Copacabana

My mother says we all dream big

Drove around the old neighborhood in Atlanta this weekend. Took the road I got my first speeding ticket on past my first true love's house, crossed the street to my friend's house where, because his parents spent the entire summer in Europe, I pretty much lost a great deal of time in his home the summer before college, and finally to the elementary school recreation field where my sister Laura introduced me to -- ahem -- funny cigarettes. Made a lot of great big plans on those neighborhood roads -- sometimes I feel like I let all those who thought I was some sort of genius (funny, I know) down because my genius-ness has not manifested itself very dramatically. I feel this poignantly when those in this new life look at me with pity or derision or bewilderment as if they wonder why I bother at all. I just want to scream -- "People thought I was special once! They thought I was smart and beautiful and they liked me. They genuinely thought I had something to offer to the world. You can't make me forget that. I won't let you Goddammit so stop -- Please, stop...!"

But I don't. I keep my head down and let my friends -- whom I see only occasionally, this past weekend for example, remind me that I once was the kind of person who would never let the pathetic insecurities of others affect the way I saw myself or designed my future. It's good to be reminded that I had that once. I think -- I really think -- it might still be in here somewhere. But letting it loose now, surrounded by the small minded -- the type who think the image of happiness is just as good as the real thing (I mean, you're the only one who has to know and what everyone else thinks is what really matters, right?) -- would be like putting your hair up for a tractor pull. Or, as the Bible says so eloquently, casting pearls before swine.

I just get so scared sometimes -- in fact, it kept me up pretty much the entire night last night -- that swine is all there is...

posted by Lola @ 1:41 PM