn’t get a lot of them turned in on time, and did not get very good grades. I did get a lot of encouragement from my teachers, though, and that meant a lot.
The first part of that year living in midtown was magical. I was going to school, and had just begun to date Jonny. The rest of the time I spent in that apartment was really, really difficult, but the first couple of months were, like I said, magical.
It was one of those times in my life – maybe even the first time in my life – I felt like I was on my way to greatness. By “greatness,” I mean that I was no longer striving for a career in cashiering or office assisting. I had my first taste of hope and faith in my own capabilities. I didn’t rely on it much, but at least it was there.
Being with Jonny was very magical, too, and no matter how cheesy that sounds, there just isn’t another word to describe it. We had known each other for a long time, had already been friends for years, which at 20 felt like forever. I had always really, really liked him. He made me laugh and feel very good about who I was. Oh yeah – he was also deliciously beautiful.
When Jonny and I got together, I was scared about the future of a relationship for the first time in my life. Previous relationships had been – well, not thought out. Up until then, I had no concern for how the things I did with other people might negatively affect me or them, or anyone else.
After Wes was born, I considered how my actions could affect him, but that pretty much just meant keeping him isolated from the parts of my life that were harmful to me. At that time, the harmful things mainly concerned grasping at whatever remaining shreds of a relationship there might have been with my dad, and also reviving my career as a big slut.
But then there was Jonny. And Jonny and I had a past. I cared very much about what might happen to our relationship in the future. What if we ended up not being together? It was scary. I mean, it was JONNY.
I don’t know how to really describe it in any other way except to say that there were guys, and then there was JONNY. If you can get what I mean by that, then good. If not, the world is probably not going to crumble because of it.
Anyway, Valentine’s Day was about four or five months after we had started dating. I had the best idea for a gift, and went out and got it, and when Jonny came over and I showed it to him, he was like, “oh” in kind of a squeaky voice that got higher throughout the length of the one syllable.
I have to admit, I was a little scared. When I went out and got the present, I was all gung-ho and excited about it. I had planned to do it for more than a few hours, and even for more than a few days, which was a lot of planning for me, but it didn’t occur to me until after I got it and I was on my way home that the present could be seen as a bit…psycho.
I got his name tattooed on my arm. For realsies. Not even on my ass or anywhere that it could be hidden easily. My arm.
Jonny was pretty overwhelmed, but he nodded yes when I asked him if he liked it, and if it was ok. What else was he going to say? I wanted to tell everybody and he wanted no one to find out. I thought it was because he was embarrassed to have me as a girlfriend, but in retrospect, it was probably more because he didn’t want everyone thinking I was a, you know, psycho.
As fucked up as it seems now, at the time I got those letters permanently imprinted on my flesh, I had no doubts. It seriously had not occurred to me that it might be a bad idea to get my boyfriend’s name tattooed on my body, and especially not only five months after we started dating.
I mean, NOW I would say a pretty good rule of thumb would be to not EVER get ANYONE’S name tattooed on your body. My ex-husband brought it up once when we were still together, and I just laughed – and I was married to him – and we had a kid. So why would it all of a sudden feel like a fantastic, perfect idea to get my boyfriend-of-five months’ name tattooed on me?
Looking back, there are an endless number of ways I could psychoanalyze that situation and come up with a different explanation each time. However, I won’t. I’ll just say what it was.
This is what it was: imagine scrambling frantically your whole life for a key that fits in your lock (you just take these metaphors any way you want – but I’m serious here). You have found a lot of keys (A LOT) and some of them fit in the lock better than others, and some of them have to be forced a little harder into the lock than others. And all of them hurt terribly when they are wrenched back out.
Then imagine you find a key that is not a perfect fit, but for once in your life you realize that maybe there is no perfect fit, and maybe having a key that doesn’t quite even get all the way into the lock, let alone turn it, might just be what its supposed to be. You can’t really change your own lock, and the key can’t really change to fit you better, either.
But you can jiggle it around a lot and accept that this is the way it is supposed to be, that nothing is perfect, and that the idea of life-partners and soul mates is merely a socially constructed whimsy. Its just really tough to find the perfect key out of all of those keys, and there may not even be a perfect one at all.
That was how it was with my ex-husband. I will expound no further on the topic of my first marriage.
And then Jonny. JONNY. There was little, if any, effort at all. The key slid without a single snag perfectly into the lock – just like on cartoons, like butter. And then it just as seamlessly turned. And that was it.
It doesn’t take a genius to know that when the right key fits, it’s the key that’s supposed to be there. Duh. Figuring out how difficult it is to actually unlock the lock and see what’s in there is a whole different story that can be revisited when you’ve been married for six or seven years. Or maybe ten.
But that’s how it was with Jonny. He’s just supposed to be with me, and I am just supposed to be with him. No matter how difficult things get (and things can get REALLY difficult), nothing can change the fact that that key fits that lock. There’s no analyzing or philosophizing about WHY the key fits or if the key will get rusty or the lock will someday question its very existence – all of that is irrelevant. The key fits in the lock – click, that’s it.
A simple fact, really.
Wow. I didn’t mean to get so lovey-dovey, but I have to say – it is pretty nice to be with the person I am supposed to be with. (Insert swoon).
Also, DO NOT get anyone’s name tattooed on your body EVER!!! It’s just a good rule to live by.
Anyway.
The last few years of the millennium found me doing a lot of changing around (I suppose that’s what a lot of people were doing for the last few years of the millennium). My relationship with my dad just kept getting worse. He set me up in an apartment in midtown (ATL, yo) to get me out of the house and his business, and the way he got me to go along with it was by fixing it so I could go to school.
I went to art school for a quarter – it was awesome! I had never felt so normal anywhere in my entire life. It was a beautiful experience realizing that I was an artist. What kind of artist, I had not figured out yet, but I was definitely an artist. I was very good at all of my classes and with all of my assignments, but I’ve never been one for managing my own life very successfully.
I ended up only going for one quarter. There were a lot of reasons, but a big one was that I couldn’t handle living on my own with Wes and having the rigorous schedule and work load of full time art classes – having all art classes meant I was up all night a few times a week working on projects. Even after all of that, I still didn’t get a lot of them turned in on time, and did not get very good grades. I did get a lot of encouragement from my teachers, though, and that meant a lot.
The first part of that year living in midtown was magical. I was going to school, and had just begun to date Jonny. The rest of the time I spent in that apartment was really, really difficult, but the first couple of months were, like I said, magical.
It was one of those times in my life – maybe even the first time in my life – I felt like I was on my way to greatness. By “greatness,” I mean that I was no longer striving for a career in cashiering or office assisting. I had my first taste of hope and faith in my own capabilities. I didn’t rely on it much, but at least it was there.
Being with Jonny was very magical, too, and no matter how cheesy that sounds, there just isn’t another word to describe it. We had known each other for a long time, had already been friends for years, which at 20 felt like forever. I had always really, really liked him. He made me laugh and feel very good about who I was. Oh yeah – he was also deliciously beautiful.
When Jonny and I got together, I was scared about the future of a relationship for the first time in my life. Previous relationships had been – well, not thought out. Up until then, I had no concern for how the things I did with other people might negatively affect me or them, or anyone else.
After Wes was born, I considered how my actions could affect him, but that pretty much just meant keeping him isolated from the parts of my life that were harmful to me. At that time, the harmful things mainly concerned grasping at whatever remaining shreds of a relationship there might have been with my dad, and also reviving my career as a big slut.
But then there was Jonny. And Jonny and I had a past. I cared very much about what might happen to our relationship in the future. What if we ended up not being together? It was scary. I mean, it was JONNY.
I don’t know how to really describe it in any other way except to say that there were guys, and then there was JONNY. If you can get what I mean by that, then good. If not, the world is probably not going to crumble because of it.
Anyway, Valentine’s Day was about four or five months after we had started dating. I had the best idea for a gift, and went out and got it, and when Jonny came over and I showed it to him, he was like, “oh” in kind of a squeaky voice that got higher throughout the length of the one syllable.
I have to admit, I was a little scared. When I went out and got the present, I was all gung-ho and excited about it. I had planned to do it for more than a few hours, and even for more than a few days, which was a lot of planning for me, but it didn’t occur to me until after I got it and I was on my way home that the present could be seen as a bit…psycho.
I got his name tattooed on my arm. For realsies. Not even on my ass or anywhere that it could be hidden easily. My arm.
Jonny was pretty overwhelmed, but he nodded yes when I asked him if he liked it, and if it was ok. What else was he going to say? I wanted to tell everybody and he wanted no one to find out. I thought it was because he was embarrassed to have me as a girlfriend, but in retrospect, it was probably more because he didn’t want everyone thinking I was a, you know, psycho.
As fucked up as it seems now, at the time I got those letters permanently imprinted on my flesh, I had no doubts. It seriously had not occurred to me that it might be a bad idea to get my boyfriend’s name tattooed on my body, and especially not only five months after we started dating.
I mean, NOW I would say a pretty good rule of thumb would be to not EVER get ANYONE’S name tattooed on your body. My ex-husband brought it up once when we were still together, and I just laughed – and I was married to him – and we had a kid. So why would it all of a sudden feel like a fantastic, perfect idea to get my boyfriend-of-five months’ name tattooed on me?
Looking back, there are an endless number of ways I could psychoanalyze that situation and come up with a different explanation each time. However, I won’t. I’ll just say what it was.
This is what it was: imagine scrambling frantically your whole life for a key that fits in your lock (you just take these metaphors any way you want – but I’m serious here). You have found a lot of keys (A LOT) and some of them fit in the lock better than others, and some of them have to be forced a little harder into the lock than others. And all of them hurt terribly when they are wrenched back out.
Then imagine you find a key that is not a perfect fit, but for once in your life you realize that maybe there is no perfect fit, and maybe having a key that doesn’t quite even get all the way into the lock, let alone turn it, might just be what its supposed to be. You can’t really change your own lock, and the key can’t really change to fit you better, either.
But you can jiggle it around a lot and accept that this is the way it is supposed to be, that nothing is perfect, and that the idea of life-partners and soul mates is merely a socially constructed whimsy. Its just really tough to find the perfect key out of all of those keys, and there may not even be a perfect one at all.
That was how it was with my ex-husband. I will expound no further on the topic of my first marriage.
And then Jonny. JONNY. There was little, if any, effort at all. The key slid without a single snag perfectly into the lock – just like on cartoons, like butter. And then it just as seamlessly turned. And that was it.
It doesn’t take a genius to know that when the right key fits, it’s the key that’s supposed to be there. Duh. Figuring out how difficult it is to actually unlock the lock and see what’s in there is a whole different story that can be revisited when you’ve been married for six or seven years. Or maybe ten.
But that’s how it was with Jonny. He’s just supposed to be with me, and I am just supposed to be with him. No matter how difficult things get (and things can get REALLY difficult), nothing can change the fact that that key fits that lock. There’s no analyzing or philosophizing about WHY the key fits or if the key will get rusty or the lock will someday question its very existence – all of that is irrelevant. The key fits in the lock – click, that’s it.
A simple fact, really.
Wow. I didn’t mean to get so lovey-dovey, but I have to say – it is pretty nice to be with the person I am supposed to be with. (Insert swoon).
Also, DO NOT get anyone’s name tattooed on your body EVER!!! It’s just a good rule to live by.
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