she retold the story. coldly, without expression. a story that maybe they hadn’t heard before, despite all the different stories she told. But, an important story. one of the most traumatic stories she knows about those days. and as she told it, she couldn’t believe how detached she was. usually the mere mention of that day brings a shiver down her spine and tears to her eyes. today, though, she must have needed the four years between her and that moment. today, if she could have told the story in third person, as if it hadn’t happened to her at all, she might have felt more emotion. instead, she sat with her back to a wall, knees pulled into her chest, staring into the empty space, and she spoke words. words, that’s all they were. separate, meaningless words, that as far as she could tell, didn’t even fit together well enough to tell the story of that day. when she was done, when there were no words left in the story, she felt like she hadn’t done the experience justice. the girl in the story felt cheated. like she had been part of some news report that contained only facts and no substance. and she wanted it to have more meaning than just that.
these days February 10, 2008
she liked grande allegro best. it required all of her, every ounce of energy she had left after a long tiring class that had already taken everything she thought she had. but, she loved grande allegro. how warm her body felt, how her muscles all came together to allow her to propell her weight into the air, flying, suspended at the very top for just a moment, and then finally landing gracefully back on her feet. some classes, some days even, knowing that she had the strength to soar like that, even when her body felt like collapsing, was all that she needed to keep going. hell, some days it was all that she needed to get out of bed and begin at all. the only problem was that these days she couldn’t remember the last time she had made it through a grande allegro and wasn’t sure that she still could. she wanted to remember. but some things have to be felt in your body, not just imagined up in your head somewhere. the problem was, she wasn’t supposed to be in a ballet class and a grande allegro isn’t exactly something you can do between appointments where all you do is sit on couches. she was beginning to realize why it was she didn’t have a couch of her own. she’d had had enough of couches these days.
wanted to know February 10, 2008
she wanted to know what would happen if you tried to run a car on empty. she’d never quite let it get that low and she wondered if it stopped right a way or if it would coast on fumes and luck for a bit before puttering out completly. she had never had much faith in luck, but still she wanted to know.
ramblings February 9, 2008
she saw life through her rearview mirror. always checking behind her to make sure she hadn’t accidently hit anything.
she wanted to get on with her life, already. and she didn’t want to do everything that was messy and endless before she began. she wanted to go, now, before anything else stopped her. but she wasn’t sure where to go or how to skip all the messy parts she disliked so much.
she thought that if she took more than one step at a time, she’d get there faster. but, instead, she just got tired, missed a few too many stairs along the way, tripped over her own feet and ended up flat on her face, not quite at the bottom again. after that she couldn’t quite find her footing and even one step at a time seemed like just about one too many stairs at a time, like all of the time. and so she wasn’t quite sure how she was going to start climbing again.
couldn’t understand February 9, 2008
she had had lots of answers once. to big questions. like why babies die and why children end up in horrible families and why really bad things happen to nice people. she still had answers to things like that. but she couldn’t figure out why having the answers didn’t make any of it any better. that’s what she couldn’t quite explain.
it was just too damn complicated, she thought. and she didn’t think there was enough coffee in the world to sort this problem out in her head.
looking up at her. February 8, 2008
their faces peered up at her like she could fix anything and that annoyed her the most. because she used to feel like she could and now all she knows how to do is get by. and occasionally she manages to get something right and not too many big things wrong.
no longer feeling prepared February 8, 2008
she was tired of this journey. it was getting quite long and she really wanted someone to tell her where the hell they were going and at what damn time they were going to arrive. except, there wasn’t anyone around to ask. her bag was getting heavier all the time, she had worn the wrong shoes, and now that it was winter she needed her coat and hat. but, she hardly wanted to turn around and go back for that.
didn’t particullarly like balancing February 7, 2008
her world had already fallen off its axis a long time ago. at first she struggled to get it back where it belonged. then she realized it didn’t particullarly want to balance on any one axis, so carefully. so, she decided against forcing it to do something it was supposed to do only because it always has. now she quite enjoys watching the world float around like the clouds and no one else has really taken much notice, except maybe the sun.
