There was a time when I was happy to be someone's lady-in-waiting - and oh, how instructive that term is, because waiting is what you do - I was happy to live my life in the service of another, because another person was worth that. Because she was so beautiful, so good, so worthy, that knowing she relied on me was all I needed to feel all of those things too.
Hands touch
Eyes meet
Sudden silence
Sudden heat
Hearts leap in a giddy whirl
He could be that boy
But I'm not that girl.
Then she learned not to need me, and I not to need her. But somehow I never managed to get much farther than being that girl - the best friend, the sidekick, the person standing next to the person who has all the luck, all the love, all the attention. I listen to songs, I watch movies, I read books, and there has never been one I read where I didn't think, "No. I'm not that girl. I'm that girl's friend, the person she takes for granted."
Don't dream too far
Don't lose sight of who you are
Don't remember that rush of joy.
He could be that boy
But I'm not that girl.
Love... my love, whoever you are. I am so very, very tired of being taken for granted. I am so tired of not being the one things happen to. I'm tired of not being the lucky one, not being the pretty one, not being the one people listen to. I'm tired of suffering everyone's bullshit because of all the people responsible for whatever happened, I'm the person made to be fucking kicked. I'm the person who doesn't fit in, so the failures of the group are attached to me, inevitably.
Every so often we long to steal
To the land of what might have been
But that doesn't soften the ache we feel
When reality sets back in.
I have never stopped wondering what I'm doing wrong.
All I want in the world is someone I trust to tell me what it is. Perhaps all of this sounds ragingly immature, but I don't care. We are all children, we are all alone, we are all so terribly, terribly broken and worthy of compassion. I am tired of giving it. I am tired of being everyone's guardian, everyone's caretaker, everyone's mother. Just once in my life I would like to need help and have someone come along and solve the problem, simply and completely, without my assistance. I am so very, very tired of being the only adult in the room. And I am so very tired of never, ever being allowed to be as helpless, as juvenile, as lazy, as feckless, as blind, as careless as everyone else. When is it my turn to blunder dumbly through a day, hurting feelings, and be showered with affection at the end of it in spite of it all? When is it my turn to reap rewards I didn't earn, to be vexed by the sheer volume of attention and adoration I'm showered with? When is it my turn to have a fucking first-world problem?
Blithe smile
Lithe limb
She who's winsome
She wins him
Gold hair with a gentle curl
That's the girl he chose
And heaven knows
I'm not that girl.
This does seem to happen, doesn't it. It's two am. It's my birthday, now. I have cried myself to sleep on more birthdays than not. Perhaps that's a juvenile score to keep track of, but there it is. I am twenty-five, halfway to thirty, and I still don't know how to be the person I have to be. I still don't know how to be strong without sometimes needing to be weak. I still don't know when it's okay to be, or who's supposed to keep everything safe when I am.
Don't wish
Don't start
Wishing only wounds the heart
I wasn't born for the rose and the pearl
There's a girl I know
He loves her so
I'm not that girl.
Will I always feel like a fuck-up? I hate to start another year this way. I hate to go into it knowing that I still feel disregarded, forgotten, taken for granted. I hate to spend another year bending over backwards to consider the people who matter, only to realize that I was the only person who considered it at all.
Last year was so very, very bad. There have been few worse. I want to believe that making the next better is in my hands, but I might have done all the working uphill I'm able for a while. I'm at the point now where I'm ready to give up... and for the first time, not even begin to care about who picks up the slack.
Movies, TV screens reflect
Just what you expected
There's a world of shiny people
Somewhere else.
Out there following their bliss
Living easy, getting kissed
While you wonder
What else you're doing wrong.
Every day it starts again.
You cannot say if you're happy.
You keep trying to be.
Try harder.
Maybe this is not your year.
Labels: Apologies, Brendon, Introspection, Katrina
