The Folder

2004-06-14 5:45 a.m.
They say that pain reminds you that you are alive. I generally disagree, in the hopes to convince others that happiness has the same effect. And it does. But happiness is greater after sadness. And while digging through my file cabinet for my old tax bullshit to handle some minor audit bullshit, I happened upon �my folder�. A nice lil way to turn the knife of time into my side a bit.

It�s actually a file folder full of 3 or 4 ratty beaten up school folders. The folder is busting at the seams with napkins and torn notebook pages, and a letter from J. written on the back of a piece of wallpaper. It�s filled with a bunch of my writing since about the age of 12. Those are always good for some humility. �The G�s prayer,� �In Reach,� �Light a Blunt,� to name a few of the classics.

It�s filled with letters and notes and poetry from all the women I�ve ever cared about. I couldn�t bare to read them through (it would take weeks), even though glancing over the first and last paragraph of a few got me a bit choked up. The cute ways they signed their letters, with hearts and stars and smiles. The lipstick kisses and the candle stains.

I was always such a fucking hard ass, but secretively loved that shit. Just hiding my hopeless romantic behind an armored exterior. �Too cool for school,� as some complete stranger who was hitting on R. mentioned the other night. That�s why I still have the folder. It�s filled with poetry and half page notes about love and eternal moments and long stares and the first touch or kiss. How well we listened to each other. How much we loved each other. How hard it was to leave. How hard it was to stay. Love triangles. Sexual fits. Existence.

Others were from very close friends, telling me about their boyfriends. One�s 11 pages long and explains why this beautiful scorpio from LA is still with this guy who treats her like shit. It ends with a passage from her poetry book, and a request for me to call her and yell at her for being so stupid. I didn�t reprimand her by any means, but soon after we lost touch. That was from 97. Never met her in person, but we wrote each other for about 3 years.

And ol� girl from Newport News, Virginia. The first time I ever fell in love with a girl I�d never met. Met her online back when meeting online was taboo (94?). We wrote and talked on the phone for a couple years, and then lost touch.

It�s always been my fault for losing touch. I was always throwing a party, or always running some show. Constantly making sure everyone around me was having the most memorable moments of their lives. And if you weren�t within 10 feet of me, I didn�t have time for you. Not in an arrogant way, but more in a physical capability way.

Like the letter from A. explaining how much she loved my company but wanted to keep as friends. Man, I was so into her. After we parted ways I�d turned away from long phone conversations completely. I�d reached my lifelong record with her. Something like 18 hours on the phone. She called 3 months before I left for New York to tell me she was getting married. I was smart enough to be happy for her and congratulate, but stupid enough to allow that to be our last conversation.

Oh, and that goddess, K, from Massachusetts. I spent a summer out there working for my father and met her through a friend (think I was like 15 or 16). She used to get a lot of shit cuz she was a little darker than everyone (pretty light skinned, really). The most beautiful Portuguese girl I�d ever met. My one and only shot at �love at first sight�. We�d spent a weekend together, and then I went to Washington DC. When I went into my bag while driving to DC, I�d found her letter. My feelings were reciprocated, but we�d never speak again.

Read one letter from N. about how she thinks she was falling in love with me because I made her feel alive. Man was she beautiful. She�s the one who made me feel alive. 3 months later she took off with a friend of mine and left me a voice mail about how much she enjoyed fucking him. A year later I heard ol boy had her all coked out.

And M., who I�d drunkenly told I loved once while she was asleep in my lap, not quite sure why, as I don�t really think I did. When I woke up an hour later she was blowing my boy C in the bathroom. I never said shit.

And from my ex. Letters begging me to come back to Chicago. Poetry she�d written while we were together and gave to me when I left. Ah, the knife hits a vein. I�d already had a couple tears that made it to my top lip by then, and here go 2 more� slightly smudging the pink ink around the lil heart sticker.

Trudging along my own timeline re-feeling love found and lost. Odd writings and letters about existence and life and death. Always lost. Always homeless. I can actually see it all from up here now. Looking over my past from a mountain top, knowing I could never get back but only climb further.

Like egress once said� something about being hopelessly nomadic by nature (one day I�ll go back and find the exact quote). It�s hard to believe I�ll be walking again. It�s hard to believe I haven�t walked very far for so long.

A reminder of why it�s time to move on.