Author: Michelle

But I must confess
I’ve got no regrets
I never gave it up or away
And everytime I was done
I knew I’d look back and laugh
One day
–Storm Large/Twisted Jimmy

Yeah, right
–Everclear/Now That It’s Over

There have already been a few posts regarding how I feel about the past. I alternate between laughter and rueful smiles for the most part. There’s occasional crying and stamping my feet, but I’ve already covered crying pretty extensively in previous posts.

Regrets have also been covered. I do have a few. Not really stuff I’ve done or not done. Stuff I’ve said, or, mostly, not said.

Unlike the song, I gave it away. I gave it away kind of a lot. I don’t regret it, although there was ultimately a lot of negativity around it. Mostly in my own head, but isn’t that the worst kind? Most of the time it was fun, in a bad for me kind of way. I’m an inherently monogamous person, though, so it was one of those things that I went through that was a bit out of character. Of course, to be monogamous you have to have a partner. So I suppose anything I did in between relationships just doesn’t count.

I don’t laugh about it.
Much.
Well, there are a few times I have to laugh about.

The time I dumped a gin and tonic on a guy’s head because he thought I should get up and answer his door in the middle of the night. Uh, no. He told me not to come around anymore, but his friends and family liked me. They made sure I continued to be invited to all of the parties and nights out. I stayed around and enjoyed his fury every time we all went dancing.

Another time I kicked a guy out of my car in the middle of nowhere because he made fun of my hair. I found one of his shoes in the car the next day. Oops. I hope someone stopped to give him a ride. It’s not like I had a way to track him down and give him back his shoe. I don’t even know where I got him in the first place, or why we were driving to Shotgun in the middle of the night. Other than because we were 19.

Or the guy to whom I said “you are not getting anywhere near me with that.” Really.
Unlike Madeline Khan, I did not immediately burst into “oh, sweet mystery of life.”
I eventually relented though.

I wonder if they look back and laugh about it now too. Assuming that the guy I dumped in the middle of the road didn’t get abducted by hillbillies or something, maybe he thinks it’s funny now if he remembers.

I wonder, if I was ever single again, if my opportunities for sluttiness would be drastically reduced to to increased age and decreased hotness?

And now I am laughing because spell-check wanted to correct sluttiness, but when I clicked on it, it said “no replacement found.”
No, there really is no replacement for sluttiness. It’s true.

Thank you, spell-check, for clearing that up for us all.

Aside:
Ordinarily on a Sunday I would have something to say about the football game on Saturday. Let’s agree not to discuss it, shall we?

It can be just one more thing that’s behind me.

E il treno io l’ho preso e ho fatto bene.
Spago sulla mia valigia non ce n’era,
solo un pò d’amore la teneva insieme,
solo un pò di rancore la teneva insieme.
–Francesco De Gregori/Pablo***

And the fact is I had fun, fumbling around
All the advice I shunned, and I ran
Where they told me not to run, but I sure
Had fun, so
I’m gonna fuck it up again
I’m gonna do another detour
Unpave my path
–Fiona Apple/A Mistake

When I finally decided to run, I took a plane. Then a train.
With my usual flair for exaggeration, I went to another continent.
I must have been such a joy to my parents what with the teenage marriage, bad attitude and scar tissue.
My mother, to give her credit, was smart enough not to tell me it was a bad idea to run off to France without having any idea how I was going to get back. I could only afford a one way ticket. I figured I’d get a ticket back somehow. My somehows back then were more than a little sketchy.

I wasn’t running from anything that any other 20 year old didn’t have to deal with. People I was having trouble forgetting. Someone I loved, who I felt like I’d hurt, who I didn’t see any more. Too much sex and drugs and rock ‘n roll. Which, I suppose, were just a different way of running. I could justify leaving intellectually, since I was majoring in French. Running with the complicity, assistance and encouragement of the entire Romance Language department at the University of Oregon.

Running away, but convinced I was running to something. A better future, I guess. An intellectual adventure. A chance to expand my very provincial horizons. To gain life experience. To lose my American accent. Meet new people. I don’t know. I was 20. I didn’t know anything, and I thought I was smart. I thought it would change me. No, I thought it would make me better.

Because at that point, I was kind of a mish-mash of inferiority and superiority complexes. I though I was both smart and an idiot. Ugly and man bait. Completely on top of everything, and completely useless. Oh, how is that different from what I’m like now? Well. I’m not man bait any more. Aside from that, you know, people don’t change very much. Also, shut up. I’m not quite as much of a mess as I was back then. I’m shedding some of those feelings of inadequacy a little at a time, but like all of us I still have my moments where I’m driving down I-5 with the music blaring, crying about being such a fucking dumbass.

These days, although I’m still weird inside and lame, I have friends who make me (mostly) think that’s OK. I only think I’m a dumbass some of the time.

These days, there is way more love holding me together than bitterness.

It has nothing to do with when I ran away, or where I ran, and more to do with when I stopped and paid attention.

I can be smart about lot of things and an idiot about others, and not beat myself up about it. No one knows everything. Except my mother. I can have times when I really am completely useless and fall apart, but even while I’m doing it I know that I’ll hold together.

I’m stuck together with stubbornness, humor and love.
That sounds kind of icky.

But it’s good glue.

***Translation:
I took the train, and it was for the best.
There was no twine around my suitcase
Only a bit of love held it together
Only a bit of rancor held it together