Winter, a reflection/Pretty in Pink (Partially music)

 Have you ever considered the lyrics to Pretty in Pink? Here they are if you haven't.

Caroline laughs, and it's raining all day
Loves to be one of the girls
She lives in the place in the side of our lives
Where nothing is ever put straight

She turns herself 'round
And she smiles and she says
"This is it, that's the end of the joke"
And loses herself in her
Dreaming and sleep, and her
Lovers walk through in their coats

Pretty in pink, isn't she?
Pretty in pink, isn't she?

All of her lovers all
Talk of her notes and the
Flowers that they never sent
And wasn't she easy
Isn't she pretty in pink?

The one who insists he was
First in the line is the
Last to remember her name
He's walking around in this
Dress that she wore
She is gone, but the
Joke's the same

Pretty in pink, isn't she?
Pretty in pink, isn't she?

Caroline talks to you
Softly sometimes, she says,
"I love you" and "Too much"
She doesn't have anything
You want to steal
Well, nothing you can touch

She waves
She buttons your shirt
The traffic is waiting outside
She hands you this coat
She give you her clothes
These cars collide

Pretty in pink, isn't she?
Pretty in pink, isn't she?

I feel this. I've always felt easy to leave. I've always felt like I live just to the side of other people's lives, not really a part of anything. I know I can be seen as cold and distant, but I love too easily, so I stay away. I'm not sure anyone really knows me, which is my fault. The people who knew me best are gone, and I don't meet new people easily. The person who knows me best, currently, the most attached I am to anyone, is...complicated, to say the least. I've lost quite a few people throughout the quarantine, most have walked away. I get it. It's fine, mostly. I do care. I just don't know how to change it. A couple have died. A friend from Atlanta left this world. Maybe friend is too strong of a word? I helped move a washing machine for her once. She was friends with my ex for many years. She always smiled and hugged me. She used to grab my face and look into my eyes and tell me I was beautiful. I was warned about her when I first moved there. Drama, constant drama, she lies, she's untrustworthy, she just wants attention, attention, attention. She'll never "have it together." Many people doubted how sick she was before she died. I hadn't talked to her in a while, the last time I saw her she was neither sober nor exactly...clean. I hugged her just the same. She looked in my eyes, holding my face, and told me I was beautiful, and kissed me on the lips. Once upon a time, she organized events in Atlanta. Love her or hate her, almost everyone knew her, in certain scenes. She never caused me any drama, but her passing has made me think, very hard, about how I'll be remembered, and it makes me very sad. I think I'll mostly be remembered as whining about a broken heart or stumbling drunk in a dark bar. I don't even drink often. Only in bars. Makes me hurt (physically) less so I can dance more. But I know that's how people see me. I'm more than that, I promise. I wish I could say I've had a positive impact on anyone, but I don't think I have. I'm not particularly good at anything useful. I like making things, but they are generally mediocre at best. I live in the space at the side of your life, where nothing is ever put straight.

I wish I had kept in touch with her better. I know she found some happiness in the last few years. I wish I could tell her that I smile when I picture her face, so much closer to mine than I usually let people get. 

I hope you smile when you think of me. I hope I made you feel beautiful, even for a moment. 

* This isn't a goodbye, it's a reflection. I don't know how I feel right now. Re starting or starting psychiatric meds, there's always and adjustment period when you sometimes get worse, before the benefits start. Going through an emotional time while two weeks in is confusing. I don't know what feelings are real. I'm not sure that I am real. I'm a mostly rational crazy person. 

End of the night dancing with her memory song. Not a memory unique to me, by any means. 

She's Gone

  My time being a caregiver for my grandmother is done. She's gone. She started having a pain in her right arm in February, she died May 19, 2019. I spent a lot of April and May by her bedside in different hospital rooms. Despite my best efforts, she died alone. I'm pretty sure I haven't told anyone that, at all, in this process. She wasn't aware. She hadn't been aware since Friday, she died at 2:45 on a Sunday afternoon. She had been moaning that morning, so they gave her a morphine drip. The moaning stopped, then so did she.

  I'm not handling this well, at all. A lot of my stuff has been moved, but I still live in her house for now, for complicated reasons. There are things that I should be doing, that I'm not. I'm just, not. Right now, I'm sitting in the den where she spent most of her time. Sitting where I would sit on the couch, reading or playing with my phone. Her recliner is in front of me, to the right. Where she would sit and watch TV, and do the crossword puzzle from the paper every morning. I still start everyday by making coffee, and getting the paper from the paper box at the end of the driveway. I bring it in and sit it on the arm of her chair, then I pick it up and wander around aimlessly with it. There's a TV table in front of her chair. There's a pair of shoes under it, from the last time she walked in and sat down and took them off. That would have been in April.

  I'm looking for a job. I don't know what I want to do. Well, that's not true. I know what I really want to do, fairly passionately, but it requires some learning and a trade school degree. That's not really possible right now, money wise. Groceries are barely possible money wise right now. I haven't gotten paid the entire time I took care of her, I'll figure it out. I need to be making stuff to sell, but my jewelry stuff has already made the move that I haven't, including the already made stuff. The candle stuff is here. I just, haven't. I don't know why I can't just do the things that I need to. I'm such a fucking wreck. I fake being okay pretty well in public, though, so, no, I'm probably not going to cry on you or be a big drag.

  About this blog, it's kind of a diary. I write more than is public. I do know people that follow it, because I'm not this communicative in "real life." Well, usually not. Also, while I am a wreck, not everything sucks. I do smile. I do write. I do see a couple of people kind of regularly. One of those has brought more comfort and patience and steadiness into my life in the past few weeks than I could ever have imagined, and I am imminently grateful. No words can express it, really. And no, this isn't passive communication, they know damn well how much I appreciate them, or I hope so. I say it a lot. Probably not enough. I'm interested in actually taking pictures again. I'm interested in other things that I haven't been interested in a while. My life is a little less flat than it has been in a long time.

  I've had a few people ask if I'm moving back to Atlanta, since I moved back to take care of Gramma. Right now, I couldn't even if I wanted to. Which I don't. Other than people, I can count the things I miss about Atlanta on one fucking hand. One is pretty big, though. I miss having good dance events to go to, more often than they are here. There are awesome events here, don't get me wrong, but there isn't one night of any week that I know that I can get that release. I'm pretty much a Don Henley song, all I want to do is dance. All of the weekly nights here have failed, due to disinterest, older goths, I don't know. This literally causes me pain. I guess it evens out to maybe twice a month, but still. Given my choice, I'd dance five hours a night, twice a week in a club. Yes, I know I can dance alone, at home. I do. It's different. In Atlanta, I know that at least each Saturday I could be wherever VJ Anthony is spinning. Well, it's the same place each Saturday, just the theme changes. I miss Coffin Classics night, like, whoa. So much. NC has a more Industrial crowd, for the most part. Even though I'm an introvert, and I don't like to be touched, dance floor energy feeds me, even on slower nights. I also miss really good bagels, though my very favorite place there is gone, now. I miss being able to see the whale sharks whenever I wanted. I spent so many hours just sitting there, staring. I miss Community Q BBQ, though the recipe for the best mac and cheese ever, from there, is hysterically readily available, and super easy. I don't miss traffic, hand gun fire (we get rifle and shotgun fire pretty often, here in the sticks), or the chance of running into someone with whom I have quite a bit of common interests. At least I used to, anyway. Who knows, anymore? Some people shift with their company more than others. So, probably not. I do wish I could visit more, say, every Coffin Classics Saturday, say, but I can't right now. Ha, just the two times a year I'm guaranteed to run into the aforementioned soul for twelve hours a day or so. I'm giving all of that some thought, too.

Enough for now. I will leave you with the eulogy I read for my Gramma, though some of you have seen it.

Dorothy Lee Whitley
3/14/1931-5/19/2019

My Gramma loved a lot of things.
She loved people and laughing and talking.
She loved tigers, especially white ones.
She loved gardening and all plants and flowers.
She loved country music and dancing.
She loved her family, her mama and her sisters.
I heard her say, more than once, that Big Mama was too good for this world.
She loved her kids, her grandkids, and her great grandkids.
Heaven help anyone standing between her and Avery.
She loved coloring books and crossword puzzles and chocolate.

I could stand here all day and tell you the things she loved.
I could even tell you the things that she hated,
But this probably isn’t the time for that.

The truth is, everyone you meet takes away with them a different version of you.
No matter how consistent you are, people will view you through the filter of their own views,
Personality, experiences, and even mood.

So, I’m going to tell you some of the things that I took from her,
Some of the things that make me, me.
I would not be who I am, without her.

I worked in photo labs inside of camera stores for almost twenty years.
Photography has always been a passion of mine.
By the time I was 10, Gramma had taught me f-stops and shutter speeds and framing a scene.
I could selectively focus a manual camera.
She taught me the right combinations of factors, and then taught me that the “right” way
Was not always the best way to achieve the image you wanted.

I am an intensely geeky individual, with a deep love of science fiction.
Gramma loved PBS, so I grew up watching Doctor Who and Dark Shadows on summer afternoons.
When Doctor Who restarted in 2005, I knew the stories, the incarnations of the Doctor, and the old villains.
I grew up with a Gramma who watched with me, and then chase me around the yard with a whisk in one hand and a sink plunger in the other, imitating one of the robot villains.

I love the sky, day or night.
I always know the phase of the moon.
Because of Gramma, I can look at the stars and point out Cassiopeia, seated on her throne, or the Pleiades, and tell you their stories.
She taught me to always look up.
She loved satellites crossing the sky every bit as much as she loved shooting stars.
She taught me about space and space exploration.
During the day, she always looked for shapes in the clouds, and would make up little stories about them.
I still do.
On days like today, she would say that God had pulled a blanket across the sky.
I can’t tell you how many hours I spent with her, when I was young, laying on our backs on the pier at Bath Creek, looking at the stars or clouds, and listening to the water lapping at the pilings.
It’s still one of my favorite sounds, to this day.

About that pier.
She taught me the joy of running, full speed, down the lawn and right off the end of it.
Just jump.
From this I learned that you don’t have to always see what is waiting for you clearly.
I also learned that the pain of jellyfish stings is temporary, and will be followed by ice cold watermelon from the cooler, always with a sprinkle of salt.
Just like hers.

I might not dress like anyone else, or make the same choices, but I’ve always known that Gramma loved and supported me, no matter how strange I might be.

She taught me to argue, just to get a better understanding of a situation.

It was a privilege to be able to spend the last two and a half years with her.

She was simply the best Gramma for me, and I will miss her forever,
And always carry her in my heart.

Hug Your Friends, Or, A Love Letter to a Man I've Never Been in Love WIth

So, here we are. One year ago, I was counting down to going to Atlanta to see Gary Numan. I was so excited. Best laid plans, yeah?
It was the beginning of the worst year of my life, not even being melodramatic. I literally almost died this year. Like, honestly almost died. By the anniversary of that, I don’t think I’ll even be able to see the scar that saved my life, it’s so wee. There have been good moments, sure. I’ve even made new friends and such. But December 10, 2017 started a vortex of suck. I lost what I honestly thought was my forever human in a disastrous way. It left me far more broken than I can describe. It left me completely alone. It’s not that I believe that I’m not worthy of love, I know that I am. I’m just not sure that I can do it again. I am a whole, complete, person on my own, I don’t need anything or anyone to “complete me.” I find the thought ludicrous. Several people have told me that they don’t know what happened, really. That’s true. I’m not a victim. I made wrong choices. I fully trusted someone with my heart. Turns out, that was a bad plan. This is what I will say, as plenty of you are friends with him, this isn’t a secret. He has an addiction to pain. As a mate, I don’t scream and yell. I don’t try to wound another for my own leverage. He found someone better suited to his needs. He hurt everyone involved tremendously in the process. As he says a lot, just like Bill Belichek says, it is what it is. I don’t hate her. I don’t hate him. I am tired of being nice. How should you be expected to treat your junkie ex’s dealer? I love him. I always will. I will never be with him, no matter what. I have no intention of being with anyone in that way, ever again. I’m broken, heart and soul. Just as much today as I was then. Just, broken. But, that isn’t the focus of this missive.
I don’t remember much about the actual show, I was slowly dying inside. I know that I have an autographed copy of Savage. That’s cool. Everyone involved with this idiotic farce was in the same room for the show. I lived in Atlanta for six years. I was desperately looking for anyone to talk to that I knew. Not like, serious, meaningful talk, just to say hi. A reason to walk away from him, as I went to the show with him, and was leaving with him. I saw entirely one person. Which brings us to the point. You ever know someone who affected you profoundly, but probably has no idea? This is kind of about that. It just needed that much setup. But wait! There’s more setup!
When I was a young goth, I loved going dancing. I lived in NC, but I went to Georgia a lot. Fun Fact: I am the only member of my direct family for many, many years not to be born in eastern NC. Generations, even. I was born in Duluth, GA, because my mom got pissed off and moved away. We moved back when I was five, so I grew up here, but spent a bit of time down there, because that’s where her two best friends live. Well, when I was of travelling on my own age, I discovered The Chamber in Atlanta. It was my super happy place. I have never cared about dancing by myself, but sometimes it’s just nice to be surrounded by a lot of people really digging the same thing at the same time. And at The Chamber, there were so many boys that actually danced, and danced well. It was like The Fallout Shelter here, but four times the size and people. Maybe five. There was one, especially. He was like a work of art. I could watch him for hours. Not even in a lustful sort of way, just like art. When I was living with and married to the first ex husband (it’s a joke, haha. There has only been one,) he frequently spent his nights elsewhere. On more than one occasion, I would drive to Atlanta, dance, and come back, and no one ever knew that I was gone. That kind of thing is very easy, when you are young. When I was stressed out, I would go watch this guy dance. Never tried to talk to him, nit sure that it ever crossed my mind. Years pass, and I end up getting pissed off and moving to Atlanta. Perhaps it’s genetic. Anyway, I go dancing, like I am wont to do. As often as I can. One night, I’m in the parking lot of the bar, and my most favorite car drives up. I’m finishing my makeup, as I do, in my car, and guess who gets out of that car? Right?!?! It’s him! So I go in, and I’m not sure it is him. Until he dances. He dances like I do, not really looking at anything around him, except for collision detection purposes. Completely lost in the music. He dances perfectly. He’s beautiful, perfectly. He really is flawless. One of the top three most beautiful men that I have met, ever. Like, ever. Oooh, but I haven’t met him, yet, right? So, one night, I walk up to him, because I was drunk, and I learned what it was like to have that brilliant smile aimed at me. Also like me, his neutral expression is very neutral, but if he makes eye contact with someone familiar, the smile is nearly blinding, it lights up his whole face. He smiles with his whole body. So, I’m fuck-it-all drunk, and I walk up and say hi, and tell him my name. He tells me his ( I knew it already, we’ll call him Kevin.) I tell him. That I used to drive for six hours to dance, and to watch him dance. Then, I quietly freak out. What if he’s not very nice? His (then) girlfriend was a customer of mine, she wasn’t ever very nice. Oh god, I’m thinking, this is why they tell you not to meet your idols, because you never know what people are really like. He’s not an idol, he’s just so intimidatingly perfect. Again, I wasn’t flirting, his (then) girlfriend was a customer of mine, and she was so pretty. Me? I’m forgettable, at best, maybe completely ignorable. I’m usually surprised when people remember me. I’m not pretty, not like that. Different league. Fuck, different sport, even. My attraction to him has never been a crush, not lust, not physical. He’s just like, a little sun in any room. So, I’m still freaking out, and wondering where I’m going to find a hole to crawl into in a second floor bar. It seems like forever since the stupid words came out of my stupid mouth. Complete suspended animation. The air has become jello. I might drown. (I don’t people well.) So, after fourteen years (or two seconds) he smiles. At me. And laughs, and hugs me, a real hug, and tells me that that is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to him. From then on, as long as I lived in Atlanta, when we were in the same place, he would smile and wave, occasionally I got a hug, if we were close. Y’all know, I’m completely weird about touching about 90% of the human population, even casually. He seems to fall into the 10% that don’t make me cringe. It turns out, he’s honestly nice. And so fucking smart. I read his facebook arguments, he’s always logical and not condescending. He doesn’t call people names. He’s smart and funny and gorgeous and classy and perfect. He dances like an angel. This is the strangest love letter to someone I’ve never been in love with, or felt that way about, ever. I told you there was more setup.
December 10, 2017. Gary Numan show at The Masquerade (new location.) Nothing makes sense. I’ve been stress crying and puking. I am literally falling apart, holding myself together with my own arms wrapped around me, trying to act okay. Looking for a reason to walk away from the ex. Any reason.
There he is. Kevin. I walk up in front of him and give a silly little wave. He smiles that smile at me, a real smile, and gives me a hug. A real hug. A hug I don’t back out of, which is uncharacteristic. We make small talk, he asks about NC, I point out that he’s tall (in case he’s never noticed, I really don’t people well!) I go to walk away, and get another small hug.
Are we friends? Superficially, sure. We aren’t close. I always see him dancing, in my head, when I hear Cuts You Up or Fade To Grey, I’m not sure why those two songs, specifically. But I will always remember that moment of kindness, that moment that literally held me together when all I wanted to do was fall apart. I thought it couldn’t get worse (it did.) I don’t remember as much of the show as I should. But I will always remember the hug that grounded me. He probably doesn’t even remember that I was there. I have no words for what that hug meant. I actually hug more people now, because I know what that one hug meant for me, in a moment of (hidden) crisis.
Be kind, y’all.

Current State 7/13/18

It’s Friday the 13th! Thirteen is one of my favorite numbers. Currently doing work stuff, listening to Puscifer in the head phones, thinking about tattoos. My next two tattoos are planned (one is even paid for, I just need some gas money, you know, if you want to donate some gas money, or buy some stuff, that would rock!) Then I want a banner with purple roses that says Deeds Not Words. It is not only one of the most important tenets of my life, it’s a suffragette thing. Then, I think I might actually want a Queen B tattoo, which is a Puscifer thing. I’ve never seriously considered a band tattoo before.

Tonight is a dancing night. Dancing nights make me happy. I’ve been paying a little more attention to my outfits and makeup, lately, just for me. I actually have days when I don’t completely hate my face, lately. I took a bunch of silly filtered selfies the other day, even. I know what I’m wearing tonight. Pretty sure about the makeup, unless I do something completely unlike me and go to Ulta and get something new. I suffer extreme guilt if I buy myself anything like that. I don’t even know if I’m going to see many people that I know tonight. While I am still maintaining conscious, chosen singlehood, there is someone I might not mind running into. I may have a tiny crush, of the basest most physical sort. I may not want to date, but I also am not up for the nunnery.

I’m in a pretty good mood. Life in dementia land will get it’s own post soon, It’s getting harder and harder to navigate.

I have quite a bit of stuff to take pictures of and put up for sale, mostly earrings. I’m having a hard time not becoming totally freaked out by trying to sell the stuff that I make. I’m keeping an eye out for smaller vendor opportunities and finding places that might carry it. Once upon a time, I had a partner in this venture, and he was supposed to do all of the peopley bits. He didn’t really. It was the first really big lie between us. That I know of, anyway. It’s back to being all mine now, so this time, the failure will be all mine, too. (I’m not that upset about it currently, it just causes me some anxiety.

So, yeah. Today, I’m better than most days.

(Music) Dance With Me

What song I consider my “favorite” kind of changes with my mood. Music can drastically change my mood, as well. I keep seeing this meme on facebook that says if you want to know a woman’s mood, don’t ask her how she’s doing, ask her what she’s listening to. Currently, I’m listening to a near constant stream of Mindless Self Indulgence, so I guess I’m feeling juvenile and angry and  frustrated in every way possible? Oh, sounds legit, actually.

So, back on track, (I have ping pong brain a lot of the time,) it is quite rare that Dance With Me by Lords of the New Church is not at the top or in second place. Dance With Me is a perfect fantasy. It is one of my favorite songs to dance to, as well. (My most melodramatic goth dancing is always done to Slice of Life by Bauhaus, however. I need a lot of room for that one.) I even like the Nouvelle Vague cover.

Funny thing, I always dance alone.

Lords of the New Church also taught me to take head injuries seriously.

Dance With Me Lyrics

Let's dance little stranger

Show me secret sins

Love can be like bondage

Seduce me once again

Burning like an angel

Who has heaven in reprieve

Burning like the voodoo man

With devils on his sleeve

Won't you dance with me

In my world of fantasy?

Won't you dance with me?

Ritual fertility.

Like an apparition

You don't seem real at all

Like a premonition

Of curses on my soul

The way I want to love you

Well it could be against the law

I've seen you in a thousand minds

You've made the angels fall

Won't you dance with me

In my world of fantasy?

Won't you dance with me?

Ritual fertility.

Oh come on little stranger

There's only one last dance

Soon the music's over

Let's give it one more chance.

Won't you dance with me

In my world of fantasy?

Won't you dance with me?

Ritual fertility.

Take a chance with me

In my world of fantasy.

Won't you dance with me?

Ritual fertility.

(Music) Mezzanine

I think about music a lot. I rarely get to talk about music. So I’ll blog about it.

I usually take songs on their own individual merit, which is actually how this very writing started. It was going to be solely about the song Inertia Creeps by Massive Attack, from the album Mezzanine. Which led me to Risingson, another track off of the same album. Then I listened to Angel, and here we are, with the whole album. Have you listened to Mezzanine? If not, you should, right now. I can wait.

Generally, in my blogs, I don’t use people’s names, because even though this is all my story, I am actually pretty private, and I’m not here to name names. Here’s the exception.  My friend Joey has influenced my taste in music more than any other human in my life. When we met, I already had my love of The Cure and Depeche Mode, Rosetta Stone, and Sisters of Mercy. I love to dance, more than almost anything on the planet. Joey gave me so much more (he’s a DJ) and loud, so that I could feel it. He gave me Sneaker Pimps, which led to my love of IAMX. He has played all kinds of nonsense for me, over the years, just so I could hear it really loud. Without him, I might me missing so much from my life, like Faster Kill Pussycat by Paul Oakenfold. Joey has affected my enjoyment of my world and my life more than pretty much anyone else, and I can never, ever express how much I appreciate it, or how much it has changed me. There is not a single day that I don’t hear something in my headphones that Joey didn’t introduce me to in the past 25 years.

Joey gave me the song Angel.

Once upon a time, we had the best Goth Nights in the world. We even got videos. Way back, I rarely talked to anyone when I went out. I don’t think I talked to Joey, even, for a few years. We had a giant screen for videos, too. The first time I heard Angel, I stopped dead, on the dancefloor, and stared at the video. I assume it was 1998, around when the album came out. The video is dark, and a little frightening, and completely compelling. As a first track, Angel sets the tone for the whole album. It’s dark and slow and gritty and obsessive. Technically, this album is thier first excursion into trip hop and heavier electronica. I don’t know what either of those things mean. I just know what I like.

I’m not taking the tracks in order, but, Angel is the first. Almost everyone is familiar with at least part of Teardrop, as it was used for the opening credits of the TV show House. As a track, it’s fine. Exchange is one of the most fun things that I listen too in headphones. It’s laid back, and if I close my eyes, it feels like some sort of really cool, laid back fairy is smoking dope and circling my head. Dissolved Girl starts with a panic attack pulse into really deep bass. The lyrics will feel familiar to anyone who has done something that was much wanted, but ill advised. “I need a little love to ease the pain.” Purely physical, not entirely passionate, sexual, but not necessarily relief.

I enjoy the other tracks, but I want to get to my favorite, Inertia Creeps. Now, I happen to know that Robert Del Naja wrote it about a relationship that had recently ended. It feels like it, like yearning for something that isn’t in reach anymore. I love Del Naja’s voice. I love everything about him, actually. He is an amazing artist, and one way or another, without him, we might not have Banksy. I digress.

Inertia Creeps and Risingson are both aural sex, to me. There are few songs that have an actual, physical effect on me. These two songs might as well be really heavy foreplay. I dance to both of these with my eyes shut and belly dancer hips. These two songs describe in my head, with sound, the place I would like to be. A dark bar, half sex club, dark booths, shiny black vinyl and soft black velvet,  bass you can feel, dancing like no one else is even there, unless of course, you have someone to dance with. Boots spinning on concrete floors. Risingson even has a touch of that familiar anxiety, why am I here, now? These two songs are why I want to learn to hula hoop. They make me want to have someone to grab by the hips and hold on to. The line “toy like people make me boy like,” always makes me smile, you want to be a toy, I’ll play.

Gotta go dance around for a bit.

Thank you, Joey, for giving me Inertia Creeps, hella loud, in a dark room.

My Caterpillar Girl

There’s a woman in my life that I call my first girl crush. Clearly, I have known her for a very long time. While she is, undoubtedly, my first girl crush, I loved another female long before even her. Certain songs will always make me think of certain people, or situations.

I am pretty sure that this is true of most people. I started listening to The Cure in middle school, but I didn’t meet my Caterpillar Girl until high school. I get asked, upon occasion, how I came out as pansexual. I never did, really. I just realized when I understood the concept, that I always had been. I felt no confusion, or shame, the first time a girl kissed me, any more than the first time a boy kissed me, or the first time a person who wasn’t sure yet kissed me. I fall in love with people, not genitalia. It’s funny, what I am physically attracted to in men is much easier to define than what attracts me to women. But, I digress. I never kissed my Caterpillar Girl. She was my friend, though I now know that I was in love with her. She was my best friend, though I was never hers. High School is hell, you know. I went to a smallish high school. There weren’t that many freaks, so we stuck together. I know a lot of people who say they don’t know anyone from high school, anymore. Honestly, for me, most of those freaks that I needed and loved so much back then are still around and about in my life. For that, I am eternally grateful. My Caterpillar Girl was beautiful, she still is. We are similar in sense of humor and temperament, though she always leaned a little more to hippieness, where I went punk. Thirty years later, I can still tell you what she was wearing the first time that I saw her, her hair falling across one eye, just like mine. Okay. It was the late 80s. A lot of people’s hair fell across one eye. Being so similar in ways made high school, difficult. I have never been much of a casual dater, even in adulthood. Even in adulthood, she and I have been involved with the same men, at different or coinciding times, more than I have been involved with those who never knew her. No, we never had any kind of physical relationship. But I did crave being near her. My high school “sweet heart,” my then future exhusband, was always jealous of how I felt about her, and used it to tear me down, sometimes. He would hang out with her, and tell me how pretty she was, and how he thought I was pretty, too, even if no one else thought I was as pretty as her. If I couldn’t do something that he wanted to do, he would say that it’s okay, she would think he was important enough to spend time with him. But, I was in love with him, he told me so, and it was eventually true. He made me resent her. I carry a fuckton of guilt about it, even now. Things happened. Things unraveled. And one day, she was far away. High School ended. Life marched on. I married him. I knew when she came back, but I was embarrassed beyond belief at my actions. At not standing up for her. At picking the ‘wrong’ side. Then, I went away. And came back. Six months after I moved back, yes, I could tell you the date, I was at my favourite place (a bar) to do my favorite thing (dance) and there she was, twenty six years later. With one of the same friends we still shared from high school. I smiled. She smiled. I lowered my eyes and walked away. Her facial expressions still the same, her laugh the same. At some point during that night, I drunkenly crawled across a picnic table, in short skirt and boots, just to tell her that I had never not loved her. We are Facebook friends. I see her here and there. We chat. I have no idea what she actually thinks of me, now. I am clearly not trying to hide who she is, even though I have never mentioned her name in this. Do I want to have any sort of conversation about this with her? Not really. It was a long time ago. I complicated everything even further, like I do, in recent times. I’m not going out of my way to point her to this, at all. I will just still smile at the memes she posts. The memes that are so like the ones that I post. We listened to a lot of music in high school, driving, hanging out. There are songs that remind me of all of those places, and people, and specific moments, trapped in amber in my mind like personal music videos. We listened to a lot of The Cure. Sometimes, I wish she knew how very, very sorry that I am. That I will always be. A few of my happy places are memories of listening to music, much too loud, in the car. Dancing barefoot in the rose garden, peasant skirts damp with dew, or from playing in the fountain. I was listening to Spotify the other day, and Caterpillar Girl came on, and I smiled. She flickers, and she’s beautiful, she glows inside my head, and she will always be my Caterpillar Girl, even now that she is fully a butterfly. Caterpillar Girl lyrics The Cure Flicka flicka flicka Here you are Cata cata cata Caterpillar girl Flowing in And filling up my hopeless heart Oh never never go Dust my lemon lies With powder pink and sweet The day I stop Is the day you change And fly away from me You flicker And you're beautiful You glow inside my head You hold me hypnotized I'm mesmerized Your flames The flames that kiss me dead