Saturday, October 7, 2017

Perfect Places.

I was writing about perfect places weeks and weeks ago for this blog post, but it was all wrong and I couldn’t get it right.  I wrote many words.  I deleted most of them. You see, I was writing about one shallow idea of perfect places.  I was being so literal.  I was thinking about one place, and couldn't think about anything else as perfect, yet that place doesn't exist physically anymore. 

It is gone. 

I can't walk through it and feel it, and smell it, and touch it.  I can’t hear it...  I know if I tried to walk those floors that once told me I was home, they would just feel cold.  It would smell like an empty house when I collapsed upon them crying, as I also know would happen. 

I started writing this post in July.  
But it was all wrong.  I had it all wrong... what I thought about perfect places.  
I was torn between the delineation of physical places, and places that exist in the mind.  My mind.  

I didn't want to ever believe that my feet wouldn't touch those floors again.   

My brain is certainly not a perfect place.  It is a place that has frightened me and failed me and it has confounded me more often than it has been sane or comforting or of general understanding— no not understanding—of general acceptance of my place in the physical world at this point in my life.   

Every night, I live and die
Feel the party to my bones
Watch the wasters blow the speakers
Spill my guts beneath the outdoor light
It's just another graceless night

I heard the song and watched the video without really studying the lyrics, even though I heard them clearly.  I played it for my sister, and said, "This is so true for us, right?"  And she responded, "Whoa, that's really a dark view of life."  I'm the dark one?  I'm the dark one.

Lorde's song  is really, really... dark.  It's pretty serious.  It is serious.  She is quite young to be singing about such darkness and with such maturity about life.  Despite the artist's age, I relate to this song.  I believe Lorde is wise beyond her years.  

Gees.  I hope my children aren't this cynical about humanity and the world at 19 years old, even as I admire Lorde's view of the world now that I am almost 40.  


I hate the headlines and the weather
I'm nineteen and I'm on fire
But when we're dancing I'm alright
It's just another graceless night.

I have seen many doctors and specialists who have prescribed medications for me to get to a "perfect place," and no one has succeeded.  I don't think any pills or ingestable substances can take any of us to a perfect place.  I want there to be a magic pill or potion that makes me all better, but I know that is not going to happen.  I'm on a cocktail of medications and I don't feel at all perfect, and I don't like this place I find my self in right now.  And it's been years.  Years.  Years.  Years of trying different combinations of pills, and different doses.  Alcohol?  That's already taking me to the most terrible, imperfect places...  Taking anything into my body to find a perfect place doesn't work.  It won't for anyone. 

Are you lost enough?
Have another drink, get lost in us
This is how we get notorious, oh'Cause I don't know
If they keep tellin' me where to go
I'll blow my brains out to the radio, oh

Oh.
Is it just me?  I looked up the lyrics, and thought, "This is quite dark.  She uses the F word even.” She's pretty upset.  I think maybe I'm not that upset.  Or maybe I am, but I don't want to swear abot it. Maybe I have said the F word in my blog about shit.  Oh.  I guess I use the S word.  Maybe I do believe this song is relevant to my place in the world.  

Love is hard.  Feeling loved is hard.  It's difficult to feel loved.  Love shouldn't be hard?  It shouldn't feel hard to feel love in the place I exist.  I want to feel meaningful love in my home.  My home.  My place.  Where is my place?  

All of the things we're taking
'Cause we are young and we're ashamed
Send us to perfect places
All of our heroes fading
Now I can't stand to be alone
Let's go to perfect places

The song, well... I know I'm not young, but I'm ashamed that I've become how I am.  I'm ashamed that I let everything inside myself fade... everything outside myself.  Me.  I left me fade and made myself be alone.  I did that.  The place I should feel most comfortable, inside my own skin and head, I've made inhabitable.  That's how it feels.  I wish all the things I'm taking make sent me to perfect places...  What the fuck am I taking all these meds for, anyway?  

Every night, I live and die
Meet somebody, take 'em home
Let's kiss and then take off our clothes
It's just another graceless night, 'cause

I'm not sure how to stop.  I'm not sure how to believe that I want to come back to a place that makes me feel so sad.  I don't know if I want to come back to the literal place I'm in.  I don't want to be here, that's for sure.  I hate our bed.  I hate this house sometimes.  I hate the laundry piled around me.  I hate maneuvering through the basement to get to the washer and dryer to do the laundry.  I hate shit everywhere.  I hate the enormous amount of trash bins next to our driveway, that are... what?!  I haven't looked.  Are they full of more shit?  Why do we have so many fucking bins and barrels for trash?  Why is it all right there, visible from the pool, and right when you pull into the top of our driveway?  Why do we even ever have trash bags on our deck, when we know they get ripped apart by skunks every fucking time they are left out and then there is trash everywhere, and a skunk smell, and I just close the door and don't want to go outside.  No.  That's not a relaxing place to hang out.  It's a stupid place.  It's a place that makes me want to scream and ask “why?”  It's certainly not a perfect place.  Not a physical, tangible place I like at all...  

All of the things we're taking
'Cause we are young and we're ashamed
Send us to perfect places
All of our heroes fading
Now I can't stand to be alone
Let's go to perfect places   

But I know I've felt so perfect and home in physical places, and in myself.  I have felt that feeling.  As a child it was my grandparents' house, or playing in the yard with my little brother in the snow.  It was being with my little sister anywhere.  It was singing to my little babies while I was driving with them in the back seat, just my babies and me.  It was when my best friends in college hugged me because I was crying for reasons they didn't understand... except they did.  They understood depression and loved me anyway.  They would tell me, "It's okay Jo,” and I would laugh a little and say, "I'm being stupid!"  But they never, ever let me judge myself, and were the very best friends when it seemed so complicated.  Ha.  Those college years I thought my place in the world was elusive and unknown, and I was scared—I was scared at that age.  Yet, everything was in front of me, and I knew perfect places.  I had so many people supporting me. That's a perfect place. And now my life feels confusing and unknown, and I’m scared.  So I remember the perfect places of my past, and remember it’s wonderful to be surrounded by people who believe in you and love you.  Love is the perfect place.  Love is home.  I’d give anything to be home.

All the nights spent off our faces
Trying to find these perfect places
What the fuck are perfect places anyway?
All the nights spent off our faces
Trying to find these perfect places
What the fuck are perfect places anyway?
All the nights spent off our faces
Trying to find these perfect places
What the fuck are perfect places anyway?

I want my children to know that perfect places exist.  Perfect places are people.  Perfect places are a home we feel inside of someone else that we love.  The perfect place is feeling like home.  A perfect place can seem to go away, but then it just folds up inside of us, and it belongs to us forever.  It's my perfect place.  It's your perfect place.  And we can hold onto them and save them.  A picture doesn't fade until we let it.  

Perfect Places

2 comments :

Anonymous said...

Good to see you writing again.

JC said...
This comment has been removed by the author.