Courage.

Today I was supposed to write about some of my most personal "writing secrets." However, after our Writer's Smock meeting, I've decided that writing about something personal would step out of the realms of well.....the writing tip arena. Clearly motivated by Ralph's post below, I've decided to post "Regretting Me." A short story/memoir influenced by my daydreams of what could've/should have been. The piece came across like one of my journal entries and I feared that my audience would be bewildered by it. I feared they'd ask, "Who is this emotional and insecure girl? Where is the confident and sarcastic one we're used to." I feared they might not relate.

Group member Thierry conveyed that a "journal entry" such as this one might be exactly the VERY thing they could relate to. I never viewed letting down my vulnerability as wearing my heart on my sleeve, but as exposing my dirty laundry. But my laundry isn't dirty at all. In fact, laundry day happened to be on Sunday sitting alongside three of my favorite dudes; who never judge, listen to all (no matter how crazy) intently, always smile, and make my burdens (laundry) feel lighter than usual.

Without any further ado, here's "Regretting Me":

I’m terrible at speaking. Often when I say this, friends fling their arms up in accusation. I am suddenly a liar because my profession is the oasis of oral communication. However, the truth is I’m only truly prolific within the written word. This is my confession.

At sixteen I was a queen of the good kind of manipulation and conversation. Kept men and boys, who swore they weren’t conversationalists, up until sunrise with banter of old shows, ideology, and the book jackets I’d lingered too long on. I remember that girl: Long hair, braces, and a size six; she wore her intelligence on the inside. Only those who prodded past the surface knew of the hundreds of journals, the categorized library, and obsession with fantasy.

I witnessed myself flip inside out. After spending too many months guarding my heart after a first heartbreak I’d lost the ability to communicate.

“Busy yourself.”

This is what my mother said when she saw I was on the verge of tears. The mechanism of multiplying your to-do list to forget your troubles had always seemed to work for her. So that’s exactly what I did. I immersed myself into five novels a week, fingered finger foods nearby, wrote like my fingers didn’t cramp, and considered myself a Salinger anti-socialist.

My first slam poem dripped with the anger of puppy love. As hard as it is to admit, he is the reason for the force I am today. When the notoriety started to pile on, I realized how much I’d pushed myself away from my own reality. When I looked up, the boys who used to find me funny were turned off by my incessant rambling of my latest read, my home girls—content with cruising the mall for a man—were annoyed by reiteration on how they deserved the love that Paulo Coelho had embedded into my psyche, and lost my uncanny ability to connect.

After forty extra pounds, braces that didn’t quite work, and the ability to mesmerize and intimidate all at the same time; I’ve failed to bring back the lass I once was. During those few months, my confidence seeped into the pages of those journals and only seems to flood me when I’m reading from them.

“Busy yourself” followed me through undergrad, grad school, and sits with me today. A show a week, five books every two, killing packs of pens within a month; time slips through my hourglass fingers like a goddess waiting to die.

Now I stutter in conversation, pull hard for words I write everyday, smile less, cry more, dance only in the mirror, and sing only in the shower.

I often regret me. Wonder how my life would’ve been different if I’d catcalled cuties at Roosevelt, continued rocking lunchroom ciphers, gave my best friend the chance he asked for, got on my knees and told God I needed him, kept pretending I didn’t know Langston and Zora back and forth and falling in love wasn’t my favorite pastime. Wonder if I’d paid more attention to my body, lingered less between the shelves, and kissed more eager boys; who I might’ve been.

I regret the bitter, the broken, the surreal me. The aggressive, non-submissive, I-got-my-own-shit-so-eff-you me.

I gaze at Briana, my high yellow light brown-eyed best friend, and watch her twirl men into a samba through the draw of a finger. I am amazed at her effortless pull of awe. She doesn’t care about cultural cuisine, could care less about the NY Times Bestseller list and doesn’t know who Basquiat is; but the world wants to paint her.

That’s jealous me speaking.

But I love her. Love her like late night Jill Scott concerts, Brandon in my arms while she sings and me running up to cook dinner for us afterwards.

“I’ll be right up. I’ve got to make a call.” he says.

Love her like sitting at a table with cold chicken Parmesan, your man on the phone with his ex two hours outside the door of your apartment. Love her like when I didn’t have those words, those good manipulative words, she flew down the steps pushed his ass in the vehicle and demanded he never come back.

Those words.

Those hold-on-right-quick-I-got-to-pee, wake-up-to-you-snoring-on-the-receiver, girl you make me feel likkkkeeeeeee words.

I miss those words. Miss them like a book that I didn’t have to analyze, the kind that sinks to your stomach like warm tea and glows like melanin. A good book with a girl who loved, lost, and found herself again. I’ve been reading every one I come across, hoping those words will find their way home.

-Riv

Smocker Duece