Burning...?

15 years. That's how long I had that shoebox for. I brought it home last night from my parent's house. I kept it taped up and in their closet for 2 reasons: one being, so I wouldn't be tempted to open it and two, in case of a fire at my house. Of course there could've been a fire at their house too. Written on the box was "stuff for when I get married." The only thing that I knew was in there for sure were letters I wrote more than 15 years ago to "my future husband." But I figured it would still translate over to the opposite gender, when that time came. But it was the night of my 36th birthday and I was like fuck it I'm done. I wanted to open it and see what was in there and be done with it all. I was pretty sure none of it was relevant anymore. I don't see myself ever getting married. Most definitely not to a dude (thank God), but I don't see myself ever connecting with a woman in a way that leads to that kind of a commitment. Maybe it's just not for me. Maybe I'm just meant to write about it endlessly but never to experience it. I was reminded recently of a book written by a guy who wrote of his experiences as a drug addict. He was even on Oprah back in the day. But then after it became a hit and everything, we all discovered it was a lie. He hadn't experienced it and the world called him a fraud. The book was A Million Little Pieces. I think I meant to read it only because the cover looked so cool with all those tiny sprinkles on a hand. I haven't researched why he did it but if he wanted people to take the book seriously and see it as truth and not fiction, I guess I can understand that. I mean I guess he didn't think it would sell if he wrote it but said "I've never actually been a drug addict." No one would've taken it seriously. I heard it sounds very realistic. If I ever sold one of my lesbian stories I wonder if I would have to lie and say "Oh yeah I've been with a girl before. I've had girlfriends." I write as if I have. I write as if I know what I'm talking about. Maybe no one would read it if they thought I was a liar. But my stories are fiction and I've never said otherwise. I mean they have science fiction in them so clearly they are not non-fiction or biographies.
But that tangent aside, I videoed myself opening the box for my reaction. I immediately saw the first letter I wrote back in April of 1998. I was a Junior in High School and I had just watched the movie Dirty Dancing and I wanted someone to dance with me like Johnny danced with Baby. Ironically later when I discovered I was gay and that I particularly had a pension for naturally curly haired girls, I thought back on that movie and how I was always watching Baby. Like in those close-up dance montages where they show her in like a sports bra and tights and you see her stomach. Or when she's on the floor crawling up towards Johnny. I don't remember ever paying attention to him and what he was doing... the things you realize a million years later. But anyway. I wrote "when I get married, I want to dance with you like they did on that movie. It's one of my favorite movies." That line still holds true today. Except I want to dance with my "Baby" and not a "Johnny." The other letters were from college. All in 2000 and 2002. There weren't as many as I thought. I have written more since then but they are in a different, not taped box. I discovered the common denominator in all of them- GOD. I was raised on church 3 times a week and True Love Waits campaigns and all Christian rock music even though also ironically, my favorite artist was Jennifer Knapp. And she ended up realizing she was gay after some many years out on tour and retreated to Australia after the Christian music scene shunned her. But thank God she's back and she's been to Dallas 3 times in as many years, so it's pretty sweet to see her again. I even got to meet her in person.
In all these letter I wrote, I talked about all this bullshit I was fed in those formative teen years. I thought about how I wrote about keeping Christ at the center of our marriage and remaining pure to our wedding night and I was 18 and prayed that God would give me someone soon because even then all my close friends had boyfriends in our Freshman year of college and they all ended up marrying them. And I also wrote things like "if God chooses me to have you." I rolled my eyes at least 15 times in reading those letters. All that belief. All that trust. All that devotion and dedication to Him and for what? What a waste. I'm sure God appreciates it but he's gonna do what he's gonna do. You have no say in it. Or you do, if you don't believe in him. But things still happen to you even if you don't believe it's any one entity allowing it or causing it or whatever. I was glad I burned that shit. Those letters were not me. Not the me now. I was some quiet, shy, followed the rules little perfect Christian girl. I was the one that did what I was asked to do. I was the one the choir director asked to be friends with the girl with special needs. Asking a popular girl would've made more sense because she would've been able to get her to meet everyone, but I would be polite and nice to her and popular, even in Church, doesn't necessarily mean those things. It's crazy that I believed all that I wrote. I do remember that girl, the one that wrote those letters, but just barely. She's like this meek, lanky girl I can barely picture. She's like the one the girls in the show The Handmaid's Tale pretend to be. All routinely spouting "praised be" and "blessed be the fruit." In all their meekness and quiet obedience. But who I really am are the ones the girls really are, underneath that Pilgrim's bonnet and red floor- length dress. I am the one that says "Nolite Te Bastardes Carborundorum" which loosely translated means: "Don't let the Bastards grind you down." That's the real me. The me that was under there, buried deep under politeness and shyness and Biblical theology and a desire to both be invisible and be seen. The girl who followed her friends. Mimicked their lives, because it was the only example of a life I had. I wasn't told I could be anything. I could love anyone. I could be single. I could not wear makeup. I could not look "nice" which translates to dresses. So I mimicked them and everyone I ever met in college went down the same path. And I thought, what else is there to life? Husband and kids. There can't be any other life worth living, can there? I certainly hadn't heard of it. Or been exposed to it. I met my first lesbian in Colorado at my job there. In 2005. I was 24 years old. A very sweet older lady who loves horses as much if not more than the babies we worked with. She's the exact same age as my Dad, to the day. And she kind of became my mentor for awhile there... years later... not when I actually lived there. Because I still didn't know back then. I was still focused on mimicry.

So this box had more than just letters. It was heavy, I knew that, but I didn't know why. After the letters on top there was a cacophony of heart themed and more so "Christian love themed" paraphernalia. Candles and tissue paper and stickers and note cards. And weird stuff like a VHS copy of "An officer and a gentleman." Why? I have no idea. I can't even recall ever watching that movie. I must've associated it with getting married, though. There was a lame-o book I actually remembering buying in college with my first boyfriend at the time. Because we were so sure at 19 that we'd get married. Well he was 21. The book was called "Saving your marriage before it starts." I kind of hoped the couple wasn't still married but I didn't see anything in my 30 second Google search to state otherwise. There was also a plague with that Corinthians 13 verse everyone uses at every single wedding ever. (More eye rolling ensued). And a heart shaped candy dish and a weird framed drawing of a cartoon bride. All of it went into the trash. Except for the letters. Those I burned in the shoe box. It caught fire more quickly than I thought even though duh, it was paper. But the box didn't burn and held it in nicely until I poured water on it. I burned it in my backyard night. The light of the fire and the smell of burnt paper was intoxicating and oddly cathartic. I wasn't necessarily burning away the idea of a "husband" cause I've known for years I didn't want that and when I realized I was gay it was like a sigh of relief I didn't have to have sex with a guy. As if I HAD to, because it was what everyone else I knew, did. And it was what was normal. Of course finally knowing who you are and what you truly want, didn't make it any easier. Girls are mysterious and I think a million times harder to connect with. Men are simple beings who all want the same thing and don't necessarily care about the deep complexities of a person. I mean men do have lines they draw, of course. Well, some of them do. The good ones.
Regardless, I don't know that I even know what exactly I was burning last night on my birthday. I didn't get a cake with candles, so maybe I just wanted to see a fire burn. Who knows. I'm glad that box is gone...I do have another one though. It's not taped up. But each letter is sealed. There are still some letters in this box that I'm sure were written to a husband that doesn't exist, but I don't feel the need to burn this box quite yet. These letters are post-college by several years and there's even my first lesbian letter in there as well. I write to her sometimes in a journal on my tablet more so than hand-written, but I will give her all the letters if she does exist (husband ones included). If not, maybe I'll burn this box in another 15 years. We'll see. Only time will tell.

Our dreams take place in alternate universes. *That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

These are excerpts from my journal titled: Semi-daily musings to a love that may or may not exist 

May 1, 2017

I wish I knew that someone might read this but even if I do meet a girl one day, she’s not gonna want to read all this, well this Word document journal is only 31 pages, which is nothing compared to my stories which are almost always over 100 pages each. But it would take her months to read all my stories. I mean I kinda hope she would want to, because to read my stories is to know who I truly am. I’m vulnerable in them because they are an alternate version of myself. They are sometimes quite close to the actual me, but since the experiences in them I have never actually experienced before; this alternate reality christie is just that: not real. I can only speculate what I would do or say in the situations I’m in, in them. But the situations are fantasy. Comparatively, I feel that traveling through a wormhole to an alternate universe with my girlfriend who came down from heaven and previously died in the 1940s, is as far-fetched as the part about me having a girlfriend in the first place and having sex with that girlfriend. Those are equally improbable, at least in my mind. But I have this theory which has no scientific background other than “I wish for it to be true,” but I’m going to convince myself that in my dreams when I’m asleep, I’m actually crossing over into one of those alternate universes. Who’s to say that’s not true? Millions of people believe in heaven with absolutely no scientific proof that it exists. No one has come back from it to say for sure. Sure some have “seen a bright light.” So? I see bright lights too, like when I gave blood and passed out. I didn’t die, but if your blood pressure bottoms out or something like that, you’d most likely see bright lights anyway. Your body’s reaction. If that’s all heaven is: a bright light and people who died before you- bore snore. I’d rather go to my place. So when I dreamt a couple nights ago that I was hanging out with Kate Mckinnon at a house and I was helping her with some project in which I was handing her cutouts of letters; that was actually me in another Universe. And when she sat on my lap and she was wearing a t-shirt and just panties and I looked down and saw her creamy white thigh and felt her smooth skin with my hand, that was actually another me doing that. I was that “other me” for a time, being that I was taking her place in that other Universe for the time being. But then something pulled me back as I was trying to get the courage to talk to her. I knew what I was going to say. But I didn’t get it out before I was sucked back to THIS Universe and was awoken. Maybe it was because I wasn’t supposed to be there. I was taking that other Christie’s place for a second. But what I was going to say was: “Sometimes all it takes is one incredible moment, to make all the other boring, un-special moments, worth having in the first place.” And then hopefully she would look down into my eyes, from my lap, wrapping her arms around me and kiss me. That’s what she’d do, if I could’ve stayed in that alternate Universe a little longer. Well, at least one of the versions of myself is having a fun, sexually rewarding life. One of the Christie’s should.

June 3, 2017

I had another dream about Kate Mckinnon last night. We finally made out. Finished what was started back a month earlier I guess. We were in bed and we were full on kissing. I think I could feel her lips, taste them, even in my dream. A day has gone by now since I woke from that dream early this morning, so I’m already starting to forget the details but when I woke I remember thinking I did it! I can die now. I got to make out with Kate in a dream. I’m good. I’ve accomplished everything I wanted to accomplish. That’s really sad I know. My life is so freaking pointless and depressing that just by merely having a dream where I got to make out with my dream girl, I’ve made it. I’ve reached as far as I can go. It’s all I’ve ever wanted, or I guess I don’t think it could get any better than that for me. That dream is the best it can get. Since I’ve never been one to be able to make myself dream something that I’ve wanted to dream, just the fact that I dreamt it all on my own, without forcing it to happen, I feel “accomplished” or something. That’s really depressing, but it’s the truth. We hadn’t made it to the sex part before I woke up. But maybe that’s for another night. At least I got to kiss her. And it wasn’t something I wrote in one of my stories. It was real. Well it was a dream, but it was as real as anything could ever be for me. My stories are literally all I have, where I make things happen in them that I wish would happen in real life. I write them into existence. Into MY existence. But my dreams are not something I can control. Much like my real life. I had a dream a few weeks back that was terrifying and involved monsters and melting faces. It was so weird you would’ve thought I was on drugs. So I know that I can’t control what I dream. Sure things come up from what you saw on TV that day or something that’s bothering you or just your most deepest desires, but you still can’t “make” yourself dream something and make all the details exactly how you like them, just like you can’t in real life. So, I’m taking this as a win. Score one for team Christie.