i've been thinking i should post something for weeks, but even though i've had lots to say i didn't seem to have the motivation to write.
but then i watched this movie tonight that really got into my head for some weird reason. it's a great flick if you're not offended by some crassness. it's called "in search of a midnight kiss". the whole time i was watching i kept thinking...this is so my brother's life...he has to watch this. but i was really connected to it as well. it's definitely very "real life" i guess you'd say. i don't know. it wasn't all prettied up to make it more comfortable to watch. if you've lived life you've either been there or known someone who has and so it just feels real.
anyway, it got me thinking. the last 4 weeks have certainly been full of events worth writing about, line dancing in nashville with the fake johnny cash, cancer scare over thanksgiving that lengthened my stay by a week, christmas in china with friends and choosing to cook together and play games and just enjoy the company and forget the gifts, and new years in china watching pirated philippino cable as they countdown the new year in some language i don't understand while i'm drinking grape juice and playing charades and other ridiculously hilarious games. these have not been holidays like any other that's for sure. but i've enjoyed them more than some and they won't be soon forgotten.
but this movie has made it all seem strange. i had the craziest flash of memory from about 5 years ago that was so vivid it was like it happened just yesterday. you know the sort of memories that grip your insides and squeeze out all your breath till your completely full of the smells, tastes and sounds of them.
it was september...the weekend of my birthday...actually...it was the 6th...my actual birthday. i was turning 25. my little brother was living in charleston, sc at that point and i had driven down to hang out with him for a few days. my bf and i had broken up just a few days before and despite the craziness of how i was feeling i was glad to be visiting with my bro. as i always used to tell him, his life was a vacation for me! i worked a 9-5 at a medical publisher. i edited medical textbooks, played in a sports league, went to happy hour, volunteered at church and was thinking of buying a house. i was insanely normal. my brother on the other hand...runs out of the house and up to my car the minute i pull up and says happy birthday sis and shoves a 5th of tequilla in my hand (his favorite not necessarily mine! ha ha). this was his life...though. living in a house where is bedroom door was off the hinges and leaning against the wall. where the teeny tiny tv got no actual tv stations but could play any 1 of the 3 movies they owned (i remember watching donnie brascoe until about 4pm when the boys in the house finally started waking up for the day.). so here i was for my birthday weekend vacation.
and he delivered. my bro is a great host and knows how to have fun and make everyone else believe they are also having fun. i had a blast. i remember he graciously agreed to buy one of those cheesy buckets o' margarita mix for my tequilla since that's really the only way i'd enjoy it. we put it in the freezer before we left to go out with some of his friends and roommates. we went to this local restaurant type place cuz one of the guys worked there...i don't remember the name. it was a little more chain-like than his usual hangouts but they got cheap drinks and could hang out with their buddy who was working so that's where we ended up. i remember being crammed into a wooden boothe with ronnie, chris, and bentley. i don't remember who else was there....there were a few guys. but i was ron's sis and it was my birthday so for once...i paid for nothing. i just took my free drinks and laughed and talked and enjoyed the merriment. when the place was closing my brother said everyone was gonna come back to their place and so we'd head home just ahead of them. now, i should say, i've never been a big drinker and even in my wild days i still was not much good at holding my alcohol. so by the time we got home i was ready to just sleep right where i was standing. ronnie sat me on the couch and told me not to sleep before everyone came over. then he went to check on the margarita mix. next thing i remember i wake up on the couch and the house is full of people. ronnie comes over grinning from ear to ear telling me he's glad i woke up from my little nap. my little nap seems to have sobered me up enough to realize that the margaritas must be done and i should at least have one because ronnie gave it to me for my birthday afterall. so i tell him as much and he and i head into the kitchen to get one. we arrive to find a very large and very empty margarita bucket and i just bust out laughing and say, "you know...i didn't even get one drink of my birthday tequilla!" ha ha ha.
ronnie was sorry...but when he saw i really didn't care it was all fine and the night went on. but everything about that was so indicative of my brother...always the best of times and the worst all rolled into one and yet you always came out of thinking it was ok. ha ha. i was happier than being alone on my birthday thinking about my ex, for sure.
everyone stayed late into the night, as was customary. i wondered a bit and eventually found a spot in a corner of couch and mostly just watched and listend as was MY custom. i was really just a guest in their world. i knew many of his friends and roommates, in fact, i'd introduced him to some of them in college, but i never really KNEW them. this was ronnie's world. a world with its own language and expectations. a world i often observed from the fringes but never really comprehended. but on nights like that one, i was almost a part of it...as long as i sat quietly and just let it all happen around me. people eventually started to trickle out. some drifted off to bedrooms and quiet corners. many went home or slept in cars. my bed was the couch so i was sorta just hanging out waiting for things to die down. but there was a guy...a friend of one of ronnie's roommates that i had had my eye on. i couldn't resist. he was nice looking in an awkward way. i think he was ronnie's age...so a bit younger than me. but that didn't really matter. he had that same indie, emo, i'm in a band, i don't make much money, i'll prolly get you in trouble kind of look and attitude...except....well...he was tall and kinda big. not big like fat...just big...like when you're tall and so you can't be delicate if you're really tall. i don't know...i just remember thinking that the clothes and the long dark emo side swept hair and the aviator shades seemed oddly out of place on him. i would have expected him to look more comfortable on a football field than in a rock band. but there he was...but like i said...he wasn't unattractive...he just stood out more from the homogenous crowd of rockers and bettys.
at some point, some how...we started talking. and we kept talking. i have no idea what we could possibly have been talking about. but i remember sitting on that little dirty couch that was my bed in that shit hole of a house talking for a very long time to this guy that i had been wanting to talk to. and the whole time i remember clearly thinking 3 things: 1. i can't believe a guy i actually think is cute is actually talking to me for this long. 2. he can't possibly think this is really that interesting to talk about. 3. i wonder when he's gonna ditch me to get outta here? stupid right? why spoil the whole thing with all that self-doubt? who knows? it's who i was...and who i try not to be now...but i digress.
so crazy thing was....he didn't leave. he kept talking. eventually it was clear that everyone had dispersed except he and i...well he and i and ... shoelaces, the drummer in my brother's band. i know, it's sad...i can remember the drunken drummer's name, but not the cute boy! but come on, they called him shoelaces. i know that's not what his mother named him, but if she gave him another name i swear to you i have no clue what it might have been. to me and to everyone i knew, he was shoelaces. and he was completed wasted. apparently, as i discovered later, he was always like this...had some issues i think. but that night...it was funny...cuz you know....drunk guys don't really realize when hey...this is awkward i should leave the room. so he's sittin there and everyone is gone and i watch him nearly fall over to pick up another can and crack it open. the pop of a fresh can just made me laugh so hard. me and hottie were cracking up at shoelaces who took about 3 sips before passing out in some alcohol induced coma on the opposite couch. and all i could think was...alone at last! ha ha. i didn't even care about the drunken shoelaces anymore. who was this girl? was that me? that's so not my style. for a moment, i thought, perhpas i could be a part of this world. maybe this was me afterall. and so, i said i was tired and cute boy let me lay down on the couch and you know what he did....he grabbed a blanket and lay on the floor just beside the couch and kept talking to me. i know...gasp...i couldn't believe it either. i don't know if he was waiting for something more...i think even then i wondered....but it didn't seem likely with my brother in his doorless room not 10 steps away. but whatever the case...i didn't care what was on his mind...he was there talking to me. and so we kept on talking through most of the night. he took my hand at some point and i know that he kissed me but that was it. he slept on the floor. i slept on the couch. and the next morning i drove back to baltimore.
i was friends with him on myspace for a while. i would look at his pictures sometimes. but really...i never saw him again.
a month later i bought my first house, 823 e. 34th street, baltimore, md. i loved it. by july, i started going to a little church called grace fellowship church up in timonium. and my life started change....i was headed down a path that would change it forever and i never even saw the turn. that following september, 1 year later, i started to volunteer in the high school ministry. i made some friends, 2 of whom have since come to visit me in china...never would have guessed it then! another year later, and i had quit my job at the publisher and was working at gfc part time. and another 2 years after that and i would move to shanghai, china to accept my first full-time youth ministry position.
and now, here it is, a year and half in and i look back and it's so hard to imagine. it's 2009. the last conversation with the cute boy that never was happened in september 2003. a night that was in essence the last of its kind for me. a night that set me free to take a different journey. in many ways, it's good that those days and nights are behind me....there was a lot of emptiness and hurt in those times. but it's also a passing of my youth i suppose as well. a passing of a time when i thought things would never change, that maybe even i would never change.
but things do change. incredibly. my little brother? married now...with a beautiful baby girl and another one coming and a wife who's able to match his quirkiness with a few of her own. and me? well....who knows....you can't look back without wondering what you'll miss from today.
but hey, ronnie, chris, amy, bill, patty, and elise, i don't want it to turn out like that cute boy from the party. i don't ever want to forget you name and just revel in the memory. don't ever let me lose you....no matter how far we go in search of only god knows what.
