Looking Back With a Smirk

I am a notoriously unsentimental person.

I have led a life where most of my possessions would fit in the back seat of a car; anything larger I am always willing to leave behind. As I sold my last car in 2009, I no longer have that metric to use. I now own a small closet full of clothes, a handful of books, a few pieces of art, a 65 inch television, a king sized bed, and one half of a few tasteful pieces of furniture.

Long gone are scrapbooks, high school yearbooks, stacks of vinyl and other mementos. I marvel at people who still have baby books, report cards, childhood sports jerseys. I have always had a lifestyle that could be ripped from the ground and transplanted on a whim. I once burned a wedding dress I never wore in our fire pit.

I’m not made of wood and I do keep a light on for moments of nostalgia. I certainly enjoy revisiting pictures on occasion or a retelling of a memory, preferably if it’s humorous and/or doesn’t age well and the teller leans into the awkwardness. But those who cling to the past often come off mawkish to me, perhaps because their memories often don’t seem particularly magical in the recounts. And I’m all out of time for those filled with “woulda, coulda, shoulda” in regards to their past.

Of late I’ve been even more forward-focused…there is no time to cry over spilled days of running a 5K after drinking boxed wine all night. Is that the expression? Regardless, I prefer to look ahead at my glamorous future full of practicing retirement and physical therapy, where I feel at home with my fellow bench warmers in the sport of life.

Hey, they didn’t call me Daria at Stewardess Bootcamp for no reason.

I recently had an al fresco lunch in San Diego with my first legit adult boyfriend. We met on a cruise ship when I was 20 and he was 28; a vacation gift to celebrate my completion of college. I moved to Los Angeles after knowing this man for less than a week.

Los Angeles was a stark contrast to my native Seattle. Everyone was superficially sunny and high-spirited and they all wanted to hug me upon our first meeting. I didn’t care for it. The Nordic/Asian temperaments that rule Pacific Northwesterners do not create touchy-feely folks by nature and the Seattle Freeze is most definitely a thing.

Because my cruise ship companion (I’ll call him “Mark” because that is his name) was afflicted with the same wanderlust weirdness as yours truly, we relocated to Virginia City, Nevada. A town of less than a thousand misfits on a mountain still clinging to mining-boom-era glory.

The years we spent there were filled with, in no particular order: dogs, wood stoves, hopes, waterbeds, drugs, deconstructions and reconstructions of a 90 year old house, a ever-revolving collection of cars and jobs, police scanners, dreams, fire fighting gear, U2’s Joshua Tree on repeat and approximately a million and one Camel cigarettes smoked while we attempted to solve the world’s problems. There was something exhilarating about being twenty-something and not settling for choosing to be shackled to both to a 9-5 desk and another human as the finish line. It was officially the road less traveled with no speed limits.

In the days after Mark and I recently compared recollections, I’ve spent a lot of hours thinking about the me of 40 years ago. A girl with a mop of messy permed hair and too much eye makeup, shoving her red Levis and Payless Shoes in a bag to escape her starchy “What would the neighbors think?” suburban existence.

Mark’s parents were the first true parental figures in my life. They were a nice Jewish couple in the San Fernando valley. They accepted me right away. They spoke their opinions in strong voices, they were affectionate with one another and with me, they were constantly communicating their various thoughts and feelings ALL THE TIME.

That little Seattle girl did not know what to do with that. I was raised in a house of pleasantries where one can only passive-aggressively hint at one’s thoughts and feelings, if one dared to have any. If you did, you just hoped someone very special could read your fucking mind and act accordingly. Officially 100% not effective, BTW.

My mother and my stepfather never tried to appeal to me on any kind of individual level. I was told to never come home pregnant or in a cop car, otherwise I was a free range teenager with a disgust for the bourgeoise. I went to a high school where kids complained about getting the wrong Porsche on their 16th birthday. I was an Ally Sheedy in a sea of Molly Ringwalds.

Perhaps having parents who expected me to assume the role of a silent partner from the jump gave me a sense of fearlessness. I had ridden to school five days a week for two years listening to elevator music in my step-father’s Peugeot 505; two years where I could count the words we exchanged on one hand and still have fingers left. How much more dismal could it get? I was already quietly absorbing emotional responsibility for every “let’s not speak about this again” calamity, what was the worst thing that could happen?

In discussing the last 30 years with Mark, I learned bad things happened to both of us. The types of heartbreaks that result when you swing for the fences, when you dare to continue to push outside your comfort zone. We discussed our choices in life, both career and personal. Neither of us were mired in the notion of poor choices; they were just the choices we made with the cards we had to play at the time. Just as my physical therapist insists that my left shoulder is not my BAD shoulder, it’s simply the shoulder that currently needs more attention. I endeavor to look at my aging body parts and my past decisions as neither good or bad, but simply information to use to move forward.

Looking in the rear view for an extended period, something I started this post telling you I tend to avoid, made me feel unexpectedly gratified. In the 13 safe years I spent in my next long term relationship, I now see that I chose that world because of the calm it provided. Calm that kept a lid on my desire to stir things up. Calm disguised as a warm blanket to pacify my need to scream at the top of my lungs. A mundane state of emergency cloaked in being a grown up.

When I broke out of that situation, I spent a fair amount of time drunkenly grieving what was lost. I recall coming home from a night out in Chicago and dialing my ex very late while smoking a cigarette next to a dumpster and proclaiming, “I REALLY HATE YOU FOR WASTING ALL THE YEARS I WAS YOUNG AND PRETTY.” Ugh. But in that ugly sentiment, there was new life. There was experiencing a feeling and standing behind it and letting the house burn down around me. There was recognition that I still had all the skills and tenacity to make a life that belonged to me and no one else. I had played the cards I had the best I could. Nothing was wasted, every step brought me here.

Despite my age and my physical challenges, the flame of that girl with the wild hair who took off to move in with a man she knew for less than a week still burns. It was rewarding to acknowledge that we both still share a similar worldview…let’s call it sparkling nihilism? Anarchistic acceptance? A reality-based case of the FUCK ITs?

I concede that my cynicism is often a by-product of disappointed periods of idealism. But I’m still out here asking “What’s the worst thing that could happen?” and not asking who’s going to let me, but who’s going to stop me. And if I care about you I will hug the living fuck out of you when I see you whether you like it or not. I’m sorry and you’re welcome.

Hey, wanna celebrate/tolerate Mother’s Day with some whip smart women telling tiny tales? OF COURSE YOU DO. I’ll be there with a mini mom missive. Mark your calendar for May 16th and subscribe to Wham! Bam! Thank You! Slam! or buy tickets to the event here.

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