Peter confided in me this morning.
We've shared stories before, and bitched about our pain and our relationships, we both had domineering mothers and abusive refusing-to-listen old-world parents, and somehow we've both turned out with a lot in common.
Granted, he's raver-boy, e-head, java-GUI-coder dude, he'd choose emacs over vi any day.
I'm happier in a punk bar with music with hard-hitting lyrics, my drug of choice is shrooms or acid, I hate GUIs with a passion.
We both have little patience for incompetence, bullshit, and close-mindedness.
We work well together, our abrasive senses of humour crashing against each other and spilling out into the hallway, filling it with the heady scent of brine.
But this morning, after I'd told a particularly disturbing monstre story and had succeeded in chasing out the remaining Oh-guys-look-the-fun-kids-are-here eternal weekend visitors, he swiftly shut the door and asked:
"Was that true? Did you really do that?!"Yeah, why? I wanted to see what it was like.
Me too. I did last night. I don't feel so good about it.
I know, it's when that feeling of 'FUCK I'm doing it' sinks in... When there's no turning back..
So we talked. He told the story which I am reluctant to share, from beginning to end, watching his shoulders unbend with every poignantly punctuated sentence.
I told him how I'd felt back then, he nodded emphatically at me and allowed himself to stop pacing and collapse into his chair.
He just left to head home and catch some sleep for the first time this week, having thanked me for allowing him to get it off his chest. He's never going to tell anyone else in the world.
Sometimes people make me feel the sort of special my teachers used to tell me I was when I was little and none of the little kids wanted to play with the polish girl.
"It's because you're too special"
Of course, haplessly naive straight-off-a-farm-in-poland little girl that I was, I believed them and thought it made me better.
They resent me because I'm smarter, the geeks resent me because I'm prettier, the boys resent me because I'm stronger.
They hate me because they resent me. They hate me because I'm good.
Not socially inept or anything.
So I believed them and since then have this emptiness gnawing at my gut when I realize taht maybe I am just like everyone else.
Maybe a monstre really is mostly human.
Just...human.
The heaving sigh of disappointment bends the paperthin walls of my office outwards, then inwards as I breathe in again.
And then sometimes, when someone says "you're the only person in the world who could have done this for me"
Sometimes I don't tell them that that they should get out more because there's lots of wonderful people out there, sometimes,
Sometimes I just say "thank you"
And let it glow a little inside. Sometimes I still need to feel above the bad guys.
(I am in my bright burgundy chair moaning at my aching butt muscles, and feeling just a little warmer for the moment.)
Before leaving, Peter opened the windowblinds in our office for the first time, because he knew that I like the afternoon light.
And the kids on the second floor all got together and made suggestions for the internal newspaper that I'm writing for -- it's such a huge mockery amongst the people who don't work on it -- so full of petty inside jokes and bullshit that my few interoffice friends were embarassed that I had joined the committee.
I asked them why they preferred to condemn something when there should be an easy way to fix it that is at least worth trying.
And heartwarmingly, rather than make fun of me, they just got together, they brainstormed, and they sent me a big long list, brimming with brilliant ideas. Because they're the sort of wonderful people who really do want to help, rather than simply complain.
I'm so happy, someone came through for me...
It's a feeling I never quite get over, when somebody goes out of their way to do something that I never really expected them to do when I asked.
Cool.
And when David snuck a kiss while we were stopped at a red light on the way back from the rink, I didn't mind so much. I only laughed at him. ;)
And cf? It doesn't make me any different. Not beige pants, not the high heeled shoes that I forced myself to wear when working for Leon, not my pretty new woolen winter coat. I still believe in the faery folk.
None of it changes anything, other than the fact that it's less money that I get to spend on other people, which sucks.
But no matter what pants I wear, my hair is three different shades of violet this morning, I have a mean-ass hockey stick wedged between the seats of my car, and I can still use the word "bitch" in seventeen different entertaining ways in order to get incompetent losers off my back.
*grin*
Life is rather scintillating right now. There's a sheen to the air peppered with little silver flecks, much like high-grade cocaine, or faeries dressed in moonbeams for the prom.
I wish I could share it with you right now, I wish I could tell you exactly how this feels. Not only do I believe in myself today, I believe in other people too.
Isn't that step one on the road to happiness?
What the fuck do I know?
Princess' vernissage is tonight, then I'm traipsing off to be a wampire with my boys afterwards, and tomorrow I'll finally have time to fix my muffler and pick up my comic books.
Saturday I'll be enjoying the warm upturn to our weather on a happy little local ski hill.
Sunday I'll be avoiding people and seeing if I can't figure out how to make more room in my appartment.
(And the pun-war in my guestbook isn't making me the least bit sheepish. Nope, no way, puns aren't baaaad, they're good for ewe!)
*groan*