I just wrote a letter to myself in the future. It's from this site, http://www.futureme.org/, and it lets you set it to be delivered at any future date. I sent mine for ten years from now. Ten years really feels like a long time away - not because I will be 40 instead of 30, but because my world tends to change a hell of a lot in ten years. Always.
My first ten years were all about love & sunshine. At least thats how it sits in my mind. My mom, my grandma, my cousins, sister and brothers, so much family, so much love. The first ten years are filled with memories about running and laughing, jumping into mud, digging in sand, swinging high into the trees. Scratched legs, and tiny kittens. Nighties, cool fans on hot nights, fireflies, beestings, collecting warm eggs from the hens as soon as they're laid. Fireworks. I can't count how many times, in the first ten years, I spun around and around and around until I fell gasping on the ground, watching the whole world whirl.
The second ten years introduced a lot of new experiences. Insecurites. Loss. It's not that they were all bad.. but there were all very different. The memories shift into memores of renting movies at Pinny Food Center. Ditching school. Getting drunk. Writing letters to pass between classes. Gitano Jeans. Hairspray. Mom working, wearing lipstick and bringing home food from the deli. Talking on the phone. Wishing, Wishing, WISHING for everything. Mom got cancer, but she made it through. She was sick, and I was worried, but no cancer meant cured to me then. I didn'r realize yet that it comes back. Graybee died. He was 16, but I never imagined life without him before. I'd sit on the deck and he'd sit next to me, leaning into me me, laying his head on my knee. I knew complete love from that dog.. and then he died. Convulsing on the garage floor. Those ten years took me from a size 12 girls jeans to a size 16 women's jeans. I had about a thousand zits, a thousand crushes, and a thousand (at least) tears were shed.
The next ten years were very different yet. They started out with making new friends, learning new things, discovering new loves. Photography, art, queers! I discovered how good good-friends could be. I discovered how the past shapes us and makes us all so unique. I discoverd that I didn't need quite so much hairspray. This decade was split much more than the others. This would be a very long paragraph if I really tried to summerize it all. Softball Dykes. ACTUAL romantic experiences. Coming home for Christmas. Computers. Arguments about Apple being better than IBM's. haha.. jeeze. Things change a LOT in ten years. The internet... InterWHAT??? Internet. Grey and blue information pages. Blink Blink Blinks and Under Construction men with little animated shovels. Parties. Phone bills. Hip Hop. Ballcaps.
MINNEAPOLIS.. loss of all thinks known so far. (But with the addition of something wonderful, and unknown so far...) True Love. Make your head spin love mixed in with other people's dishes, other people's friends, other people's cats... Stale bread store donuts. Okra. PIDGEONS! lefty people. Liberal people. People who actually talked politics and loved apple computer as much as me. WHO would wear lables on their clothes??! uh. me. PUBLIC transportation. This is where I first felt the experience of being invisible. Fear and Thrill at the same time. Vulva Riots, lemon bars, photography? Maybe. New thoughts bombarded me. Old memories overtook me. Love grew, love evolved. May Day Parades! Wooooo. Lesbians, Lesbains everywhere! It's community... yeah...
Then tragedy hit again, which lead me into a new era of sadness and despair. My poor, poor mama. Cancer again. So much sadness. So much fear. I don't remember much at all after that. I remember glimpses of moving back to Michigan. Glimpses of our high ceilinged apartment, images of babies being born, images of images. Photography. Trying to hold on to what I have. A feeling moving in of despair, numbness, coldness, then moving out again to make room for searing pain and screetching rejection. GRASPING and trying to hold on to all I was about to lose. Finally getting a good job.. the job I have now. Loving the new job... Loving my new truck. Loving our new house. Loving my kitty.. then learning to love our two new ones.
My mom's life dwindled and was swept away. All I remember for months before and months after is the heaviest pain I've ever felt, intense sorrow and the feeling of being completly helpless overtaking me. I am nothing but a speck of sand. I am nothing in this world. Funny we're all nothing, yet we're everything to someone, if we're lucky. My mom told me she'd never stop loving me. I hold on to that because I need to believe it to feel okay. Images come from this time into my head at late hours of the night. The way Dad acted. The way mom acted. The way I acted. How many times I visited her. How many times I wished for a miricle. I still can not hardly bear to think of her being gone. The other day I wanted to call her and tell her that they started making 8 packs of pop again. They are 16.9 oz. again istead of 22 or whatever. I want to call her all the time, or go see her. I do see her in my dreams tho... the other night she was drinking a fuzzy navel made with some pineapple juice. I tasted it and it was something she'd love. I don't remember much concrete infomation from this time. It's just a montage - swirling or flashing or washing over me. Images upon Images. I was 29 when she died, leaving me to start a new decade without her.
And of course I have no idea where the next ten years are going to take me. I hope to become a photograher. I hope to calm down a little and start feeling the sunshine again. I hope to maintain the relationships I have, as well as create some new ones. I hope my face will dry long enough to heal the red and raw skin around my eyes. I hope to grow a family of friends. I hope all kinds of things for the next ten years.
It'll be interesting to get the email... ten years from now. I'm sure I won't remember writing it.
