A Closet By Any Other Name is Still a Closet

When I read Borderlands/La Frontera, I was struck by the gravity of seeing things from someone else’s viewpoint.  The victory of “winning Texas” isn’t as glorious once you realize how it affected the “other” (in this case, the indigenous people). If we only see our history through our own eyes, without granting due empathy, we miss an entire story from the other perspective. 

            A year ago, my sister came out of the closet after about two months of marriage.  It shook my family to the core, and we are still feeling the shockwaves.  My sister, as much as we loved her still, became “the other”.  I thought that this would be a great opportunity to try to see things from her perspective, and do my best to give her a voice.  This is her story.

                       

            A Closet by Any Other Name is Still a Closet

I finally snapped.  I don’t know why, and now, it doesn’t matter why.   All that matters is that it happened.  I had been married sixty-eight days.  Laszlo woke next to me every morning, faithful and loving and kind.   I’m sorry, my love, my best friend, but this had to happen.  I never meant for things to go this far. 

            It had been weeks since I slept, or ate.  My already thin frame had lost another 12 pounds, and was wasting away.  I stayed awake at night, doing everything that I could to handle life moment by moment.  Making love was only possible when I was drunk, or high.  Even then, I winced in discomfort. 

            Megan was the first to know.  I wanted to tell Laszlo first, but she told me that, after all, she was still my sister, and I could tell her anything.  So I did.  She didn’t seem surprised.  She said she loved me, and then she cried. 

            I can’t even think about how Laszlo felt.  The moments with him were too intense.  In the weeks that followed, I would avoid him with every ounce of motivation that I could muster.  Everyone though that I hated him, or thought I was angry.  I don’t know why, but I was angry: angrier than I had ever been. 

            And then there was Lacey.  I saw her at work; she was my reason for going to work, my reason for leaving the house.  She was the reason for leaving my husband.   It was bound to happen sooner or later; my sexuality was a simmering pot that suddenly boiled over.  She was the perfect catalyst that I needed to push me over the edge.  And for each other, we would make the ultimate sacrifice: for her, I would leave my husband, and for me, she would always take the blame for the end my marriage. 

            I wish mom would stop crying.  I wish dad would stop crying.  I can’t stop them, though, and there is no way to undo what I have said.  There’s not really such thing as going back and forth on this. But nobody believes me.  I’m being treated like some delicate little thing, with everyone tiptoeing around me.  They are hoping that if they leave me alone, give me space, let me consider things, I’ll change my mind.  I don’t blame them, but that will never happen.  And now, what I need more than anything is to be taken seriously.

  Everyone around me is in pain and mourning, and I know that it is because of me.  It makes me want to turn on my heels and run.  And then, when I do run, they treat me like I’m insane and heartless, like some reckless child that’s about to blow away in the wind.  

            Truth be told, that’s exactly how I feel.  Everything around me is fucked,; everyone around me is falling to pieces.  And I hate to admit, but I finally feel like things are as they should be.  I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off of my chest, and I can breathe in a way that I never felt was possible.  I wish so much that I could perpetuate this feeling of lightness, and live as I have always wanted.  Reality, however, intervened.  I want nothing more than to run away, to be done with this whole nightmare, this whole marriage and my overbearing, insensitive family.  There is nothing on my mind but her.  She is all that I need, all that I see. 

            Laszlo is gone now.  New York City is a place for broken hearts, apparently.  And now, I am stuck.  Everything that was certain is now uncertain.  Little parts of being an adult are much harder on your own.  How do I get health insurance? Where will I live? What about my dog, my cat?  There are moments, with my family, when I can feel them all staring at me, and wishing I would take it back.  Wishing I would snap out of it and run back to him, say I was sorry and made a mistake and need to stay with him and want it to work and…

            But, that clearly isn’t the case.  This whole SCENE, this whole ORDEAL, took about two months to happen. December and January.  The Christmas tree never got decorated. Or watered, for that matter.  It just stood in the corner of the living room and died.  Actually, drinking Bloody Mary’s on Christmas morning was the only tradition that seemed to survive.  No one even seemed terribly concerned with the gifts; it was straight to the vodka.  Even Grandma got drunk. 

            The next few weeks were back to business: I had my entire life to figure out, Laszlo moved to New York for good, and I began the surprisingly long process of divorce and, later, trying to get my last name back.   SIMMONS. 

           

At one point, my dad looked up and asked, “How did I raise such screwballs?”

           

I don’t know the answer, but that quote is on the fridge.

Self-Acceptance: David and Me

Throughout the class, I had a hard time working up the confidence to express my thoughts and experiences. It amazed me how some of the students opened up, completely exposing their vulnerability and experiences. Like my seven billion fellow humans on the planet, I have my secrets and insecurities. I thought it extremely brave of these students to face their obstacles so fearlessly and proudly. So, that being said, I welcome you into my seldom-shared thoughts for the remainder of this paper.  

                                                                                                                                                

“Eat.”

“You don’t need to.” (The familiar voice assures me with its sneering, painful remarks.)

“Eat!”

“Stop it.”

“Eat! Eat! Eat!”

“You are disgusting, you can’t eat. STOP EATING!”

(My stomach begs, but my brain does not comply.)

115 lbs, 110 lbs, 100 lbs… Keep going.

“You have to do something about yourself now or else no one will ever like you. What have you got going for you? Let me enlighten you. Look at yourself. You’re dumb, talentless and ugly. You can’t focus in school. You struggle to make a C. You can’t even keep a boyfriend. You simply aren’t good enough. Why waste their time with you when they can find someone prettier, smarter and better? YOU MESS EVERYTHING UP!”

Restrictions. Obsessions. Anxieties.

“What’s wrong with me?”

“Everything.” (The voice re-visits with more reassurance.)

“I’ll work out, I’ll stop eating. I will do anything to feel better about myself.”

“You will be skinny and lovely and all of your problems will go away. Nothing else will matter because you will have reached your goal. You will have perfection at last, I promise.”

(I’m assured.)

Blood, sweat, tears. Lots of tears.

“You’ll never be good enough. Every other girl can be intelligent, thin and perfect. All of that work and this is the best you can do? What’s wrong with you?”

“Everything.” (This time the voice doesn’t have to say anything.)

                                                                                                                                               

Would you be friends with someone who told you these things? Would you love someone who hates themselves? I hope the answer is no. So why do so many of us talk to ourselves like one of our worst enemies would? Why do we hate ourselves and why do we convince ourselves that we need to be someone we aren’t?

Immediately upon reading Giovanni’s Room, I hated David. He is selfish, egotistical, stubborn and exceptionally good at running from his problems. He hates himself and can’t accept who he is; he is a lost soul. But as I reflected more on David after finishing Giovanni’s Room, I reached a very hard realization: I am David. This may seem a little over-the-top, but I have had my many issues with self-acceptance as well. At the very beginning of Giovanni’s Room, as David looks back on everything he has learned from his time in Paris, David says,” I think now that if I had had any intimation that the self I was going to find would turn out to be only the same self from which I had spent so much time in flight, I would have stayed at home. But, again, I think I knew, at the very bottom of my heart, exactly what I was doing when I took the boat for France” (21).

            Though I may not have hopped on a plane to France and gallivanted around Paris with a beautiful Italian man to escape my reality, I too have been lost. What pained me the most was the fact that David was so ashamed of himself and his homosexuality. He loved Giovanni. That’s just how he is, so why fight it? Giovanni puts it perfectly when he finally sees through David’s cold, emotionless exterior when David says he is leaving him for Hella: “You are not leaving me for her…you are leaving me for some other reason. You lie so much, you have come to believe all your own lies” (140), “You want to leave Giovanni because he makes you stink…You want to kill him in the name of all your lying little moralities…Look, look what you have done to me” (141). The more he believes his own lies, the more he sinks into a destructive downward spiral. Like David, there was a time when I was so unhappy with myself that I tried desperately to be someone else. I felt pressure to reach the goals I thought were expected of me. I became my own worst critic, internalizing my frustrations. I became as cold and detached as David. In my mind, I wanted to get rid of all of my flaws so I could be perfect. The malicious voice inside my head that filled me with discouragement was the same one that motivated me to try harder and be better. I began to feel Gollum from Lord of the Rings; I was going crazy and arguing with myself. This forced me down a miserable path. All of that hard work trying to achieve perfection while running from a person I convinced myself to hate created a vicious cycle of disappointment for me. I would criticize myself, starve, deny I had a problem, and repeat it all over again when I found I still wasn’t satisfied.

            David says on page 21 that he always knew (despite his attempts at ignoring it) that he could not live his life pretending to be what his father and the rest of society thought he should be. I knew deep down from the start that I would always be Peri Nicole Boylan no matter how much I wished I wasn’t, even though I felt by society’s standards I was not smart enough, pretty enough or good enough. I couldn’t avoid being me forever. The journey of trying to prove myself wrong only set me back. While David starved for an answer to finding himself I starved to reach perfection. Though our problems may seem worlds apart from each other, the results are the same. If you can’t learn to accept yourself for who you are, it will only lead to unhappiness in the long run.

Now a few years later and little bit wiser I have been able to take a step back and tackle my insecurities head on (with much help from family, councilors and best friends). As I sit here eating my tasty Pita Pit pita I can happily say that I am who I have always been and will always be and I don’t need to try and change that, only improve in a healthy way. I would like to imagine that after the last page of Giovanni’s Room, David’s story continues and ends the same way my story did. I hope he found peace with himself and began to allow himself to love freely and openly without thinking something is wrong with him.

While some days aren’t as easy as others and I still have to face a few struggles here and there, I push through just like everyone else battling their problems. What is life if you can’t be comfortable in your own skin? It’s exhausting trying to be someone you’re not. You have to do what feels right for you. Too much perfection is an imperfection in itself. There is so much more to life.

Finding My Own Home

Within Alison Bechdel’s novel Fun Home, she appears to draw out specific moment in her past life that help her come to terms with some of the things she is dealing with in her present life. She breaks through barriers and comes to terms with many of her past problems and the way she does that is by connecting herself to the things she feels most distant from. The rest of my paper is to be read without any intention of judgment to be made on others. This is how I feel of myself. This is a reflection of myself, and a personal connection I found within Alison Bechdel’s novel Fun Home.

            It has been hard for me to face my many new responsibilities and challenges that I’ve imposed on myself. Facing identity and sexual confusion has put barriers between me and what I am. I use to hate with a passion who I was, but I can’t help the fact of how I feel about things. My confusion has broken walls down in my thinking, leaving me endless visions. I’m beginning to see things as they are and as they exist, and this is pulling me away from whom I was. Which is now a good thing in my eyes.

Before, I had people telling me what was right and what was wrong and I never had that father figure to guide me on the right path so all I could do was take the word of others and fall into line with their beliefs. Reading through Alison Bechdel’s novel, I could draw similar experiences; from the being told what to wear (99) how to act, the list goes on and on. In today’s society, everything is pushed on you. From where to live, where to sit, where to eat, how to drink, every little detail has been painted on a canvas and we are expected to follow it. Everything seems to be painted, but whos holding the paintbrush?
           I wish, and I say this with a lack of faith, that there was no good or evil, good or bad side, heaven or hell, but this was not a reality, but a mere fantasy of my world. Thinking this way separated me from the reality that I do wrong, especially in my thinking. So, I got caught in these fantasies that separated me from my innate guilt. Handling all these thoughts stressed me out, it inhibited me from my work and studies, my life. These ideas burdened me. They captured me, because what I was wanted these fantasies to exist. They would make my life easier. Such things are foolish thoughts, because “God” was the only one that made things easier.
            And, I say this for myself, with “sinful” experiences and adult responsibilities, come great hardships. My experiences were actions made by impulsive and thoughtless “sinful” motives. This was brought on by my fantasy way of thinking. My responsibilities include all those of adults, which are working for basic needs, finances and miscellaneous expenses. Over all, I had the responsibility to keep what I’ve been internally given safe. That is, safe from my exterior self. My name is Johnny and I have written these words, which have been brought out internally, to free me of my conscious.

On Nov. 27, 2012 at 12:26 a.m. I begin writing about this idea that I have brought on, “What I Am.”

I am a Homosexual being. I find beauty in Men; this is what I am attracted to. This is what I am, in my human interior and exterior. When I see a man, I see his features. I see his structure, stature, composition and poise. I see his masculinity. His aesthetic features, which include physical attributes, which are relatively attractive to me. I didn’t wake up one day and decide to be this way. It was built within my cognition, such as common sense, which some don’t seem to have. But how does any of this really connect to Fun Home?
            Sometimes I think about the fact that I’m getting old and then I think about what it was like when I was younger and I remember being an innocent eight year old on Neopets spending four hours trying to make a blue loop between my grandma shuffling me off to eat breakfast and our terrible dialup connection. Then I think about how innocent I was and how I had no idea how much the world could (and does) suck, and how even though the kids my age were bulling me I was still okay as long as I was on the computer, by myself, where I was safe because no one had to know the real me. And now I am an adult with no way to pretend that the world isn’t a terrible place and I lost that anonymity because the dynamics of the internet have changed and then I get really nostalgic and I wish I could just go back in time and take eight year old Johnny and just keep him from getting disillusioned with things because I think I stopped being that innocent little kid way too early on in life…

As a kid, life was just fun and games, nothing was serious and everything and anything could just be pretend. And that’s how it was, at least in my eyes. Bechdel goes through a similar route, growing up, she was young and did things just because. She wore her hair short because it felt good, she played with the boys because it was fun. In the world, nothing is wrong until someone states that it is such. And throughout Fun Home, Bechdel lives through so much of what is “wrong” and experiences this through the novel. Something similar happened in my life and I found this novel to be one that I loved only because it allowed me to connect personally.

After reading Fun Home, I thought long and hard about what so many of the stories she told meant and there’s so much she allows her readers to see and I appreciate it even more. To allow yourself to confess something so personal takes not only courage but also a desire to understand and to be understood. As humans, we find ourselves constantly battling these internal wars that need to be resolved in order to find peace in life. And one can only be so lucky to find that peace in time. This novel has so many hidden messages; not only visually but, physically, mentally, emotionally and literally. The distance Bechdel reveals not only between her father but the distance separating her family links to me personally and others I can assume as well.

With her novel, Bechdel paves way for gays and lesbians to find their inner truths. She answers questions and provides details of her personal life in order to show how hidden things, always tend to come.      

A Private Repository of Curiosities

Defining/ The Closet.

The Closet:

A small and enclosed space used for storage.

The Closet:

A room for privacy or retirement.

The Closet:

A private room; an inner chamber.

The Closet:

A place of private devotion.

The Closet:

That which affords retirement; a private chamber.

The Closet:

A hidden or secret place, retreat, recess.

The Closet:

The den or lair of a wild beast.

The Closet:

A place of secluded speculation.

The Closet:

A private repository of curiosities.

However you define it,

A Closet is a place to keep things.

Clothes

Shoes

                        Boxes

                                    Secrets

                                                Skeletons

Often times, one can find themselves trapped/

In their very own Closets.

History provides many examples of those trapped/

In their very own Closets.

R. Kelly

Trapped in the Closet

After a one night stand

which sets off a chain of events,

which gradually reveals an even bigger web of

deceit, sex, lies.

Miss Ogilvy

Trapped in the Closet

Being born a Wilhelmina

but always longing to be a William.

Dies alone in a cave before truly Finding Herself.

Roy Cohn

Trapped in the Closet

Refusing to admit homosexuality

Diagnosed with AIDS/ delusions of grandeur/ living a false life

All the Angels in America couldn’t help him.

Everyday Homosexuals

Trapped in the Closet

Afraid of society/ oppression/ discrimination/ stigmatization/ hate.

Afraid/ to live their true life

Afraid/ to admit what they might think

Afraid/ of what might happen.

Coming out of the Closet can be a difficult process.

One must form and accept their sexual identity,

must respond to their potential feelings of attraction to the same sex.

Once accepted, they must choose to disclose this information to others.

And when determining how to disclose this information,

it is typical to feel a variety of reactions:

Confusion

Despair

Self-doubt

Denial

Pride

Acceptance

Which makes it all the more difficult to disclose this information.

However, once one comes out of the Closet

it may seem that all in the world is finally right

and one can go about their new found life.

However, epistemologically speaking,

Closets are contradictory places for those who dwell in them.

According to Sedgwick,

one must stereotypically strut, parade, jaunt, traverse, traipse, promenade

  down the street, road, avenue, boulevard, rue, autobahn, esplanade

Asserting their homosexuality

or else suffer the consequence

of having to re-exit the Closet.

However, this may not be the case; it may not apply to everyone.

Having to re-emerge from the Closet,

upon every new encounter,

infers that we live in these Closets our whole life.

Once one comes out of the Closet,

one should not have to refer back to the term/ Closet/ in the same sense,

even if one is disclosing their sexual identity once more.

This is what makes the Closet a contradictory place.

You can’t be in it, yet you can’t be out of it.

Staying in the Closet

obscures you from knowing

whether everyone is treating you as straight

because you managed to convince them are you straight

Or,

if they are simply treating you as straight

to keep your façade.

This folly gives others a sort of power/

control/ capability/ endowment/ dominance/ sovereignty/ authority

over your own sexual identity.

It allows them to relish in the…

“epistemological privilege”

that your ignorance/ of their knowledge/ can afford them.

And if you do choose to come out of the Closet,

 those who once relished in their “epistemological privilege”

can choose to revoke that moment from you

by not giving up their privilege

and hoarding your sexual identity

as a secret,

a secret, to which, they have sole access to.

Closets/ come in all types, colors, names, sizes.

Armoire

Broom Closet

Cabinet

Coat Closet

Cupboard

Linen Closet

Utility Closet

Walk-in Closet

Wardrobe

Water Closet…

Just like our clothes and shoes,

We can choose to live in our Closets

and emerge when it is most opportune for us.

Or, like our skeletons,

We can choose to stay in our Closets

and suppress the secrets that lie within.

Or, like those who came before us,

We can choose to exit our Closets,

and never look back.

Sure you may have to pack a bag or two,

bring your clothes with you,

a pair of shoes possibly,

maybe a bone from that skeleton to remind you of where you came from.

But remember:

A Closet is a place of storage, first and foremost.

We shouldn’t be confined to such a place.

Not even if it is the most spacious walk in Closet

that we’ve ever created for ourselves.

Not even if our coming out moment

was the most glorious moment of our life and we wish to relive it.

For if we stay in the Closet, voluntarily or involuntarily,

We become trapped.

And if we are trapped/

Our Closets become

the den/ lair/ hideout/ a chamber of secrets/

to a wild beast.

Nature intended for beasts/ and humans alike/ to roam free.

We are not subject to confinement.

Living in a Closet,

however spacious you may have made it seem,

is a contradictory place to live:

One foot in, one foot out.

Just because you made a grand exit once,

does not mean you should have to re-experience the event again,

however glorious your experience may have been.

Simply,

Dare to be.

Step out/ don’t look back/

and close the door behind you.

Talking With My Hands

The pieces Borderlands and Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself showed the importance of understanding Intersectionality, not only in others but in defining oneself. A person is made up of many different parts- their heritage, their sexuality, gender identity, their experiences- but those are not what define them. What seems to define people these days are these unbiased, objective definitions that people see before each other. And suddenly, these are what we are. But these stories have helped me realize that this isn't true. These are merely things we have to offer, and we have to define them. We are ourselves, nothing more, nothing less.

Muriel: The Same Spelling of My Name

Audri. That’s who she was to me. Never Audre or Audrey. She was my Audri. At least for a year and a half she was. When she told me of her plans to write about us, I asked only that she remain truthful about me and our relationship. Upon my initial reading of the book, I was furious that she hadn’t. I’m not the monster she portrayed me to be. Nor was I ever. I loved Audri. So very much. She and I were compatible to a fault. We understood each other without words. We shared our poetry, our visions, and our lives. But in telling my story, I’ll do as Lewis Carroll would suggest, begin at the beginning, keep going until I reach the end, and then stop.
She was accurate in the portrayal of our meeting. I remember when Ginger first began to tell me about Audri. I was immediately enamored. Just coming off of electro-shock I’d lost the small shimmer of hope that I’d had before treatments. They call me schizophrenic. Classified as such due to my “break from reality” and “poor emotional responsiveness”. I disagree. Depressed? Probably. When asked, I tell people that prior to the treatments it felt like there was a darkness that covered me like a huge bushel basket. But there was always a small light deep within the bush that seemed to be just out of reach. After electro-shock, the bush remained but the light was gone. Along with my memories. Maybe I did have a break from reality. But all of the best minds do. My relationship with Audri is the best proof I can provide of my emotional responsiveness. The first time I spoke to her on the phone, at Ginger’s insistence, I remember the obsessive desire to meet her. We made a date at Page Three. The exact moment I began to fall? When she noticed my gambling pants. Not many people notice those things.
Our courtship went how she described it in her book as well. It was a quick fall. I wrote her letters that came from the deepest desires of my heart because with her I kept no secrets. She knew I was looking for myself. She knew how it felt to lose Naomi. I sometimes thought her to be quite mad also. Audri made me feel comfortable in leaving my treatments. Talking and spending time with her was the only therapy I felt I needed. On that New Years Eve in 1954, I knew I was going to give myself to Audri. She was my love and if her vague message of “Having rocks in her head” was any implication then I was hers as well. On January 1st of 1955, we made love and so began our life together.
It was wonderful. I split my time between Stamford and New York, my family and Audri. I would rent a room at the YWCA (to avoid her roommate) and we would spend our weekends immersed in each other’s bodies. After the incident with Rhea finding us together on the couch, and subsequently moving out, Audri and I decided to move in together. It was a gradual process because I was scared. I was leaving behind a job and my family for a young love. Maybe that’s why we faulted. Maybe we moved too fast for our relationship to keep up. But those nights we spent observing bars and those mornings scouring streets for people’s trash that we just knew we could fix up…those were the moments when I knew I made the right decision.
I guess you could say the decline in our relationship started with Lynn. She was our siren, the kryptonite of our foundation. I felt I was in the wrong for wanting her. When Audri expressed the same thoughts though, I felt an immense amount of relief. I had written about my desire for Lynn. About the hope that the three of us would be the start of a revolutionary style of living for our community. At first it seemed to go wonderfully, we shared in mental and physical emotions. But Audri always came first to me and I to her. That’s something that Lynn must’ve felt, which is probably why she took all of our money and left. That was something that was hard for both Audri and I to come back from. Audri became withdrawn. Barely speaking. She started therapy and went back to school. It was about this time that I began to realize what was happening.
I had done nothing of importance since coming to New York. On New Year’s Day, my one year anniversary with Audri, I unintentionally put the first nail in the coffin of our relationship. As we lay in bed after a long day of fellowship with our friends, Audri and I wrote our daily thoughts in our notebooks before exchanging them. I don’t remember what was written in hers because I was so focused on the pain in her eyes as she read mine. I had written of our accomplishments in 1955. On Audri’s side was her new job, starting therapy, going back to school and sending out some of her poems. My side was empty. I was holding Audri back. I was nothing next to her. She was so ambitious, so hardworking. All I could do is sometimes cook her dinner or sometimes write her poems. I was a parasite in Audri’s life. And that was something I no longer wanted to be.
When Toni came into our lives I started to feel I was worth something again. It was similar to my feelings for Lynn but these were my own, not shared by Audri. Toni and I spent lots of evenings together. I didn’t like to be alone and Audri was at school until 10pm, four nights out of the week. I had a hard time feeling like I still meant the world to her. Toni made me feel special. When I felt that I was near acting on my impulses with Toni, I approached Audri about the possibility of my having an affair. I remember entering the room with only the hope that she would express some form of jealousy or unhappiness at my request. When I put on my fake face of excitement and joy and asked her bluntly “How would you feel if Toni and I slept together?” contrary to what I desired, she looked almost elated at the fact that I asked. She never gave me a definitive answer just smiled when I told her that I had not yet climbed into bed with Toni. It was then that I knew that our relationship was unofficially on the downfall. Since Audri no longer cared for me, I looked for love elsewhere.
First was Jill. An old friend of Audri’s, Jill let us use her father’s typewriters to type our poems. The big event happened in May. After walking home from Jill’s father’s office to our apartment, Audri went straight to sleep leaving Jill and I up alone. Nothing was supposed to happen. But as Audri rejuvenated ten feet away, I expressed my discontent with my current relationship. It started with Jill comforting me and progressed to…well, Audri was correct in what she heard. I felt terrible about it. But Jill was there. Supportive and reassuring. The next day neither Audri nor myself said anything about it. However, we both knew that she knew. We made love for the last time shortly after that night.
I’m not sure exactly when I fell out of love with Audri but Joan made me feel things that Audri no longer did. At this point the hallucinations had returned and I was trying hard to keep them from Audri. I was barely eating simply because I often times forgot to. I didn’t care much about my appearance anymore. And Joan wanted to be with me regardless of this. Audri and I never officially broke up. It was just an unspoken understanding. I began to spend more time at Joan’s. Sometimes I would look down onto the street and see Audri pacing back and forth in front of the apartment. My heart broke for her but I didn’t know what to do. Every time I was in her vicinity, she cut me down with her words and I just stood there and took it. I knew I was hurting her but I couldn’t stop.
When Joan left me I fell apart. I should’ve known I wasn’t good enough for her. She left behind a swanky , classy apartment and woman just to dally around with a failure of a psychotic who can’t work or even remember a good chunk of her life. It was too good to be true. Out of women to comfort me, I turned to the next best thing…liquor. I drunk myself into a stupor every night to help me forget the shambles that my life was in. I didn’t want to remember anything so I burned everything. Sometimes as I sat in bars, head held in my hands and vision blurred, Audri would come take care of me. After awhile, she stopped. But I couldn’t blame her.