2008-05-18
A Dramatic Interpretation of My Youth
Earlier today, thinking about going out to get a vanilla milkshake, I heard someone run into the courtyard trailing high pitched screaming:
"Don't touch me!!!!!!! Tony!!!! Get away from me!!!!"
"Michelle, listen to me."
"Noooooooooooo!!! I will NEVER listen to you!!!!!"
"You have to calm down!"
"Don't TOUCH ME!!!!!!!!"
Interesting.
I looked out the window, fully expecting to see a typically trashy Tucson scene - stringy-haired tweakers, him shirtless and her falling out of a dingy tank top. Skinny and angry.
Instead, I see two total scenesters in their 20s. Adorable haircuts, big inked shoulder pieces, horn-rimmed glasses, trendy tee shirts and Chuck Taylors. And they were pitch-perfect in their reenactment of a scene from my relationship with Jesus, back in the early Springfield days of our sordid love affair:
"You can't DO this TO ME Tony!!!!"
"Michelle, please just get back in the car."
"NOooooooooo!!! How can you DO THIS?"
"Michelle, this isn't..... just.... please get back in the car."
At this point, she is full-on screaming and hanging onto his arm as he is walking back to the waiting car, literally dragging her behind him. Screaming. This went on for some time, actually; enough time for other neighbors to show up in doorways and windows, peering into the lives of these strangers. I didn't leave my house because, having been a participant in so many scenes like this, I felt it was only fair to not feed into it.
I saw enough to understand that that girl? Knew exactly what she was doing. She was intentionally out of control. And that boy? Wasn't going anywhere.
These were two people who lived for this kind of crashing each other around emotionally. Believe me, as a former Drama Queen, you know how far you can go to make your very loud point without actually losing your relationship. It's a science in which I hold a PhD. I resigned my tenureship a very long time ago but I know the texts by heart.
Some people throw things, some people hold vigils outside of doors wherein lie the objects of their attentions. Me? I exited moving vehicles. And slammed doors so hard that the hinges broke - doors to cars and doors to rooms.
And I knew he wasn't really going anywhere.... I was young and needed the kind of intense validation that could only come from having taken my relationship to the ugliest level possible and still not losing it. It was fucked up but it happens on so many levels, across countless relationships on any given Sunday afternoon when the hang-over wears off and the fight that was brewing or started last night is complicated by the stark reality of being a truly fucked up individual.
"You can't leeeeeeeeave me!!!!!!!!"
"Michelle! No!! Wait!! Michelle, come on. Just! Get in the car... please???"
Had this been going down on a country road in Central Illinois, had they been built like hearty Midwesterners, they could have been us ten years ago. Although I don't think any of the best of my tantrums were about him breaking up with me. At least, the two times I exited a moving vehicle, they weren't. I mean, we broke up a lot and I left the car at extremely inopportune times a lot but I don't remember those two things ever having a direct cause-effect relationship.
Naturally, I called Jesus and we had a great laugh about it.
It is nice to know that I'm over all of that; I'm confident that never again will there be a screaming fit by the side of the road for the sake of embarrassing the boyfriend I know has no intention of leaving me in the heat of that moment.
Ha!
I should, for the sake of accuracy, admit that once on the way to a party I got left by the side of the road well outside of Ashland, Illinois.
That sucked.
arizonasarah at 7:35 p.m.