mmmmmccxxxvi

Confessions Spoken Into A Slight Breeze

“What about his deepest, darkest secrets,”
someone thought while the performer was
in the middle of his most turbulent scene.

I was having a conversation with my best
friend the way we always have conversa
tions, which means we were texting Line

or Instagram, which I was doing on my new

iPHone.  Somehow we got into a really heated 

argument.  It happens.  He was upset because he 

didn’t think I gave him any time to speak, and 

that I kept interrupting him. This happens.  So 

he said a few mean things, and he can say 

really mean things, I can never get used to 

hearing my best friend say really mean things 

to me.  So then I got upset, and he excused 

himself, because like anybody with a bit of

common sense, he knew when he needed
to take a break and to calm the fuck down.

I, on the other hand, sent within the length
of an hour, enough text to fill a novel of
average size – or at least a short story, one

of the choices we had for book reports in
eleventh grade that when eyeballing  a 
selection seemed the slimmest in volume.

This was not me, actually.  When book
report season arrived, I’d always pick one
like Shogun or Stephen King’s The Stand.

If it wasn’t at least a thousand pages, I
figured it would not be worth my time.  No,
that wasn’t it.  But I welcomed the opportunity

to spend enough time with a book that I really
felt like I was in there, had been there.  Which didn’t
work, really, considering I don’t have that kind of

memory.  I require photographic reminders, if not
full-fledged journal entries, in order to call up the
capacity to fully recollect a scene.  When I finally

began traveling abroad, to all of the wonderfully
foreign cities that I’d grown up knowing I had to
visit, I’d always make a point of spending a solid

two weeks, if not more, in the specific city.  My
first such trip was to France, where I spent
two weeks in Paris.  During that time I turned 

forty.  I didn’t even go to Versailles.  I just wanted
to spend as much time living in that city that I
came out feeling like I had once been a Parisian.

I have never once met my best friend in person.
We’ve known each other for over a decade now,
which has been for both of us a series of pretty

wild ups and downs.  Also, I’ve had a boyfriend 

for nearly seven years.  During that seven years
we’ve spent exactly two weeks in the same

city, his city.  Next week, I’ll be turning in the
paperwork so that he can come here, we’ll get
married, and will finally be living in the same

hemisphere.  I was just informed that the 

estimated time from turning in the application 

to his arrival, now that I have the money to turn 

it in, has doubled to two years within the last year, 

which was when the paperwork was completed.
How can I possibly turn sixty next year?  I

do certainly hope to get that opportunity.  I’ve 

seen since my mid-twenties something like
eight therapists with whom I met with regularly

for any extended duration. My new one seems

intent to do something all of the rest never
hinted at doing.  She wants to diagnose me

with something.  I don’t really have many
secrets.  There is a ton of things about me
that no one has ever heard.  Because for

reasons that I’ve tried to explain elsewhere,
I don’t interact much with others these days,
certainly not folks with whom I’ve had a lot
.
of previous interaction.  That is something I 

remain very committed to changing.  But

I believe that reaching an important goal 

should not be such a struggle, especially 

when the odds of reaching that goal 

keep decreasing.