girl fight

Good day today. Any day on vacation is a good day. I did nothing but eat, nap, write, watch tv and chat on the phone with girlfriends. I did go out into the real world for about a half hour to pick up a package waiting for me at the post office. It was my Christmas present from my biological dad, his wife and kids. They have a tradition on Christmas Eve that everyone (all 11 of them, 9 kids + mom and dad) gets to open one particular Christmas present that contains a new set of Christmas pajamas. Then everyone puts on their new Pj's and watches movies together until they zonk out and have to be carried off to bed. They have included me in their tradition now for about four years which is really nice and special. So even though I'm 2000 miles away now, I still get a Christmas package each year with a new set of cozy sleepwear. After I got home from the post office, I put them on and wore them for the rest of my lazy day.

Today is one of my best friends from high school's birthday. She is 28 today. I wonder where she is and what she's doing to celebrate the tail-end of her 20's. I haven't talked to her in 10 years. I met C when she came to my school in 6th grade for a visit because she planned to attend the following year. She was like nothing anyone had ever seen. She was half Irish and half Italian with long, thick firey auburn hair, perfect olive skin, dark brown eyes, dark eyebrows and eyelashes and a perfect body - I'd never in my life imagined a redhead could look like that; I thought they all looked awkward and pale and freckled like me and my brother. She carried herself like she was in high school, at least, and she was charming. Everyone was in love with her and couldn't wait for her to start school with us the next year. When she finally came to stay, she began hanging out with the group of girls I ran with. We learned very quickly that her outsides matched her insides. She was great at sports and ridiculously smart and fun and her parents had money and she had great fashion sense and she was so super sweet that kids from every social clique wanted to be friends with her, and unlike every other cool girl at our school, she was willing to be friends with everyone that was nice to her. She never got in trouble, always did the right thing and everyone either wanted to be her or be with her. I was no exception. I tried to dress like her and talk like her and be around her as much as I could manage. We remained friends through 7th and 8th grade and then ended up going to the same all-girls high school after that. I got to know her a lot better during high school. We went through a lot of shit together. Even though people often thought we were sisters or twins (because people are stupid and think that everyone with red hair looks alike) I really felt like we were sisters sometimes. We spent a lot of time at each others' houses and with each others' families. People referred to us as "the redheads" - she was "the pretty one," I was "the funny one." I learned from her that being perfect has it's price and that no one is perfect, everyone is human. I think that she perhaps learned how to let go a little bit from me maybe. I might have been a little bit of a bad influence. We saw the Grateful Dead for the first time together. Towards the end of high school I really drifted into a lifestyle she wasn't interested in - got more into trouble than she cared to and we weren't super close by the time graduation rolled around, but she was still very much my sister and I would have done anything for her.

I left home right after graduation and when I came back the next fall to make an attempt at going to college and doing right by my family, I naturally called her to see her. I was excited about a lot of things going on in my life. It had only been the span of one summer that we hadn't seen each other, but much had changed for me, not the least of which, I'd came out of the closet. I had never told C that I ever had any inclination towards liking girls because, although I loved her, she was a bit of a goody-goody and she also still considered herself Catholic. It was never really personal though, I never said shit to any of my friends about it. The only people that knew was my brother and friends out of state that I had met over the course of that summer.

C and I met for lunch at a Big Boy's resturant, a family joint close to where we had gone to high school. She looked the same, told me how she was about to start her freshman year at U of M to study business, what sorority she wanted to rush, how her sister and her parents were. Then I told her how I'd been traveling over the summer and was about to go to school at Western but that I wasn't really feelin it and just wanted to play music and write. She told me she was still dating the same guy she was with at our senior prom and I told her I was dating someone too. At the time I was madly in love with my first girlfriend S. She was a Scorpio and a poet and an art model and fucking tragic and hot. I honestly thought that at that point we were grown ups and that C loved me as much as I loved her and it wouldn't be an issue. Plus I was riding on the high of spending the summer around people who I was out to and had been able to shed some of the Catholic shame and guilt I had around my sexuality. I was feeling proud and invincible.

She was stunned. She asked me if i was gay because I had briefly dated a couple guys while we were in high school so she was confused. I told her that I was bi and that I was still attracted to men but that I was in love with this girl. She asked me what she was supposed so tell her parents. Then she said something to the effect of: Oh so all those nights you slept over at my house, you just wanted to fuck me, great. What? She was like my sister. No, it wasn't like that! Who did she think she was? She told me that there wasn't any such thing as being bisexual, that we were just sluts and wanted to be able to fuck as many people as possible. Funny, because I was actually still a virgin at the time. I just sat there as she processed this information out loud to me and became more frustrated or angry or disgusted, I'm not sure. She got money out of her purse, put it on the table, got up and walked out of the restaurant. I never heard from her again.

The end of relationships are always so fucking weird. When you look back on something you had with someone and hold it up next to how it ended, if it ended badly, and you can't seem to connect the two. How did we get here? That wasn't the last person to reject me for being queer, but it was the first and I'm still angry with her for it. This year was our 10 yr high school reunion, and although I figured she wouldn't go anyways, I thought about what it would be like to see her there and I felt enraged. I felt like I would want to spit in her face or beat her ass and I was surprised at myself for still feeling so strongly about it. I didn't end up going to the reunion because I honestly just didn't care to see anyone that I don't already keep in touch with. Not at 10 yrs at least. 25 years will be so much more interesting. Maybe by then I won't feel like fighting her anymore, but considering how well I've dealt with and let go of other rejections in my life (insert sarcasm here), who knows.


"It's about to be a girl fight" - Brooke Valentine