This weekend was a wash.
I've gotten into bad habits, habits that I've always despised, that I've criticized in others, that helped kill my father and here I am engaging, ignoring and slowly ruining myself.
I can still feel the cigarettes I smoked last night. All day today I'd take in a breath and there they'd be. All I could think of when I was smoking them was Dad... sitting on a porch in the darkness, completely ignoring the people on the other side of the glass in the light. The height of anti-social chic, really.
The drinking... oh jeez. I've become this obnoxious poster-child for pop vices. Laughing so loud I annoy, lolling and chasing and scaring away all the nice, semi-sober people that were just trying to enjoy a night out.
I was a mess.
I think I still am, simply because I'm still not quite right about a lot of things.
Work is disastifying. Or maybe I'm just disastisfying in it... whatever that means. I remember the good old days when I used to make sense, especially to me. Now I don't even know what going on anymore. I'm on auto-pilot into some life that's not mine, that I never wanted and I still don't.
I always wanted, but never really knew it, that I wanted that sorbet-Los Angeles dream. A life of dress up and sweet tasting things and smiles and sleeping late. And it's okay if your Dad dies because he speaks to you in the wind and he promised you he'd never leave and he doesn't lie. It's okay your living with your Mom because you're not quite grown up yet and she's teaching you how to balance your checkbook. It's okay if you're still single because the God's honest truth is you don't know what you want and you you like looking and dreaming rather than facing the failure of reality... at least for the moment... and you much prefer going to the movies alone in your flip-flops and you with ten dollar coke so big you need two hands to hold it, like a bowling ball.
And then somehow I'm here in Bud Lite and Camels and four hours of beery sleep and sweaty sheets, bruised fingers, constant complaining, lying , guilt and never smiling.
"Meaghan, do you realize that you hardly ever laugh anymore?"
I want my life back. No more pretending.
I am still broken up about Dad. I have not dealt ith it at all and I miss him. I am not a psycho, stalker girl. I don't have to do anything or nothing and I don't have to get sloshed and stupid to be acceptable. I am just fine as I am and I will not apologize for it.
I am going to make a hot fudge sundae, watch 'Hard Candy' and look at European fashion magazines. I'm going to wear my gingham and tie my 'fro in pigtails and sleep in late tomorrow. I'm going to tool around in my pajamas and I am going to smile again.