Not Upside Down, Just Sideways
Jun. 26th, 2008 01:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
exhilarationI luuuurrrrve my font porch. It's like, my favorite place in the house these days. I don't have air conditioning and I don't have a television and so often when I'm home with nothing to do sitting on the porch with the laptop and a beer is just the most awesome option there is. And I always choose most awesome over least awesome.
So that bit I wrote an hour ago or so. Then SOME STUFF HAPPENED. As follows:
So Erica comes over (uninvited. She said she called but my phone was inside and I did not go in to pick it up cause IM STATIONARY today. Yep. Porch only. That'd be me) and she is like, um, yeah, so, what happened to, "I am too self conscious to wear shorts," hm?
Cause I've got my feet up on the porch railing, lol. I'm really not a feet-on-the-furniture kind of girl, I swear I'm not, but there was a breeze, I was hot, and I wanted my feet up, and I kinda liked sitting like that with the laptop tilted in my lap. Also, my toenails are a beautiful shade of iridescent green, like a radioactive fungus or something, lol (no seriously it is a cute color. It doesn't look like fungus for real. More like ninja-turtles-secret-of-the-ooze green.) And I've got no hair on my legs.
When I said I did not feel like showing off my legs I wasn't just being stupid. Not only are they pale as shit and disturbingly skinny, they were also HAIRY and even if the hair on my head is platinum, peeps, the carpets don't match the drapes. My leg hair is DARK and there was LOTS OF IT. I tried that new Veet spray stuff. It's mildly acceptable I suppose.
Anyway, I was like, "whatever, I told you once it got hot enough I would cave eventually." Just like I do every year :P And so then of course she launched into "next Thursday we should go to the beach" (of course meaning her beach, not my beach, cause her beach is free and mine requires a tag...) and I just got really pissed and was like, "GIVE IT A REST ALREADY."
There is a big fucking difference between me sitting on my own porch and me going to a beach. I am sure that Erica misunderstood me when I said I was self conscious, because I kind of just mumbled it and then changed the subject right away. It's not that I don't want people looking at my legs. (As long as they're not HAIRY....) My legs are, like I said, really thin and really pale, but, my feet are sort of cute I guess, specially with green toenails and all, and I've got an AWESOME scar on my calf from an infection (the scar is not actually that awesome but the story isn't bad, I fell off the back of a motor-scooter in Europe and was like, it's cool, I am fine, I am not hurt at all, no hospitals for me - and then of course I was actually hurt and ended up in the hospital anyway with an infection... GO ME) that makes me look like a total bad-ass...
I can't walk on the sand. Not functionally. I have been on the beach (my beach) in the spring but I usually don't stray far from the little wooden walkway - just a few steps, that's pretty much it, cause that's about all I can do. Otherwise I'll probably end up tripping over myself, cause the sand moves and my feet drag and it's just... not cool. I have been thinking that probably my other crutches, the ones I don't use (cause they're bad for your shoulders... I used to be really stubborn about that, cause, honestly, I really do like those other ones better, they feel much more stable to me, but - they're not for long-term use and I should never have used them for as long as I did, especially since I was really just being stupid about it in the first place, like, oh, I'm supposed to use this kind? Fine, then I want that other kind, so there!) might be better in the sand, but that isn't even my entire issue.
I wear braces on my legs. I need them. I can't stand up without them - my legs absolutely won't support me on their own. I am not wearing them right now - pretty much cause I've got my feet up on the railing and I'm wearing shorts and hey, I even de-haired my legs and painted my toenails, and also cause I noticed this weird hard spot on the side of my knee and whenever there's anything strange on my skin I kind of get freaked out and sit around with my legs "bare" so in case any part of the brace was pressing on my skin I can give my skin a break. And it's not like I have any intentions of going anywhere this afternoon anyway. I'm chill right here.
I'm only doing this cause I'm at home. I'd never just take them off anywhere else - cause if I do I'm pretty much stuck where I am until I put them back on. So... if I were out on the beach... what, I'd get this very bizarre suntan on my legs? And yeah, I guess people would stare a little - ok, so it would look unusual, I get that, and I don't even care about that part. I'm assuming I would wear pants to the beach and have shorts on underneath and take off my pants when whoever I was with took off whatever they had on over their swimsuit. And then which ever friend I was at the beach with - I guess Erica - would see my braces, and try not to stare, and try to figure out how to ask me about them, and... that would be, like, a whole conversation. Which is not a bad thing, I guess, but come on. Is that really what I want to talk about when I'm out for a good time with my friends? The fact that really, my legs don't even work? That, haha, did I fool you? Did you think I was standing on my own all this time, nope, gotcha, it's all metal and plastic, it's all a show, didn't you know?
And maybe no conversation will take place - I hate to keep going back to this, really, I really do, but hell, Bevan has seen me totally undressed and he never asked me a thing about what was "wrong" with me. And that was weird. Cause my heart was fucking pounding with how worked up I was getting about how he was going to react. And then he didn't - openly. Yeah, yeah, I know, he was drunk, but he didn't seem any drunker than I was. We were holding coherent conversation and stuff before clothes started coming off. But that was weird too, and it bothered me.
I have been to the beach with Matt a couple times over the years and this kind of shit didn't even enter my head, go figure. I even went once with Krissy - we went in the spring so the whole wearing shorts business didn't come up but that still left the sand obstacle.
So, I'm sitting on the porch still. Erica left - she says I need to pull my head out of my ass. I said she needs to not just randomly show up at my house. I don't care that she "tried to call." I didn't pick up - since when is that the go-ahead to come on over? Still got my feet up on the railing. There are people walking back and forth on the sidewalk - I live a block from the beach, so they're all going either to or from, with beach bags and umbrellas and chairs and boards in tow. They have no idea that the chick sitting on her porch with her computer can't just jump up and run across the street if the mood so strikes her.
I would really just like to be Lara first, and "the friend with the crutches" like, fifth or sixth or last or something.
And you know what might be kinda cool? If I could get people to read my mind or something. You know, not all the time, just a little bit, just if I want them to. Cause there really isn't any way to explain to Erica, or anyone else, that "self conscious" just doesn't really cover it. Doesn't even come close.
I hate this. I fucking hate being a fucking defective person. I want to go to the beach. I like the beach - I always have, I spent a good chunk of my childhood and early teenage years here on this very beach and I loved it. I love the ocean, I love the air, I even love the sound of the seagulls and stuff. I want to run across the sand and splash along those two-inch waves at the edge and then stand still, look down and watch the waves pull out across the sand and feel suddenly that the whole beach is moving instead of just the water - I wanna dive under some waves and jump up just as the big ones break and let them throw me up in the air and even push me under and propel me twenty or fifty feet so when I finally come sputtering up for air I'm nowhere near where I thought I was and I've got sand in every place I'd rather not and I have to fix my super-cute bikini cause omg it must have become skewed somewhere in that wild ride.
I am never going to stop wanting these things. I am never going to get over it - I am never even going to get used to it. And does writing it all out like this feel like a release of some kind? No, it doesn't at all. It just feels like the same old same old everything I usually try to ignore. They make, like, these inspirational movies about people who are seriously injured and learn to live the rest of their lives with a disability - there's always a scene where they find some kind of peace with themselves and fate and the world and stuff. It doesn't fucking work like that. It's not like a door or something, it's not like, ok, now I've accepted it and dealt with it and moved on. Sometimes I'm totally fine. Sometimes I'm doing fabulous and life ain't bad, and sometimes, like right now, I'm just fucking furious and don't know what to do.
Sometimes I would like to have friends I could tell anything to. That would be so great, to actually tell someone and then actually see their reaction. We'd feel like we shared something, you know? I had friends like that. And now I don't. I don't know if I can ever have friends like that again. Sometimes when I'm talking to someone I think, yeah, maybe I can really talk to this person. But then I'm like, no, not really, probably not. Cause they're not really my friend.
One day, a while ago, I said something about myself - I said I don't care about school. I don't care about learning, I don't care about getting a degree and finding a career. Not exactly that I don't want these things, it's just that they're not important to me. Everyone my age seems fixated on this kind of thing, but I can't seem to jump on that train - there just isn't anything important enough to me to put that kind of effort in to. So what do I actually care about? What do I actually live for?
Other people. Friendships are important to me. Relationships are important to me. Before I fall asleep at night, that's the kind of stuff I think about. Not my goals for the future, not my dream job or my dream house or my dream car - I think about my friends, or people who used to be my friends, or how much I'd really like to have a friend, and I think of the fun stuff I've done, all my life experiences and the people I've shared them with.
And then I look at myself now and I can't fucking figure out when or why I thought it was such a good thing to push people away so much that now I can't seem to get close to anyone anymore, even when I want to.
I am pissed at Erica for just coming over even though I didn't pick up the phone. I am pissed that she keeps harping on us making a day of going to the beach - I stand by what I said, she needs to LEAVE IT ALONE.
I'm not pissed that she kept staring at my legs, since, you know, she could actually see them, just this one time. I don't care about that. I'm not pissed that she invites me along on all these lazy girl-days cause that's what friends do, they hang out and do fun things and if "gee, I wonder if Lara is able to so [whatever]" (like, I don't know, walk on sand) is not the first thing that enters her head, well, I shouldn't really be pissed about that either, given what I just said about wanting to be myself first and "the disabled friend" maybe fourth or something.
But I'm still pissed, and I'm still just sitting here furiously typing, because I don't really know what else to do. That time, that night I keep going back to, that night I decided to pretend like I was some kind of nymphomaniac and slept with my friend Bevan it left me totally out of sorts, I mean, I totally wasn't myself and that's not something I'd normally do to begin with, but then I also had no one to talk to cause... who do I normally talk to about stuff? Him! And I feel just like that now, who do I talk to all the time, who do I feel listens to me the most, oh, Erica! Bevan too, but I don't see him as often anymore, especially not alone. And I can't exactly talk to Erica about Erica, now can I?
So that bit I wrote an hour ago or so. Then SOME STUFF HAPPENED. As follows:
So Erica comes over (uninvited. She said she called but my phone was inside and I did not go in to pick it up cause IM STATIONARY today. Yep. Porch only. That'd be me) and she is like, um, yeah, so, what happened to, "I am too self conscious to wear shorts," hm?
Cause I've got my feet up on the porch railing, lol. I'm really not a feet-on-the-furniture kind of girl, I swear I'm not, but there was a breeze, I was hot, and I wanted my feet up, and I kinda liked sitting like that with the laptop tilted in my lap. Also, my toenails are a beautiful shade of iridescent green, like a radioactive fungus or something, lol (no seriously it is a cute color. It doesn't look like fungus for real. More like ninja-turtles-secret-of-the-ooze green.) And I've got no hair on my legs.
When I said I did not feel like showing off my legs I wasn't just being stupid. Not only are they pale as shit and disturbingly skinny, they were also HAIRY and even if the hair on my head is platinum, peeps, the carpets don't match the drapes. My leg hair is DARK and there was LOTS OF IT. I tried that new Veet spray stuff. It's mildly acceptable I suppose.
Anyway, I was like, "whatever, I told you once it got hot enough I would cave eventually." Just like I do every year :P And so then of course she launched into "next Thursday we should go to the beach" (of course meaning her beach, not my beach, cause her beach is free and mine requires a tag...) and I just got really pissed and was like, "GIVE IT A REST ALREADY."
There is a big fucking difference between me sitting on my own porch and me going to a beach. I am sure that Erica misunderstood me when I said I was self conscious, because I kind of just mumbled it and then changed the subject right away. It's not that I don't want people looking at my legs. (As long as they're not HAIRY....) My legs are, like I said, really thin and really pale, but, my feet are sort of cute I guess, specially with green toenails and all, and I've got an AWESOME scar on my calf from an infection (the scar is not actually that awesome but the story isn't bad, I fell off the back of a motor-scooter in Europe and was like, it's cool, I am fine, I am not hurt at all, no hospitals for me - and then of course I was actually hurt and ended up in the hospital anyway with an infection... GO ME) that makes me look like a total bad-ass...
I can't walk on the sand. Not functionally. I have been on the beach (my beach) in the spring but I usually don't stray far from the little wooden walkway - just a few steps, that's pretty much it, cause that's about all I can do. Otherwise I'll probably end up tripping over myself, cause the sand moves and my feet drag and it's just... not cool. I have been thinking that probably my other crutches, the ones I don't use (cause they're bad for your shoulders... I used to be really stubborn about that, cause, honestly, I really do like those other ones better, they feel much more stable to me, but - they're not for long-term use and I should never have used them for as long as I did, especially since I was really just being stupid about it in the first place, like, oh, I'm supposed to use this kind? Fine, then I want that other kind, so there!) might be better in the sand, but that isn't even my entire issue.
I wear braces on my legs. I need them. I can't stand up without them - my legs absolutely won't support me on their own. I am not wearing them right now - pretty much cause I've got my feet up on the railing and I'm wearing shorts and hey, I even de-haired my legs and painted my toenails, and also cause I noticed this weird hard spot on the side of my knee and whenever there's anything strange on my skin I kind of get freaked out and sit around with my legs "bare" so in case any part of the brace was pressing on my skin I can give my skin a break. And it's not like I have any intentions of going anywhere this afternoon anyway. I'm chill right here.
I'm only doing this cause I'm at home. I'd never just take them off anywhere else - cause if I do I'm pretty much stuck where I am until I put them back on. So... if I were out on the beach... what, I'd get this very bizarre suntan on my legs? And yeah, I guess people would stare a little - ok, so it would look unusual, I get that, and I don't even care about that part. I'm assuming I would wear pants to the beach and have shorts on underneath and take off my pants when whoever I was with took off whatever they had on over their swimsuit. And then which ever friend I was at the beach with - I guess Erica - would see my braces, and try not to stare, and try to figure out how to ask me about them, and... that would be, like, a whole conversation. Which is not a bad thing, I guess, but come on. Is that really what I want to talk about when I'm out for a good time with my friends? The fact that really, my legs don't even work? That, haha, did I fool you? Did you think I was standing on my own all this time, nope, gotcha, it's all metal and plastic, it's all a show, didn't you know?
And maybe no conversation will take place - I hate to keep going back to this, really, I really do, but hell, Bevan has seen me totally undressed and he never asked me a thing about what was "wrong" with me. And that was weird. Cause my heart was fucking pounding with how worked up I was getting about how he was going to react. And then he didn't - openly. Yeah, yeah, I know, he was drunk, but he didn't seem any drunker than I was. We were holding coherent conversation and stuff before clothes started coming off. But that was weird too, and it bothered me.
I have been to the beach with Matt a couple times over the years and this kind of shit didn't even enter my head, go figure. I even went once with Krissy - we went in the spring so the whole wearing shorts business didn't come up but that still left the sand obstacle.
So, I'm sitting on the porch still. Erica left - she says I need to pull my head out of my ass. I said she needs to not just randomly show up at my house. I don't care that she "tried to call." I didn't pick up - since when is that the go-ahead to come on over? Still got my feet up on the railing. There are people walking back and forth on the sidewalk - I live a block from the beach, so they're all going either to or from, with beach bags and umbrellas and chairs and boards in tow. They have no idea that the chick sitting on her porch with her computer can't just jump up and run across the street if the mood so strikes her.
I would really just like to be Lara first, and "the friend with the crutches" like, fifth or sixth or last or something.
And you know what might be kinda cool? If I could get people to read my mind or something. You know, not all the time, just a little bit, just if I want them to. Cause there really isn't any way to explain to Erica, or anyone else, that "self conscious" just doesn't really cover it. Doesn't even come close.
I hate this. I fucking hate being a fucking defective person. I want to go to the beach. I like the beach - I always have, I spent a good chunk of my childhood and early teenage years here on this very beach and I loved it. I love the ocean, I love the air, I even love the sound of the seagulls and stuff. I want to run across the sand and splash along those two-inch waves at the edge and then stand still, look down and watch the waves pull out across the sand and feel suddenly that the whole beach is moving instead of just the water - I wanna dive under some waves and jump up just as the big ones break and let them throw me up in the air and even push me under and propel me twenty or fifty feet so when I finally come sputtering up for air I'm nowhere near where I thought I was and I've got sand in every place I'd rather not and I have to fix my super-cute bikini cause omg it must have become skewed somewhere in that wild ride.
I am never going to stop wanting these things. I am never going to get over it - I am never even going to get used to it. And does writing it all out like this feel like a release of some kind? No, it doesn't at all. It just feels like the same old same old everything I usually try to ignore. They make, like, these inspirational movies about people who are seriously injured and learn to live the rest of their lives with a disability - there's always a scene where they find some kind of peace with themselves and fate and the world and stuff. It doesn't fucking work like that. It's not like a door or something, it's not like, ok, now I've accepted it and dealt with it and moved on. Sometimes I'm totally fine. Sometimes I'm doing fabulous and life ain't bad, and sometimes, like right now, I'm just fucking furious and don't know what to do.
Sometimes I would like to have friends I could tell anything to. That would be so great, to actually tell someone and then actually see their reaction. We'd feel like we shared something, you know? I had friends like that. And now I don't. I don't know if I can ever have friends like that again. Sometimes when I'm talking to someone I think, yeah, maybe I can really talk to this person. But then I'm like, no, not really, probably not. Cause they're not really my friend.
One day, a while ago, I said something about myself - I said I don't care about school. I don't care about learning, I don't care about getting a degree and finding a career. Not exactly that I don't want these things, it's just that they're not important to me. Everyone my age seems fixated on this kind of thing, but I can't seem to jump on that train - there just isn't anything important enough to me to put that kind of effort in to. So what do I actually care about? What do I actually live for?
Other people. Friendships are important to me. Relationships are important to me. Before I fall asleep at night, that's the kind of stuff I think about. Not my goals for the future, not my dream job or my dream house or my dream car - I think about my friends, or people who used to be my friends, or how much I'd really like to have a friend, and I think of the fun stuff I've done, all my life experiences and the people I've shared them with.
And then I look at myself now and I can't fucking figure out when or why I thought it was such a good thing to push people away so much that now I can't seem to get close to anyone anymore, even when I want to.
I am pissed at Erica for just coming over even though I didn't pick up the phone. I am pissed that she keeps harping on us making a day of going to the beach - I stand by what I said, she needs to LEAVE IT ALONE.
I'm not pissed that she kept staring at my legs, since, you know, she could actually see them, just this one time. I don't care about that. I'm not pissed that she invites me along on all these lazy girl-days cause that's what friends do, they hang out and do fun things and if "gee, I wonder if Lara is able to so [whatever]" (like, I don't know, walk on sand) is not the first thing that enters her head, well, I shouldn't really be pissed about that either, given what I just said about wanting to be myself first and "the disabled friend" maybe fourth or something.
But I'm still pissed, and I'm still just sitting here furiously typing, because I don't really know what else to do. That time, that night I keep going back to, that night I decided to pretend like I was some kind of nymphomaniac and slept with my friend Bevan it left me totally out of sorts, I mean, I totally wasn't myself and that's not something I'd normally do to begin with, but then I also had no one to talk to cause... who do I normally talk to about stuff? Him! And I feel just like that now, who do I talk to all the time, who do I feel listens to me the most, oh, Erica! Bevan too, but I don't see him as often anymore, especially not alone. And I can't exactly talk to Erica about Erica, now can I?
