soapboxdiner

Gypsy

You know paths are funny things. Choices you make... well, I guess they always come with consequences - repercussions that follow us always. But a part of us, no matter what road we eventually travel down, stays the same.

I talk a lot about the old days like they were some magical time. I suppose I like what time has made distant to seem somehow more glamorous than today, and in turn to make myself seem somehow more exciting than the truth of me is. But the fact remains that I am and always have been a very stayed woman infatuated with the idea of being flamboyant, exotic. Exciting.

I recall a time long ago with the Ex. He wasn't a rich man or a stayed man. Or for that matter, a particularly patient man. He was 22. He'd told me he was in the navy because he'd been convicted of murder, which he committed while in the act of selling rock cocaine as a teenager. His choices, so he told me, were to go into the navy or go to prison. How much of that story was truth and how much of it he fabricated, I'll never know. But regardless of exactly where the lines of truth layed in reality were irrelevant to me, as they weren't the man I knew.

The man I knew was head strong. Intelligent. He wanted it all but shared it with me more than any other person I have ever known. He liked to pretend he was a good provider, and he hated when life didn't allow him to be that provider. Most of the time though, he was romantic and giving in every sense I can imagine.

But times were not rewarding of that characteristic in him, and he took it very, very hard. I remember it, sitting on a bus one day, listening to him tell me about the life we would one day have together. It was a beautiful life. The only problem was getting there.

He hated the navy. He hated the restrictions and regulations. He hated the confines put on him. He wanted out. He tried and tried to convince me to let him sell drugs again - telling me all about the process of cutting and of doubling up. All those Godfather-esque phrases and terms I had no idea about. We'd make it big quick, Carla. You and me.

I wouldn't let him do it - it wasn't right. It wasn't legal. But he was glorious the way he lit up. He had a plan. He was gonna be a big star. I talked him out of it that day. I watched the light go out and resentment took it's place. He couldn't be a working man and blue collars weren't his color.

All I wanted was to be with him. I couldn't care less where that took us, as long as it led to "together".

Sometime later, his resentment grew. Eventually it divided us. He got angrier and angrier, until the day he pointed a loaded gun to my head. He told me to shut my big, stupid mouth before he closed it for me.

I told him to pull the damned trigger already, if that was what he wanted, because nobody threatens me.

Anyway.

As much as I am drawn to those who have some fiery spark, I was then and to this day still am, stayed. But its funny to look back and where that duality has taken me. I feel like a gypsy. I have many stories to tell.

12:14 am - 12.15.02
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