for what it's worth
it was worth all the while
I had a really strange experience recently. Two, really, two strange experiences. Separate but similar experiences. They both involved a television, which if you know me at all tells you that it was unusual from the get go. I watched two things, two shows, one movie, one television. Silly, fun, ridiculous bits of fluff. Thirteen Going On Thirty. Season One, Episode Seven of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
There is a scene in the movie, the Thirteen movie. It is not even a scene, really, more of an exchange. The girl says to the boy, after discovering that he is engaged to be married to someone else, she says Is she your soul mate? And he states that he does not believe in soul mates. And she says But you get the fluttery stomach and the, you know, when you're with her? And he says No, I haven't gotten that way over a girl since high school, thank God.
Thank God. I do not feel that way, thank God. He is happy, relieved, that he has not had to go through this thing in how many years. And I watched this movie, and as light as it was, that hit me very hard. Because, why wouldn't you want that? Why wouldn't you want to feel that? I cannot imagine anything less. That feeling. That, that feeling. That knowledge, that sense. I know where you are, and where you are is in my head, and I can feel you in my stomach and it's nice to see you. That sometime desperation, where you just, feel. And I was thinking how much I miss that. Because that's how it's always been, and it's probably been that way far too often, but that's how it always is. That's how it was for five years last time, and it did not occur to me until I watched this thing that that is not how it always is, and that perhaps that is not even desirable. Because why wouldn't you want that?
And I got the answer while watching this other thing, Buffy. A very specific episode. I have not seen the show before. I rented it and enjoyed it very much. Then after everyone else was gone I watched another episode, one which I imagine will come to be somewhat pivotal in the series. It is the episode in which the boy confesses to the girl that he is a vampire and she is a vampire slayer but all that aside he loves her and cannot be without her and she is in HIS head and in HIS belly and you can see it, you can see him tormented by this thing, by the weight of his feeling for her, and that it is eating him and will make him insane. And she is the same for him and they are mad for each other but can't have it, and the point at which I started fucking sobbing was when she walked off after their last kiss and he is watching her and she has left a mark on him, seared into his skin, the evidence that no matter how we burn for one another and how it seems that we cannot breathe unless we are breathing each other, that sometimes the heat of that burns everything but you and leaves you standing there, the lone survivor of this nuclear blast that we call love. And really, why wouldn't you want that.
Why wouldn't I want that? I would love that. I would love to have that. I would love to feel that for someone, to even just know that I could. Except that I already have, and I have the marks of it burned into my skin, too. I have the heat of that smoking its way through the brains of every boy I've met since, every single one who went How the fuck did you get like that, and who did that to you? Because it's like a forest fire, you know? For a long time it is ugly and it is black and you can smell the ashes for years, but eventually, eventually it comes back. It turns green, bits at a time. But if the forest behind my house burned down and I narrowly escaped with my life, I don't know that I'm going to be lighting campfires in it when it finally starts growing back. I think that I may sit out at the edge of the woods with some flame retardant and a fire extinguisher and even if I never sleep I am going to sit there and make sure that I put out every fucking wisp of flame that I see. And I feel for the arsonist, the camper, the poor boy that is simply trying to warm his hands because after I hose him down with that extinguisher I think that I may just sink it into the back of his skull, for good measure. Just to be sure. And then leave him there on the ground while I go back to my house and freeze to death because I am so, so afraid to turn the heat on.
I had a really strange experience recently. Two, really, two strange experiences. Separate but similar experiences. They both involved a television, which if you know me at all tells you that it was unusual from the get go. I watched two things, two shows, one movie, one television. Silly, fun, ridiculous bits of fluff. Thirteen Going On Thirty. Season One, Episode Seven of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
There is a scene in the movie, the Thirteen movie. It is not even a scene, really, more of an exchange. The girl says to the boy, after discovering that he is engaged to be married to someone else, she says Is she your soul mate? And he states that he does not believe in soul mates. And she says But you get the fluttery stomach and the, you know, when you're with her? And he says No, I haven't gotten that way over a girl since high school, thank God.
Thank God. I do not feel that way, thank God. He is happy, relieved, that he has not had to go through this thing in how many years. And I watched this movie, and as light as it was, that hit me very hard. Because, why wouldn't you want that? Why wouldn't you want to feel that? I cannot imagine anything less. That feeling. That, that feeling. That knowledge, that sense. I know where you are, and where you are is in my head, and I can feel you in my stomach and it's nice to see you. That sometime desperation, where you just, feel. And I was thinking how much I miss that. Because that's how it's always been, and it's probably been that way far too often, but that's how it always is. That's how it was for five years last time, and it did not occur to me until I watched this thing that that is not how it always is, and that perhaps that is not even desirable. Because why wouldn't you want that?
And I got the answer while watching this other thing, Buffy. A very specific episode. I have not seen the show before. I rented it and enjoyed it very much. Then after everyone else was gone I watched another episode, one which I imagine will come to be somewhat pivotal in the series. It is the episode in which the boy confesses to the girl that he is a vampire and she is a vampire slayer but all that aside he loves her and cannot be without her and she is in HIS head and in HIS belly and you can see it, you can see him tormented by this thing, by the weight of his feeling for her, and that it is eating him and will make him insane. And she is the same for him and they are mad for each other but can't have it, and the point at which I started fucking sobbing was when she walked off after their last kiss and he is watching her and she has left a mark on him, seared into his skin, the evidence that no matter how we burn for one another and how it seems that we cannot breathe unless we are breathing each other, that sometimes the heat of that burns everything but you and leaves you standing there, the lone survivor of this nuclear blast that we call love. And really, why wouldn't you want that.
Why wouldn't I want that? I would love that. I would love to have that. I would love to feel that for someone, to even just know that I could. Except that I already have, and I have the marks of it burned into my skin, too. I have the heat of that smoking its way through the brains of every boy I've met since, every single one who went How the fuck did you get like that, and who did that to you? Because it's like a forest fire, you know? For a long time it is ugly and it is black and you can smell the ashes for years, but eventually, eventually it comes back. It turns green, bits at a time. But if the forest behind my house burned down and I narrowly escaped with my life, I don't know that I'm going to be lighting campfires in it when it finally starts growing back. I think that I may sit out at the edge of the woods with some flame retardant and a fire extinguisher and even if I never sleep I am going to sit there and make sure that I put out every fucking wisp of flame that I see. And I feel for the arsonist, the camper, the poor boy that is simply trying to warm his hands because after I hose him down with that extinguisher I think that I may just sink it into the back of his skull, for good measure. Just to be sure. And then leave him there on the ground while I go back to my house and freeze to death because I am so, so afraid to turn the heat on.
posted by machine central at 12:24 AM
1 Comments:
This is a very good bit of writing.
And just as an aside, if I ever met Mark Ruffalo I do believe I would get that stomach fluttery feeling. Sorry, Mark's wife, if I am stepping on your toes with that.
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