She stood not higher than my chest, and yet I find myself missing the view of her. It’s with some poetic justice, in my eyes, that her stature played so heavily into her scope of the world and her ability to function in it. Reaping what you sew, whatever idioms come to mind. A small person with a small mind, and an even smaller heart. As if I could accuse her of having chose to fall into that role. Stigmatized and thus condensed. Arrogant and rude of me, perhaps - but bitter. She expected all of which she could and did not return. Why should this have been any different?
Those who have, forget their privilege, and lose sight of the trials of those who have not. Connecting to that, I felt I was able to gleam into the life of someone so astronomically different than my own. Perhaps because I view myself as big, clumsily so, and large, both in breadth and in depth. A night to my day, and I eagerly slipped into her shadow. Because… because… because it enchanted me. Because I was hungry for the knowledge of what it meant to be her, to understand her cause, her plights. Her fears. How people must have treated her, her entire life. What she must have endured, being who and what she was.
Which, all of it, interested me. Not only was she short, she was Peruvian, and adopted. Her mother, a white author, who raised her in a Midwest suburbia. Siblings of which she wasn’t blood related, but still bore a deep connection with. She obsessed over a few key bands/singers, a groupie who boasted of the opportunities she had to meet them. She was a horror film lover, but never said why. I was never entitled to a deeper explanation of her life, just glimpses in what she said, exes who had hurt her, people who drained her, how she conducted herself, and the endless pictures on her and her mothers Instagram pages. I enjoyed knowing there was more, and I resented her for being so protective of it. As if sharing her story could rob her of the shield she so adamantly wore to keep herself from feeling her own pain.
While in the midst of trying to make what I could of my life, I saw her. Stuttered out like a boat in the reeds, small hands as meager oars to paddle her cm by cm in circles, away from deeper waters of which she was terrified to even acknowledge. I think someone like me will only rub poorly against a person like her. I thrive on those waters, on their great waves, an open expanse no different than a playground of endless possibilities - too much for her to handle, too much for her to accept. It wasn’t safe. Being trapped was.
I’m being told to let her go, and I have. Our last conversation wasn’t much of one. She left me on read, in a huff, and a week later I had wished her a Merry Christmas of sorts. It came from my heart, but was only replied to a day later with a sarcastic “Merry Crisis”. She had dropped me. She didn’t care. The next day, I asked if speaking again was something she would like to do. Again, left on read for the day. So I deleted and blocked her. Painful.
And yet she continues to live on on my thoughts, because I want to make sense of it, and because I still cannot help but be fascinated with the person she is. I don’t want to change her, I don’t want to help her. I wish she didn’t hate me, but anger is her only defense for a hurt within her that she can’t even begin to understand or approach. The same way I threatened her very existence were she to understand or approach me.
It’s only sad. Very sad. I should have really liked to know her.
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