I don’t think any one place sees more of my emotions than my shower. There’s something comforting about the ugly peach-ish walls, the boiling water. When you put your face right into the spout you can no longer tell the difference between tears and water. It’s like hiding it, even though in there you don’t have to.
Really, you ought not to hide it anywhere, but I do. It’s not even a conscious thought anymore. It’s like flipping on a light in a room. You touch that switch, and before your hand is even off the lever, yellow is pouring down from the ceiling. It’s automatic, and lately, has done me more harm than good. What if I want to show how I feel, i.e., like a fucking train wreck. Like a whirlwind of confusion and emotion that I can’t yet sort out into coherent sentences. So when my Father looks at me, or my Mother, or my Brother and they ask how my weekend is, all I can do is shrug. Say it was good. Pretend like I’m not utterly falling to pieces.
And for what, anyway? Because I’m hyper-sensitive and I think too god damn much? Because after he brought it up, I finally remembered that I have done a long distance relationship. Chris moved back to Michigan eventually. The next time he visited me, I made us dinner. He told me that he had had a threesome over chicken fajitas. That has been my experience of love and long distance. No wonder I tried to forget. But they are not the same, and I know this. But I sit by my text-less phone, ignoring the concerned stares of my family, thinking about the first time I saw him. He was wearing plaid then, which comes as no surprise now. I was at a party for a friend of a friend’s, and I hardly knew anybody. He stood, not drinking, arms folded by a recliner chair and I wanted him immediately. Calendar days elude me, but I’m fairly sure that was two years ago. Now he may be mine. I think. Yes? I think? My heart races and I have no inclination to eat because, let’s just face it, I am fucking terrified. I’m terrified of being too clingy, terrified of being too distant. I’m terrified of being too mean, of saying things he may take more harshly than I intend, but also terrified of not saying what’s on my mind, in a way hiding what makes me me. All of these things are so tightly wrapped in my head as I sit there quietly, stoic. I feel like I’m crazy. And it’s all because I’ve cared so fucking much for this guy since February that I fear I will fuck it all up.
I could fuck it all up.
