Dear Gods on your foggy mountain,
One evening in 2006, two of my friends, the mind-fuck ex, and I were sitting in the MFE's dorm room. All of us, as I recall, were stressed, angry about various things in our pasts that we each remembered and told one another.
"I'm pissed off now," Jenn remarked, gulping down the last of her Bacardi Raz bitch beer.
"Me too," I replied. "I just wish I could break something. I fucking love the sound of glass shattering."
Everybody was quiet for a moment, and the air in the room was so tense it was practically crackling. It wasn't awkward tension. It was more like pensive tension, the tension when the sky is cloudy just before the thunder and lightning.
"Let's do it," Gia (the MFE) said, sitting up from her reclined position on the floor.
"No way. Are you serious?" I said, disbelieving.
"I'm for it," said Shar, and Jenn agreed non-commitally. Everybody looked at me, waiting for my response.
"I'd love to," I said.
We gathered up all the glass bottles in Gia's room, stuffing them in a backpack, and walked down the spiral staircase into the dark. It was relatively warm out that evening. And, as I recall, the creepers at the base of the Victorian-type turrets were green. I think it must have been springtime. We made sure that nobody was around, and then fucking lobbed the bottles as hard as we could against the brick wall that supported the porch at the base of the turret. My throw was weak and girly, and I so envied the baseball-pitches my friends were making.
Despite my weak arm, I thoroughly enjoyed the ritualistic destruction of the bottles. It was such a release. And I never even thought about the poor groundskeeper who'd have to clean it up. I don't think many 18 year-olds are that conscientious. I certainly wasn't.
I wish I could do it again. But now, I'm too old, too accountable, too responsible to even seriously consider it. Now, I'd be the person to clean it up. I'd also have to think of an explanation for the noise to deliver to Mo's family, with whom I cohabitate. My life has lost so much of that innocent unaccountability, that spontaneous rashness I once had. Sometimes I'm sad for it, ache for it. Sometimes I wish that I could go out and do something completely ridiculous without chastising myself the next day, the next hour, during the act itself. And while some might call the loss of impulsivness "maturity," I can't help but think that it more resembles old age. I'm only 22 years old; aren't I too young to be so reserved? Shouldn't I be going out and raising hell every once in a while?
I used to have this ability to walk into a room and instantly tear it up, like a tornado. Now I'm a fucking food-colored whirlpool in a coke bottle. I used to be gorgeous and sexy, play at temptress. Now I'm just an overeducated nerd with a nail-biting problem. Okay, I had the nail-biting problem when I was channeling Aphrodite, too, but that's beside the point. The point is: Where did my devilish 'tude get to? Where did my "fuck all to you stupid girls who think I'm competition" go? I've lost that "sexual aura" some of my friends have told me I have. I want it back, damn it. I want to wear high heels and strut. I want to wear a tight black skirt and lots of makeup. I want to be the unattainable again. But I have no idea how to get there, especially when midterms are looming. And would getting back my sexual aura mean sacrificing something important? Have I made trades in my life? Does everybody make trades? If so, this barter-system sucks.
Hope all is well on Mt. Olympus (and that Aphrodite doesn't chuck an apple at me),
Sophia
I was the 18 year old that was too conscientious. I remember at 13 when a couple girls I knew went through and toilet papered my neighborhood. I ran out and cleaned it off of my neighbors (and my uncle across the street) before anyone saw it the next day. I've always had an enormous guilty conscience, even if it wasn't my doing.
ReplyDeleteThere are lots of sacrifices in life. We just have to decide which ones are worth it as we go along.