things I felt like saying

I remember how I felt after seeing you, how it felt to go home and lie in that empty bed and wish you were there. I remember your particular smell, and how we had to contort our bodies to have sex in the back seat. There were lunches with friends after school and a few jaunts to St Augustine. We went to the beach once and wrote our names in the sand and then slept curled in your bed like snakes.
There was the smile/smirk that you always got whenever you saw me, and how you'd use your whole body to back me into the wall, just so you could say that there was never any space between us. If there were any two people that were bound to have their first time on a school bus, it was us . . . But I can't tell you how many times since I've fallen in love with you that I wish I would have waited to have my first time with you.
Once, I saw you skateboard. It was one of the first days of Lackawanna, and I was waiting for Mimi back at Wolfson and you rode all the way home on the bus just to ride back on your board. I can't describe how sexy you were to me at that moment, hat on your head, shirt all the way open to show the white undershirt, Dickies riding low like that was how they were meant to be worn.
Too many late night phone calls just because we couldn't bear to be even that much apart. It's lucky we didn't have cell phones, or we would have been on those 24/7, too.
The night we graduated was a Tuesday. I remember that because I was watching JAG while waiting for you to come pick me up. You went to the Rib Shack with your family. I don't remember what we did. You came and got me and we drove around. I was hoping for something more, but I can't tell you what that was. I think we had sex in the usual spot.
We've been apart a lot, haven't we? I've left you at the MEPS, knowing that you were heading off to basic and that I couldn't talk to you for God only knows how long (It was nearly a week or so until a letter came from the other side of the training "compound"). We met again at Sheppard and picked right up where we left off . . . And then we split up once more. You, California-bound. Me for home (horrible without you, btw), and then for the Land of the Rising Sun.
If I could do Yokota all over again, I would. In a heartbeat. No Joey, no Mark, no giving up on you. I would hop a C-130 to come back to you if I could. I'd confront you and do myself some justice.
Had I known that early 2005 was going to change so much, I would have stayed until the crew bus came, and I would have kissed you like you should have been kissed and maybe spent more time talking about things that should have been said earlier. The summer of that same year was awesome, though. I got to fall in love with you all over again.
Except maybe that's the trouble. I don't know that I've really reconciled early you with current you, and sometimes it messes with my head.
I miss irresponsible you.
But I love current you more than early me would have dreamed possible, so I guess it all works out in the end.

/sigh

i guess i have forgiven the both of you, finally. i'm sitting here trying to think of something to write, and usually thinking of the two of you always produces some kind of urge . . . but not this time. for once, there's nothing.
oddly, the only thing that i can think of that i miss is the way he dressed back then. god, how i miss him in skate wear and a hat. he says that he wears a hat everyday, so why can't i be happy with that, but it isn't the same. a hat that says 660 AMXS on it isn't the same as a volcom hat.

this is the end, my friend.

sometimes i still think about what it would be like if we didn't have kids. now that i've had tristan, however, i think those things less often. i don't like following that train of thought because i just end up wishing i didn't have kids, and that's not something i want.
lola is at jeni's for the next couple of days, and tristan is at my feet crying. he's fighting sleep and he wants to be held, but if i pick him up, i'll never be able to put him down. i am slowly but surely trying to break him of that need to be held all of the time. i try to keep him awake as much as possible so that he'll sleep longer at night, which seems to be working really well. keep my fingers crossed that it continues.
a while ago, christopher and i watched a program on the history channel about the apocalypse. the program was very good and really interesting, up until the point where they mentioned that the world is going to end in 2012, according to the bible and several experts on the bible. great. so you mean to tell me that my daughter will never reach her teens, and that my baby will never be anything more? awesome. that makes me really excited about bringing another life into the world. i know that as a christian, i should be "excited" about the end of the world, and going up to heaven to live there in peace, but i can't. thinking about it, i realized that if the world does come to an end in a few years, that means that christopher and i will have only been married about six years. i said forever. maybe not in vows in a church in a formal wedding, but we're married and there's been te acknowledgement that we're in this for the long haul between us for many years now. we might not have said forever in front of friends and family but we've said it to each other, and that's even more important. forever is FOREVER, not just a few years because the world ended. that means that we're supposed to grow old together and travel and meet a grandchild or two.
i haven't decided which part bothers me more - christopher or the kids. i guess i would have to say that it's tristan that breaks my heart the most. he's just a baby. he might not get to go to disneyland or see a movie in the theater, or swim in the ocean, or learn about sports or cars or girls or school or anything. i want to see him as a teenager and as a man. i want to judge him next to the yardstick that is his father. i want him to argue with me about tattoes and piercings and girls. i want him to be a momma's boy.
and there's lola. she might make it to the first grade. she might have little friends to run around on the playground with. she actually know her numbers, alphabet, colors. i'll never get to see how beautiful she'll be fully grown or what kind of woman will she be? will she go to college? will she join the military? will she marry?
will they join the military? will they really fall in love?
part of me has accepted that this could very well be a reality, and it has affected how i look at things. oh, no money? so what? the world's gonna end. i haven't got to travel the world, or even the us. or even the state that i live in. we don't have money saved away to build the house of our dreams, or to have the wedding that we want.
i just look at tristan and i feel like he's never gonna grow up. and i don't think that's because he's my baby. i think it's because part of me believes that he's gonna be this way eternally.
i don't know why i don't worry about lola so much. maybe because she's done some growing up, and seen a few things.
either way, i hope that it's going to be a long time before the apocalypse.

missing it ain't gonna bring it back

it is sometimes early in the mornings or whenever i drive through the back gate when i acutely miss being on leave out here. it's an odd thing to miss, but i can honestly say that june-july 2005 was the best time of my life. i felt like i rediscovered myself and, most importantly, i fell in love with him all over again. i miss not having responsibilities, i miss going and doing whatever we wanted because we were tourists. i even miss that lukewarm shower and tiny twin bed.
he seemed more aware of me then, more aware of me as a sexual object (and i mention that only because i practically have to add a reminder into his phone to schedule together time these days). i miss the way he used to dress. i miss 4am bedtimes and noon wakeups, killing time until jeff got off of work.
or maybe it's the sense of infinite possibilites that i miss.

things that happen and don't

have i mentioned yet that whenever i go to the mall, i expect to run into you? sometimes (ok, most times), i catch myself looking for you.
it's sad, because you're kinda like my bad idea. or drug. or just bad habit. i keep wanting to reach out to you somehow, maybe suggest that we get together at some point, but somethings keeps from making that final leap. i guess it's the thought that maybe you're talking shit about me behind my back . . . i remember very well the things you said about taylor, and now you guys are best friends again.
i'm sitting here thinking that i should suggest a get-together so that i can really tell you how i've been feeling lately, and to find out if we'll actually be friends (in a closer sense than we have been lately), or if it's a better idea that I make my stand and say, "no more."

the s-word

I think that you were more attracted to me when we weren't together.
Remember phone sex while I was pregnant? Granted, that was the most used I'd ever felt (you'd get yours and then log off), but I kept coming back for more, because that small amount of contact with you was better than nothing. Fucked up, I know.
When I lived in Japan, we'd have sex every time we saw one another. Now I get that maybe three times a week. I'm not asking for every night, but even foreplay or making out on nights that sex isn't on the menu would be nice. Fuck, just touch me! I feel like you don't want me at all until sex happens. Way to the pregnant wife feel attractive. I don't have a problem with scheduling a little bit of together time, but when you have to do it so that you know when you should get off of WoW, I think that's a little much.

I've been thinking lately about the first time I came to California. I told myself that I was going to play it cool and allow you to make any moves (if there were going to be any). After Samantha and everything else, I figured that was the only way that I was going to know how you felt. We had sex that first afternoon. It was awkward and unfinished, but you made those moves. You touched me first, you took the time to take my clothes off. Hell, you even got on top, and that's saying something.
Do you remember that shower we took together? The one that lasted several hours and it felt like you were taking your time to get to know every little part of me again? And then, once you were done there, you carried me out of the shower, dried me off, and laid me out on the bed and spent even more time finishing what we started.
I'm not asking for that every time, but I would like the same sorts of feeling again. Like you aren't just doing it to get yours, or that you're doing it to shut me up.
Like you care, I guess.

Friends

I think that even though it might be a good thing to have one person that you can tell everything to, I think it is probably a good idea that some things remain unsaid. Or, if that can't be the case, have several people that you can tell certain things to. I say this because it seems as though I have made the mistake of telling one person nearly every important thing about me, expecting somewhere deep down inside that we would always be friends - and now, I guess we aren't. Maybe you could still call us friends, but friends at least reach out and touch one another, and while I have made the effort to do so, that person has not reciprocated, and it leaves me feeling rather empty. I want to force a confession from this person - why would do you do this to me? are we not friends? is this it?
I won't.
I'm trying to see it for what it is, and realize that maybe this is the best thing to do.
But it's hard.
And I miss her.

what child is this . . .

being a mother is one of the most exhausting things on this planet. it is very rewarding - extremely, but there are days (more often than not) when i wish that i wasn't a parent. i love that little girl to pieces. she constantly surprises me with her level of intelligence and her wit. she's absolutely gorgeous, and i am not looking forward to her older years, because she's only going to get prettier.
but she frustrates the shit out of me. sometimes, when i hear her cry, i just think "shut the hell up! christ!"
and other times, my heart aches. i hate when chris doesn't move fast enough to get to her or treats her in a way that i think is wrong.
is that normal? i feel like i'm more often angry at her than not. i know that part of it is because of j. i feel like she loves j more, and if i were to leave lola there, she'd never notice that i wasn't around. i truly believe that. she doesn't want to come home, whines about being here, calls me grandma for a week or more.
i'm sure that i love her unconditionally, and that i would murder anyone that hurt her, but sometimes i'm afraid it's a case of "i like her, but i don't love her", and i don't want that to be the case. that isn't right. i'm her mother!
i'm also afraid that i'm treating her this way because i'm finally pregnant with christopher's baby, and that i'm going to like that one more than lola. i hope that isn't the case, because that isn't fair to anyone, and i don't want to favor one child over the other.
maybe i just need to learn patience . . .

she and i

i admitted to him that i miss you. that, i thought i would never do. even though our relationship was out in the open - all of it - it was something that i didn't talk about. why make him mad, or upset him when it didn't really benefit me in the end. after all, it was him that i had to share space with.
but we worked together, and that was something as a victory, even though i didn't get you the job there in order to circumvent him. but then you left. you left me, i guess. i've never really admitted that out loud, either, but that's kind of how i saw it. i think that helped me resent you for a little while.
it didn't take me long to get over that, honestly. i put on a face because i didn't want anyone else to know that i really did miss you.
now you've moved and you're engaged and we don't ever talk. i've reached out to you a coupla times, but you haven't gotten back to the email that i was most hoping you'd respond to. and you've resurrected friendships with two people that you swore you wouldn't (and i have to admit that i was happy about that, because that meant that there'd only be me).
so now, what?
we've both moved on and we have our own lives . . .
but i miss you. i miss your sense of humor and how you were always around to go to joe's or just to hang out. we had a fucking gimmick, for Christ's sake.
we shared a lot. i came very close to ruining my marriage for you, and now there's nothing. i could accept that if i knew that you were meant to be my closest friend just to help me heal wounds that were still festering. maybe that's all we were supposed to be to one another, i guess.
honestly, though, i'm still feeling that urge to reach out to her (and again to you) so that we can all hang out. why? because you both were a part of something that i wasn't there for and something that i still regret even happened. i know that i won't say anything to either one of you, but i give it some thought. my fingers dial your phone number every once in a while, but i never hit the talk button. what would i say?

i miss you and i wish i knew you missed me.

the boy

this picture is one of my favorite of him, and i didn't even take it. it was given to me by samantha, long after the fact. but this picture demonstrates what i love about the way he used to dress. i love him in a hat (even if it does say AMXS in big red letters), and i love him in one of those t-shirts and jeans and skate shoes. i miss that. i miss it more than i should admit, honestly.

from my pen-to-paper writings:
i miss you in jeans and white t-shirts. i mis your hats and skate shoes. i know that isn't your style anymore, and i'm ok with that, but you just looked so good . . . so at ease. there was also a certain familiarity in the way you acted and moved. i think that's what i miss the most. why, i couldn't tell you. maybe because of the sheer volume of memories that i made with the boy in the gray cargoes and worn out t-shirts. that isn't to say that i don't thoroughly enjoy the man that i married (as they are one and the same), but he takes some getting used to - still, after so long. he's so much more responsible. i know that he should be - he's an adult, after all, with a wife and a daughter and another on the way. he has bills and all of that stuff, but i miss when he was a little bit more reckless. reckless . . . i don't know if that's the word i'm looking for. maybe 'innocent' would work better.
part of it is probably because i missed out on the transformations of you from high school to airman to adult. i don't feel like i've changed at all, and that it's you who has re-engineered who you are, but i'm sure that's just life relative to me. i know that i have changed, i just don't see it because it's me.
i keep telling myself that this too shall pass and that how you dress now versus how you used to dress won't matter, but that seems like a long time in coming.

these things are transitory

i have a myspace and a livejournal, but i feel stifled in both places. even though those are "my spaces", i feel like i have to write for my audience. there are things that i want to write about but don't, because i know who will be reading. it sucks for me, because in the end, those things never get out. they just sit and stagnate, and i am tired of that.
there is too much history on livejournal. i've been so many different people there (proof, i suppose that i have changed), that it seems . . . useless, maybe, to "start fresh". i changed my username once, but nothing really changed. i don't really even blog there anymore, just keep up with people. as for myspace, it is mostly my audience that troubles me. chris reads, samantha reads. kristine reads, kristina reads. i want to write about things that i have already written about, but feel like going over once more, and i hate the thought that someone is reading that and rolling their eyes, thinking that i should move on, already.
so here i am. i haven't decided if i will keep this totally private, or if there are certain people i'll share the link with. only time will tell.

i have been writing a lot more on paper lately, and i guess that is because of the lack of free space. the good thing about it is that i'm getting out those thoughts exactly as i think them, without embellishment or editing. i like that. i would continue to do that and scorn the internet, but i'm so leery of paper journals and i often get tired of how long it takes to write one thing when i could have written 10 by computer in that same amount of time.

i honestly hope that this will turn out better.