4:03 AM
on the brink so much of the time, it scares me.
Tonight, my worlds collided and that's always scared me, too. Several people aware of several times when I'd gone off the deep end were in the same room at the same time and worse yet, they knew people who knew people who knew each other who knew my other friends.
I'd like to think I've grown a lot, but I always make the same mistakes. I give too much, I write too much, I talk too much, I love too much. Only, in my world, those shouldn't be bad things. I don't want to hold back. I guess with freedom comes responsibility for the consequences, but, at the same time, I don't think thinking highly of someone should be reason for them to think you're a psychotic stalker. Of all nights for me to be reminded of this, the 20th anniversary of John Lennon's murder (as it was this evening when these events took place).
When I was 15, I just wanted to die to solve this problem. Now. though still very much the drama queen, I know that's not what I want. Still, sometimes I wish I could disappear, to have never been. Or, at the very least, go back and not do all the things that later were taken as so insane. If those things are me, then am I insane? If those are very Erica things to do, then how can they be bad? I get depressed so easily, I offend when I least expect to, I am confused and confusing, as if I'm speakig French all the time.
Sometimes I feel I need a translator for this world, because I just don't understand it.
. . .
Went to see John play tonight and it was great, as a show anyway. The show I went to a few months back was only 5 or 6 songs, after listening to 2 hours of crappy dance music first. Ugh. So to have over an hour of The Boys was quite a treat.
It was an evening full of flashbacks, first seeing the band again for more than a few minutes. Then, while still greeting some of the band members, I got a tap on the shoulder from D, one of the other fans who I knew 15 years ago. As if that were not enough, the next tap on the shoulder was from H, my college roomie. She lived with Dorothy and I in a dorm/apartment for a semester, before moving into her sorority house.
At first, I didn't recognize her at all because she'd cut off her long, blonde hair and dyed it dark. I knew immediately that I knew the face, that there'd been no mistake, but was it someone I knew from L.A? SF? NY? It really took me a minute just to remember where I was and to see my old friend in this completely different package.
I thought it was quite a small world that she'd show up tonight, but it got even smaller. At the end of the show I saw the friend who brought her with someone I'd seen talking to John. I was confused, thinking I'd mistaken someone for H's friend. No, indeed, H's friend is also friends with W, the wife of John's guitar player. How's that for some small world action?
It made my head spin, especially when H's friend said to W, "Oh that's the Erica C (the guitar player) is always talking about!" Good things, I hope. Whoa, weird to find out people are talking about you on whom you never thought you made any impression.
. . .
I went with J (enough alphabet soup for you yet? It's 3:30 and I'm not usually creative enough for psuedonyms even at a more decent hour). We hadn't gone out since that first time a couple of months back. We were suppsed to go to a show last week for M's (the other guitar player) birthday last week, but J got the days confused until it was too late to get the day off.
I am more confused than ever. I think there's some interest there, but you know, I'm terrible at reading those things. There was yet more innuendo, especially after he accidentally brushed my chest. Maybe we both joke so much, it's hard to tell what's sincere. All I know was the last time a guy joked with me about getting me drunk and having his way with me, it was a very telling remark in the end.
There was much talk on the way home (and on the way there, come to think of it) about his not having much luck with women and never knowing if someone is interested. Again, aside from close friends, the only other times I've had that conversation at length is when is when someone is trying to feel about for mutual interest.
I am so weary (and wary) of being accused of being a stalker yet again, I can't bring myself to say anything, just in case I am (yet again) wrong about J. The thing about me is, I never learned this game. I either like you or I don't and it's generally pretty obvious. I don't, however, understand what "the signs" are at all.
J asked me about P, a singer we both liked way back in the day that I'd befriended when I first moved to New York. I'd mentioned it briefly before, but J wanted to know what happened, while I'd just left it at, "we're no longer friends." It was, I think, the worst case of someone misreading me, ever.
Yes, I am enthusiastic, yes, I have crushes like I'm still 14 (probably because I've never had a relationship and so I've never matured past that level) and yes I am much too much at times. That doesn't make me a stalker (especially when the person is always hugging and kissing on me and telling me how great I am and writing me back at length), it doesn't make me insane and it certainly doesn't make me dangerous.
J asked if I'd been affected by the P situation so much that I found myself holding back. Yes, I guess I do, to some degree. "Well, that's not good," he said, "but I guess you have to modify your behavior some." Well, yeah. I don't want to shrink into my shell because one person assumed the worst of me. I also don't want to get burned again. It's a delicate balance.
In the end I've realized that there will always be people like John, who see me for all my gifts, love and enthusiasm, but who recognize the hurt and trouble and confusion, too. When they encounter someone like me, they can scoff and belittle and try to feel superior, or they can choose to remember themselves at not the best times in their life and have some empathy, show some compassion, accept my faults along with my strengths. I try to do the same and, though I often fail, I would never take it upon myself to tear someone down unless they were hateful and did something to hurt me.
So no, I can't let something like the P situation stop me from making other friends. I try to learn from it and I suppose I vacillated wildly between overly friendly to painfully reserved, never quite knowing what was right. Frankly, I was content just to go see his band play and just sit alone, writing in my journal. I was in New York, in the Village no less going to see one of my favorite bands play and, for me, that was quite enough.
I didn't ask him to introduce himself, or give me his number, or offer to help my find a job, or slip me money or buy me beer. I never asked for any of those things. Even when it all became a regular occurence, I sat by myself and tried not to be a nuisance. I still got burned. It is one of those things that, while I don't dwell on it, I am reminded of every so often and it makes me so, so sad.
I just want to live my life and have a few friends, maybe a lover or two more before I leave this mortal coil. Maybe I'll write a few books and, given the time, I'd travel the world. I don't expect everyone I've ever met to like me, or to get me, but I do expect grown-up people not to act one way to my face (kissy-kissy as if we're great old friends) and then say something else entirely behind my back. I don't expect most people to like me, in fact. I am a fine, rare and altogether acquired taste, definately not for everyone. That is fine by me. I want to know what I'm dealing with, is all.
That way, I don't squander myself, as pearls before swine. [link to this post]
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