The other day, I googled myself. Yeah I do that.
Since someone like me only really has a chance of being indexed through high school accomplishments, I usually come up with nothing. Mostly because my high school was the kind that felt it was acceptable to appropriate the Anheuser-Busch logo and somehow make it about ‘meeting new challenges every day’ instead of…beer. Which, oddly enough, the only challenge my high school faced was teenage alcoholism so I guess in retrospect, they were pulling off one fucking poignant piece of performance art.
Failed public education aside, my query is usually fruitless. But yesterday, when I searched for myself hoping to ensure that I can’t be contacted in any way by family members who should’ve been committed years ago, I found a public profile claiming I live in Nigeria. After confirming that my credit cards hadn’t been used to buy twelve XBox 360s, I noticed a link on the page, relevant of course because it was one of the few that included my name. I cringed when I saw it, but was sadistically delighted to know that it still existed. It was something my boyfriend at the time had written about me – proof that someone, somewhere loved me long enough to manufacture a few thoughts into functioning sentences:
*name has been changed
A few things come to mind here – most glaring of which is that I can’t believe my pussy has put me in so much peril as to require a nine-hour emergency room visit for a urinary tract infection. Also, yes I’m an asshole for making fun of the guy with moobs. Sorry. I’m (kind of) different now. Oh, and the trilingual thing? My German and French language skills would land me in an assisted living facility for the developmentally disabled because my vocabulary boils down to, ‘Bathroom please and then we’ll see about ham.’ But, if I may brag for a moment, my grasp of English could definitely land me a position cleaning bed pans. While I’m at it, I’ll debunk the music thing too because well, come on.
I can’t vouch for the rest because it was based solely on an opinion that wasn’t mine and has since expired. But, for the sake of the authenticity of the twelve minutes taken to write it, I’ll assume that these feelings weren’t devised under false pretenses. Years ago, I would’ve tried to find a way to salt the earth and bury the page in order to dispel the idea that I am incompetent because I demolished the relationship in which these feelings existed. Because, after all, it is better to be loved without dilution than admit to everyone that you fucked it all up by not realizing that you were even loved in the first place.
Now I celebrate it. Not because the message has changed – the subtext of failure is still very present. But now, the failure is no longer the swelling tide that buries me beneath a carpet of sand and is instead the 7-11 from which I can safely eat my Funyuns while I carefully map out every ripple and finally realize what went wrong. I misdiagnosed the failure. My inability to adequately love this person was merely a symptom of the reality that I knew there was no good reason to, other than the fact that we both escaped from Budweiser High.
I still fail, and have no doubt that I always will. But I am learning how to be better at it – starting with skipping the Funyuns because they’re…just really gross.
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Nicky and Alex were the twins of Rebecca and Jesse Katsopolis, who for a moment thought about actually moving out of their Quasimodo-esque digs, until realizing that it would totally ruin the plot. First of all, any parents who live in an attic are usually referred to as unfit, and are then confirmed as clinically insane once they explain that the reason behind this is so that they can be close to Bob Saget and his children. However, much to my disappointment and despite many calls to CPS, Nicky and Alex remained on the show. Meanwhile, I was told to stop calling over a fictional issue, even though the ability for two children to ruin everything and do nothing all at once was very real to me. I mean, I know we’re talking about Full House here- a show that, if you can get through an episode without Joey doing his Popeye impression, is considered a success, but ideally, a synopsis should go beyond: ”Nicky gets a cold, Alex stands up in his crib because he wants uppies.”