Keep My Words

“Here’s the truth: (a) I’m an artist, (b) I don’t want to have tough skin, (c) I don’t want to live in a world where everybody has to have this tough skin and has to pretend what happened didn’t hurt my feelings, and (d) it does hurt my feelings!”
-Paul Reubens, b.k.a. Pee-wee Herman

Last night an old friend showed up at my door.  “Just come to the bar,” she said.  “Who cares about that stuff?  We’ll have fun!”

But I care.  And I shouldn’t have to pretend that I don’t.

“I told him he had to be nice to you,” another friend said.  It confused me.  She should have been telling me to be nice to him.

It’s difficult not to hold a grudge when One has been so completely wronged by Another, especially when Another shows absolutely no remorse for his/her actions.  One can forgive without Another’s apology, but still feel the need to not grace Another with One’s company.  And this is not to say that Another gives a shit either way.  But One needs to act with self-preservation in mind, and this may involve not forgetting Another’s proven insincerity.

Additionally, it’s not only about One forgiving Another, but about One forgiving oneself.  That’s where the antipathy lies.  It’s self-resentment for believing anything that Another ever said, and making foolish decisions based on that trust.

A few weeks ago I was at the bar with Tom.

“I like it when you write about weird shit like being a Terminator,” he said.  “I don’t like it when you write about your boyfriends or report weird news.”

“I’m going to quote that in my blog,” I told him.  “So, anything else, Tom Carley?” I asked.

“Yeah.  Tom Carley is the coolest dude in the world and all the ladies should flock to him,” he responded.

My recent writing hiatus was not due to a lack of heartbreak or confusion.  Additionally, I have no shortage of blog notes about “weird shit like being a Terminator” or “weird news”.  I’ve just been busy working.  And trying to be happy.

See, the other night in bed, I decided that I would be happy.  I repeated the word over and over in my head: happy happy happy happy happy…  I imagined conversations, for example:

“How are you?” a random person might ask,
To which I would reply “Happy.”
Then they might say, “Why?  What do you have to be so happy about?”
And I would tell them, “No reason, just trying it on for size.”

Still, I don’t think I’ll smile often.  I’ve never really been a smiley person.  People who smile too much seem hollow and disingenuous, as I’m sure people like me appear cynical and unfriendly.

But I’m not concerned with those unintentional judgments.  They spontaneously combust somewhere between “Nice to meet you” and the 40th drink, or else they’re confirmed, which really has nothing to do with the physical act of smiling.

That is to say, it has more to do with reality and the people that inhabit yours, and mine.  We’re primates, sometimes throwing feces out of anger, and other times picking bugs off one another for amusement.  But if you sit in front of the plexiglass for long enough, eventually you’ll see each individual show some sort of honest affection.

I’m not sure about that last statement, but I want to believe it.  So, I do.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 23rd, 2010 at 4:10 pm and is filed under Words. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.