do I have what it takes to give...
2004-04-10|10:09 p.m.

The invitation came. Her name and parents' address on a PETA sticker in the top left corner: "Buy cruelty-free products" in blue. The perfect circle stamp in the perfect center: Milwaukee, WI. 8 Apr 2004. My name in handwriting so neat it might be simulated; my name as I claimed it, the surname she shares. The apartment here, and two love stamps, cancelled with a gray drawing of Shrek and Donkey and the words, "Greetings From Far Far Away." Not so far today. I flip the envelope over, and in the center of the top triangle read the numbers and letters that make up home to the post office, the mapmakers, the outside world. Sealed with scotch tape, in all likelihood the handiwork of her 'beloved' ocd. Not so far away today; I flip the envelope over and touch home. And I don't want to open it, I don't want to tear it, I don't want to pull out cold paper and read the copied print. I just want to hold it, now, and imagine sitting on a different bed, sliding my fingernail under one crease or another, gently unwrapping the note, not even trembling when I read.

It will be the shining silver scrawl and warm glow of the real world, magic incarnate, in corporate disguise. It will read, "My dear, we're throwing a party, and you've stayed away too long." "We haven't had the chance to call you your real name." "Mary, don't you miss us? Of course you do! Come visit." "We hugged you not-goodbye over two years ago; it's time we hug you hello again." It will read, "Come home."

And I'll glance in the mirror to play with my hair, notice the broadened body of the girl-becoming-woman. The quaint color on a formerly monochrome form. The quiet wait of self-restraint and the quirky freedoms that inhabit me. Tomorrow is Easter; I've another gathering to go to... brunch in Brigadoon. And I can get through that, I think, if I remember what I know to remember next weekend. I can get through I think, chin up, voice genuine, need lovingly accomodated.

I'm meeting my dad's relatives, my relatives, almost for the first time now. And I'm meeting my family for the first time Since. And I think they'll like me. I think they'll want to; they'll assume they do. I know I'll be loved at this rather scary holiday tomorrow, by virtue of blood, and I know I'll be love when I go home next weekend. And I like to think they'll shriek to see me, that their smiles will start excited and grow into quiet. That first they will boundlessly know me, and then check to know I am real.

~me

Latest
Older
Profile
Rings
Cast
Mail
Notes
Sign
Oodles
Chord
Nourish
Caged
Design
Diaryland