my so-called life
there was tornado weather outside today -- only for about 45 minutes though. huge winds, hard rain, thunder, hail. the works. i keep remembering things.i remember one time in Mrs. Scultz's english class. we were doing some kind of group presentation; i don't remember all who was working with me, but andy boothe was one of them. and i was a tree. because i was so shy, and i wouldn't talk, no, not in front of the whole class. so i was a tree, because i could stand there with my arms out like branches and say nothing, while good old andy did all the talking.
and i remember in mrs. ables' anatomy class, when we dissected minks. i remember the smell of formaldehyde filling the classroom and the way it got stronger day by day until it filled the hall outside the classroom too and we could smell it as we walked to class. those long pink shriveled bodies, because all the fur had been skinned off; ours was a boy and my lab partner darijana picked out his name. (we only named them because mrs. ables said we had to. yes i know -- she probably WAS on drugs.) darijana was weird herself; she was from russia, i think, although she had lived here in the US her whole life practically. she had this strange personality of being both very odd and very stuck-up -- not a very compatible combination. and she said we should name our mink xerxes. what in the world? why would anyone give a dead mink the name "xerxes"? i thought it was perfectly dreadful and ridiculous all at once. but as much as i wanted to suggest something different, i kept my mouth shut. i was too nice; i didn't want to hurt her feelings. (did i mention that the reason i ended up with darijana as my lab partner was because no one else wanted to be paired with her? i didn't mind at all though.) plus, i was too shy to speak. so we had a mink named xerxes.
something else -- i remember the counter under the mirror in the girls locker room at the natatorium where we used to swim our workouts. and i remember those workouts, ones that made me hurt so much that i couldn't see straight. sometimes it was so horrible that i couldn't even lift my arms high enough to wash my hair in the showers; our team manager actually had to help me do that. but that shelf, it was low to the ground, and not very long, not very wide, so that it made this perfect little space underneath. i used to crawl under that shelf sometimes after an especially tough workout, and if i bent my neck a little and pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them, then i fit perfectly. i'd sit there and watch a puddle form around my wet body; girls would walk by on their way to the showers and ask what i was doing. i'd always make up some excuse and say it with a laugh, like i knew how dumb i looked sitting in my swim suit. what i never told them was that i was hiding there under the shelf.
one memory leads to another. i remember two years ago, in ohio for a conference. that was the winter my best friend (at the time) told me she hated me, told me to get out of her life. no, not in those words, but she might as well just have gone ahead and said it that way. but none of that had happened yet. we were in ohio, staying up in a room on a high floor of some hotel. dan was there, and he was being terrible, as he almost always was to me. and just like every other time he acted that way, i felt bad to the point that i felt insane. i remember being alone in the room at night, pulling the curtain open across the huge window and looking out into the snow and darkness at the building tops in the city. the feeling of chaos, of hopelessness. not a good way to feel when you're alone at such a high altitude. not that i could have jumped; i don't think the window was openable (yeah i know, that's not a word). but the thought crossed my mind, i can't deny that. in my head i saw a miniature becky, flying through the air and snow alongside the hotel, destined to crash and burn at some unknown point far, far below. the image was so disconcerting that i dropped on hands and knees and crawled underneath a coffee table, dragging my Bible along with me and sobbing some unspeakable prayer.
like i said, one memory leads to another. and i remember that office, just off the pool, white and long, no windows, a concrete floor. i remember him. i remember school picture day, me dressed up to have my pic taken a few hours later, sitting on one of the tables in the bloody office, that cold silent office. i remember his hands on my legs. how he always made sure the door was closed when i was talking to him. i remember leaving that horrid place and crying, out of confusion, out of pain that i wouldn't admit. i remember hating him, and needing him, and wanting to die.
i remember.
i remember too much.