Welcome to...

I haven't written on this blog since July, but I haven't stopped writing. I write all the time and have been deep into various stories; but tonight, on Christmas Eve, I went alone and saw the new movie Welcome to Marwen..... I connected with it so deeply, that I had to blog about it tonight. It's based on a true story of a man who was beaten within an inch of his life by a gang of men, because he was different. And now he was an artist who could barely write his name, let alone draw, so instead he created this town and used these action figure type dolls taking pictures of them, doing various things like (at least in the movie) kicking the ass of a bunch of Nazi dolls. But mostly he used this creative outlet to process the pain both emotional and physical, that he endured from his attack. While I couldn't connect with him on that exact level, I definitely know a thing or two about living vicariously through your art. I initially wanted to see the movie because of Merritt Wever. She's an actress who's had a profound effect on me for years now. She connects with her characters on an emotional level so deep, that you believe she feels every single thing her character is feeling. I particularly loved it when she portrayed Mary Agnes on Godless. But I wouldn't have watched Godless in the first place had I not already been a fan of hers from Nurse Jackie and The Walking Dead. I saw she was in it and I was on board, even though Westerns are not my thing. But even though that might've been why I chose the movie, it wasn't why I was impacted by it. She actually did have a much bigger role than I initially thought she was going to have; she ended up being a very sweet friend to Steve Carrel's lead character. However, I connected with Steve's character (the artist Mark) more than I thought I would. In the movie he carries around his dolls with him. They protect him in a way, they help him process the world and he feels safer with them. I didn't realize it till the movie was over that I had my own doll. My tablet. My tablet is where I write all my stories. It has a purple and white giraffe print cover and a purple keyboard. It's old, a first generation Surface, but I love it miles more than my work tablet which is a much newer version of the same brand. Mine's a little smaller and I do carry it with me, not everywhere but anywhere I think I may be inspired to write. I'll literally walk around the lake carrying it even though I never stop and sit on the ground and write. It is my security blanket. And I had it with me tonight! I brought it in because I had gone to this theater in a sketchy area, at night and there was a sign by where I parked that said "hide your belongings." I was like oh hell no, I'm taking this in. It didn't occur to me that literally no one would break into my broken down taped up car that's missing a headlight. But to me, I was only worried about losing that tablet. I had it in my lap during the whole movie and when it was over I realized the connection. His art was his everything. He lived vicariously through the lives he created for his dolls. And I do the exact same thing with my stories. I write fictional versions of myself into these worlds I will never live in, like how he was the WWII fighter pilot, "Captain Hoagie" in the world that he created. He had all these female dolls who represented and were named after real women in his life who were there for him, helped him, inspired him... or whom he fell in love with in the real world. I feel for the guy, because I know about this all too well. I write these stories in which I find love, either with a fictional character or the much more embarrassing much more frequent option...a real life person, specifically an actress. He sometimes confuses the women being nice to him because they are good people, for real true love. I don't have that exact problem since I don't know any of the women I've written as my love interests, in my actual life. I've never spoken to any of them... well that's not true, I spoke to one once..but it wasn't the same thing as it was with him.
Merritt's character in the movie, while much younger than Steve's, seems to really care for him, probably only platonically, but she at least tries a lot to get him to go out, be with people, do things like go try sushi. In the end he says something that wasn't hard to hear... it would've been years ago, but it wasn't now. He said and I'm paraphrasing slightly, "some people just don't find true love. It doesn't happen for everyone. Some people are just alone." And that feels like me. That feels like how my life will always be and I'm not sad about it anymore, I've accepted it. When I had my surgery for my deviated septum, I was afraid of going under anesthesia because I didn't like the lack of control and what could go wrong, medically. I didn't like the idea of going to sleep and maybe not waking up. I think a part of me always thought that since I don't have the traditional version of a "loved one" ie: spouse and children, that MY life is not worth as much as those that do. They need to live to be there for those people in their lives. But me, it didn't really matter. Who would be really affected? But facing that surgery I didn't feel that way anymore; I wanted to live. I wanted to keep going and keep writing my stories, even if I was the only one to ever read them. I love them I love them all. I love that they are hard and tough and really bad stuff happens to my lead character in them sometimes, but in the end she always pulls through and she always finds love. Like Mark with his "Captain Hoagie," only his fictional self found love... and that might be my fate as well, but I'm never going to stop doing my art; just like he never well either. And at the end and probably to give us a little hope for Mark, he asked his friend (Merritt's character) to go out for sushi and they both said they didn't know if they'd like it, but they'd try. Maybe they were referring to each other and being something more than friends, maybe it was just the sushi, but I liked that they showed him stepping out of his comfort zone and trying. I do this sometimes... far less than I used to, but I still do. I'm going way out of my comfort zone in May to Provincetown AKA "lesbian town." I don't think it's officially called that, but actually there's a single girls weekend event being hosted there and I am signing up. I am going to try. It may all be women a lot older than me, but hey at least I'm going, at least I'm trying. Plus I've always wanted to go to Boston and Cape Cod, so I'm going for that reason too, because I know I can't go just for the hopes that I meet a woman. I don't live with that hope anymore. I don't say that to feel sorry for me, I say that as truth. I'm realistic. Maybe one day I'll be proven wrong, but for me, I can't be the girl that goes to bars or does online dating, I just can't do it. If that means I'll be alone, then so be it. Mark will always have his dolls and I will always have my stories... and just like in his town of Marwen, anything can happen.... you just have to create it.

Stories are my savior, writing is the way I process the world

I’m tired of going unnoticed. I’m tired of being unimportant. I’m tired of everyone assuming “Christie’s fine.” She’s got her cat, she’s got her trips she takes across the U.S. and that one time to Canada. She’s good. She doesn’t need me, she doesn’t need people. She doesn’t need friends. She likes being alone, she’s always writing her stories or at the lake listening to music. She’s got her shows, she loves her shows. As if all those things are enough. They are not. Companionship, physical love, emotional connection; that is what is truly needed to thrive. More now than ever.

This must be what people think because the alternative is that they don’t care at all. Or…and this goes with the original assumptions, they both think I’m fine being alone all the time, but at the same time they can’t find out for sure or spend time with me because they have a husband and a baby to care for. And if they do have any free time to spare, they’d give it to their best friend. They don’t have time for anyone else but those 3 people in their lives. And my best friend lives in Sacramento. And I don’t want to live in Sacramento. No offense to Sacramento. And she wouldn’t be there forever anyway. In the time I’ve known her she’s lived like 5 places. It’s the life of being married to a military man. So I couldn’t just keep uprooting my life to be near her and her soon to be now 5 kids. As much as I’d love to be in their life more (they are the only kids I’m ever going to have) I can’t just move and Cali is way more expensive than here. I do wish I could see them more, though. Also I like my house and it’s the only place my cat knows and as dumb as that sounds, I don’t want to disrupt her life either. Not that I wouldn’t in a heartbeat for a girl. If I met a girl who was so into me and I was into her and she moved away then hell yeah I’d move to be near her, sorry Mollie. I wouldn’t get rid of her for a girl, but I would move us if it meant I got to be with a girl who adored me, who loved me and couldn’t bear to live apart.

But none of that is going to happen. I can’t even make a friend, like a normal hang out on the weekend kind of friend. So what makes me think I can find someone that wants to be more than that? And I can’t even try anymore anyway. It feels so pointless. All of it. Everything. Why should I try when I don’t fit in anywhere? I already know this for a fact. I’m not one of those people who try out for American Idol thinking they’re a fantastic singer but they sound like a drowning cat. I’m super self-aware, I’m not delusional. I don’t fit in with girls my own age because they’re all married to guys and have young children. I don’t fit in with single girls my age because I don’t drink and I don’t like going to bars and clubs. I don’t fit in with the lesbians because I’m not really one of them, I’m just a wannabe. It’s like groupies who hang out with the band. I don’t play the instrument, never given a chance to, so what the fuck do I know?

Does anyone even see me? Am I even here? Do I exist? Or am I just a ghost? I’m not a bad person, I’m not an evil person. I don’t hurt people, at least not on purpose. But I feel like I’m not good enough for anyone to like, for anyone to get to know, for anyone to connect with, for anyone to love. That’s the only explanation. I’m not cool enough, I’m not pretty enough, I’m not interesting enough. I’m not funny enough. I’d give up everything, this house, this city, my trips, everything but Mollie and obviously my family (which includes my bestie and godkids) for HER. For the one. For the girl that wants to be with me. That deems me good enough to be with. That deems me pretty enough, cool enough, funny enough, interesting enough, special enough to be with me. What makes people even like each other? I don’t even know. I can’t remember what it feels like to be liked like that, to be loved, to be held, to be kissed. I can’t remember. I’m not saying that to be overdramatic, it’s the truth, I actually can’t remember. It’s been too long and it only happened twice. But it was intense and real and felt like it would last forever. I look back and just know that it was those things, I can’t really remember what it felt like to experience it, not realistically. I only know that I did.

I wrote tonight for 6 hours, practically without stopping and mostly my story- Another Handmaid’s Tale. Thank God for that. Thank God I have the ability to write. That at least I love my stories. At least I want to read them. Sometimes it feels like it’s the only thing keeping me going. Sometimes it’s not enough or I can’t write or I don’t want to read these made up stories of love, I want to experience real love, but it’s better than nothing. It’s better than being trapped in a mind with no creative outlet. That would be far worse. Like those poor girls in Handmaid’s Tale. No music or books or writing. That right there even without all the other horrible stuff, is my Hell. Not entirely sure why I like writing this story. I guess I’m just in a place where I need to create a life worse than mine, so I can feel better. Although I always write a happy ending; eventually I will in this story too, when I get there. I always get the girl in the end…wish I could write that ending in my real life…if only.

True story

One day I will write a story and it will be real. It will be the truth. It will be my reality. It will tell the story of a meet-cute between me and some woman out there, yet-to-be-named. Not that she doesn’t have a name, I just don’t know what it is yet. And I won’t have to live in these fictional stories I write. I won’t have to live vicariously through my own characters I created or through this fake me. The story will have no famous people in it, no actresses, no characters from my favorite TV shows. It will just be about a normal girl with a normal job and we will have a normal life, like I always wanted. We won’t need to travel through wormholes and time to alternate Universes. We will just be here on this Earth. We will live wherever we live. I won’t need to rewrite my teen years in which I knew who I was earlier in life. My past will be my same past and my girl will love it. She’ll be into the stories of shy awkward me at Church Youth Camp. She’ll want to go see the swings I jumped off of at my Elementary school playground. Where I felt like I was flying for that brief moment in time. I can take her to where I broke my femur the day before I turned 13. I’ll show her the house I grew up in, the roof I hung out on and the front door where I got my first kiss. And we’ll kiss at it too, and make a new memory. She’ll read every single one of my stories and she’ll laugh at some and be turned on by others. She’ll tell me I’m a weirdo, but in a good way. She’ll find them sad but hopeful. She’ll have her favorite, but she’ll say she loved them all.  I’ll know her family and she’ll know mine. Maybe her family is her life-long best friends, maybe it’s just a Mom, maybe it’s 2 parents or maybe it’s grandparents, but whoever it is, I will be the same respectful girl I am with my own. They’ll love me. How could they not? My day job is being nice to families, so I got this.

She’ll watch my favorite shows with me, The Walking Dead and Orange is the New black. She’s a lesbian so that’s already her favorite show. She won’t want to watch The Walking Dead  because she thinks it’s too gory and gross and scary but I’ll wear her down and I’ll come home one day to find that’s she’s binged the first season in an afternoon and I’ll re-watch the rest of them with her. She’ll show me her favorite shows and I might have to tolerate them because she loves them and I love her, but I’ll get into it, if it’s that important to her, I’ll grow to love them too. But most nights we’ll lay in bed in each other’s arms and listen to music. We’ll say “Alexa play this” and “Alexa play that” and share with each other are all-time favorite songs, which will easily take up an entire night. We’ll talk until the sun comes up and I’ll call in sick and sound like I’ve been throwing up all night…cuz I want to stay in bed with her another whole day.

I’ll finally have someone to go on my trips with…more importantly someone to share a hotel bed with. I don’t see the purpose in going on a trip with someone you’re not sleeping with. That’s called an annoying extra person in a room made for one, or one couple. I’d rather go alone than share a hotel room with even a friend. I’m too old for that. Or it just doesn’t sound fun to me. If I can’t walk around holding your hand or sneaking kisses on the tour bus, then what’s the point? I just can’t see it I guess.

I hope to have this one day. I had zero hope that I’d see snow in Chicago when I went to bed at midnight and the 7pm snow they promised still hadn’t come. But I awoke the next morning to white…and I thought I had gone blind or something. A bright white light I was seeing and not the fake green grass on the roof of the building below me. But no, that was snow. I couldn’t believe it. Being jilted so many times from meteorologists in Dallas promising snow, made me not believe. But I guess I should’ve expected more, since it is Chicago and they have a ton of snow. And apparently in April no doubt. But since every time I have the least bit of hope for anything, I’m always let down, always disappointed, I just stopped hoping altogether. I got a little bit of hope back that day. I’m not saying it was a lot. Maybe the low battery isn’t flashing anymore. Maybe it’s not in the red. Maybe it’s at 21% instead of the normal 6. Maybe it’s making its way back down to 6, now that it’s been 4 days…but it was nice having a little bit hope for a time. Maybe it got me to write this. To write the hope of being able to write a real story one day, not one of my many many fiction tales in which I always meet a girl and fall in love, but an actual story of a real live girl. I’ve never considered that one day I could write the true life story of how I met…what’s her name. I never thought I would write anything but fiction, at least story-wise. But maybe I will one day…and maybe I’ll read it to her when we’re old, to remind her of how we met, how we fell in love and how we shared a life together. Even if it wasn’t as long as I’d hoped it be, time with someone you love is never going to feel long enough anyway. You could have 65 years together, like my Grandparents did, and still be left wanting more. It’s never about amount of time anyway, it’s about quality; how it felt, how she made you feel loved and how you loved her as long as you could. If she felt loved…then it was enough time.

Ghost

White as a ghost I am. 

And as invisible as one I feel. 

You look right through me as if you can’t even see me. 

You forget about me as if I died long ago. I’m still here. Same place I’ve always been. 

Like a ghost, nothing’s changed for me. Nothing new has happened to me. 

I’m still alone.

Still single. Still childless. Still unimportant. Still not normal. Ghosts aren’t normal. They’re ghosts. They used to be someone but now they’re not. They’re not anyone. They wander. They haunt, for fun or out of boredom. Nothing affects them. They can’t get hurt anymore. They’ve gotten past all that. Now they just exist...and don’t exist. They are an oxymoron. 

Ghosts have accepted their fate. They have accepted who they are and don’t try to change that. 

But ghosts can’t feel the warm sun on their bodies, like I can feel right now.

They can’t taste the sweet creamy taste of strawberry ice cream. 

They can’t feel the impact of a child as they run at you and slam into your body for a bear hug. 

I don’t want to be a ghost anymore. Ghosts are dead and

I am alive. 

An awkward concert

I went to probably the most awkward concert of my life. And it wasn’t bad at all…just awkward, but I’m kind of the Queen of Awkward, so…guess it wasn’t that much of a stretch for me. It didn’t really bother me, I just took note of it. I was excited when I heard Mary Lambert was coming to Dallas. She’s this brave, outspoken, not afraid to share pain, kind of girl. She also happens to be a lesbian. I put the concert on the meet-up concert group, I sometimes set up concerts for. There was only one bite: a lady who is much much older than me. Like older than my Mom. Which obviously wouldn't matter a bit if this was a group thing, but just us? Um no. Not happening. I was kinda mad because I didn’t want this to feel like a date. I didn’t want it to be just us, standing awkwardly next to each other…well I guess we would’ve fit right in, at this particular concert. But I was also like – “this lady’s gonna mess up my game!” The other lesbians in the room are going to think we’re together because she’s standing by me and talking to me! And so they won’t talk to me, and I don’t even know this chick!! Well luckily I was worrying for nothing, because not only did no one speak at this extremely quiet concert, but also she didn’t come, or she didn’t let me know she was there via the message board and neither did I. I got there really late, on purpose. I didn’t really care much for whoever was the opening act. When I got there she was already singing, but I managed to ask a girl that was standing there in the back how long she’d be on and she said that this was her first song. So, perfect timing. I was only able to get an hour in the parking garage because it was free and the only ticket it gave me, despite trying to pay for more hours, so I hoped she’d get in my favorite songs in that hour. She did. But I discovered that while she has an amazing voice and I love her whole “thing”- it’s extremely personal. Experiencing Mary Lambert’s songs is like being in her bedroom, on her bed with her as she cries about her recent break-up and I don’t mean that in a mean or negative way at all. It’s beautiful. But it’s heart-wrenching. It feels like you shouldn’t be there, you shouldn’t be hearing all this. It’s not your place, unless you’re her close friend. There were probably 50 people there. A few straight couples, one gay couple and many lesbian couples. And many single, presumably lesbian women standing all by themselves. If it hadn’t been dark and quiet and Mary hadn’t been doing a spoken word about her ex leaving her and not calling her after her own house burned down, maybe I would’ve spoken to one of them. Eh who am I kidding? I still probably wouldn’t have. I do find it ironically funny though, that as I was getting ready for the concert, I couldn’t figure out what to wear and I was convinced my face was not at all working and make-up wasn’t helping, so I texted a friend- “Ugh I don’t want to go, I’m so fucking ugly. But I guess it’ll be dark so it won’t really matter anyway.” It’s not just funny because I was right, about the dark part. But also out of all the artists I could’ve been going to see, she’s the last person I should’ve been concerned about how I look, when going to her concert. She even does a song about being ok with your body type, how you look, all of that. She’s very anti body-shaming and pro- YOU. She’s a bigger woman herself and she did a spoken word on it that very night. So I laughed to myself later on about how it was so silly of me to say that, particularly not at a Mary Lambert concert. I think she’s beautiful, by the way. So I moved around a lot that one hour I was there. I couldn’t find a good spot to stand. I was either behind an annoying straight couple embracing each other or someone smelling of B.O…oh wait, that was the same guy from the couple. I don’t think I’ve ever moved from the first spot I stood at on the SRO floor of a concert hall, so that was weird and awkward for me. So was standing alone away from people because there was a lot of open space. And so was that spoken word about her recent breakup. But I’d admire her so much for doing it. It obviously helps her tremendously to get it all out like that. It’s her outlet and I love that because everyone needs one. Mine is writing. Both this blog and my stories. After the heart-wrenching spoken word of her recent relationship ending, she sang my favorite song of hers- “When You Sleep.” But it’s such a deeply personal song to me, that I felt weird and awkward listening to it around people. I was like – “hey get outta my room!” It was still so beautiful though. All in all it was a great way to spend an hour. I had to leave for fear of being towed and they don’t allow you to come back in once you leave, so I left while she told a story. I was pretty sure she was almost done anyway. It was still nice to see her in person, to put a face and body to that incredible voice of hers. I’m glad I had the opportunity to go. There’s always something a little magical about seeing someone you’re used to hearing in your ears, live before your eyes. I think it helps you to connect to them even more, at least in someone like Mary. I hope she never stops making music. I’m sure it saves her, like my writings do…and even if no one listened to them, I’m sure she’d never stop making them.

Brave, weird, it’s all the same

I was thinking about all the “interesting” things I’ve done...that’s a nice way of saying- weird or crazy. I guess you could also say unusual or unique. Maybe not unique because it sounds like only you did it and that’s not true. Some of the ones that stand out the most are like when I went to a “Cuddle Party,” (which is exactly as it sounds). Or the weekend I spent at the Nudist Colony. I was the youngest person there by far but it didn’t stop me from enjoying myself. That was probably the freest I’ve ever felt in my life. I’m specifically referring to my nature walks alone in the woods with the wildflowers and only the birds to see me. I had purposefully picked an off weekend and most people hung out by the pool anyway. I also got a color tattoo of mountain peaks on my left arm above my wrist. Not necessarily unique, but it is when everyone thinks it’s just colored triangles on my arm, like I’m really into Geometry or something. When in reality I think I almost flunked that class and to this day haven’t a clue what the point of it was.  

I’ve done other brave things. Like I moved to Colorado not knowing a soul, just because I loved the mountains and wanted an adventure. I’m proud of myself for that. That takes guts moving somewhere all alone. I’ve gone on countless meetup group events, some where I find myself surrounded by senior citizens. Some where no one even shows up even though they said they were coming. I’ve gone on dating app dates to meet strangers. I go to hotels alone just for the fun of it. I’ve taken trips to cities like San Francisco alone, been to another country alone (Canada, but still). I rock out at concerts alone. There isn’t anything I haven’t done alone. I went to Vegas for a lesbian conference all alone. I went to The Walking Dead premiere event in L.A. alone and that was given out as “tickets for two.” I always try to talk to people, wherever I go, to connect. Sometimes I think there’s something there, but usually there’s not. And even if for moment there is, it’s not as real as I thought it was. Or the other party had a better offer come along. It is what it is. It still doesn’t keep me from doing all these crazy, weird, unique, unusual, interesting things. 

I’m still proud of myself for trying. Not everyone can do some of those things alone, or any of them alone. It takes guts to try. It takes a brave soul to be like- “here I am, like me or not, but I’m going to still have a great time wherever I am.”