This post is an exercise I’m participating in through {W}rite of Passage.  This week’s assignment:  Plot is the main point of your story. Every blog post is a story, however short or long you create it. What is the point of this post?  Write a post with a clear plot- the point in which you are trying to make.

Some plots are action oriented, some are internal.  I’ll let you decide which route I chose.  To see the various posts of other participants, scroll down to the end of the post and click on any of the links.  You’re also most welcome to participate.

***

I had seen you a thousand times before.

In the street.  In a restaurant.  In the hands of one or another adult acquaintances.  On a movie screen.  On television.

People I loved and respected, even the ones who were intimate with you, told me you were dangerous and that no good would ever come from a relationship with you.  But I had watched you with a sense of wonder for years, and, truthfully, you didn’t seem all that bad to me.

My first real meeting with you occurred on a still, sandy night, beside the choppy Atlantic about seventeen years ago.  I sat awkwardly playful in that stillness, wedged in between two friends on a creaky red lifeguard stand, giggling about something innocent all the while pretending that our problems were real ones, in the unique way that teenagers are known to do.

You sat in one of those friend’s pocket, quietly waiting for an introduction.

I met you at a time when I wanted with all my might to stand apart from anyone who told me they knew what was best for me.  You were rebellion, independence, privacy, danger and solace all wrapped up into one tiny yet very well marketed package.  That night, with sand in my shoes and a strange sort of light headed aching, I let you into my life.

I think there was a time I would actually have described the way I felt about you as love.

It wasn’t love, of course.  It was fascination.  Then, it was need.  Then, came addiction.  And, now, there is shame.  And, oh, God, regret.  Love was never really a part of the equation between us because love doesn’t exact the price that you do.

Love does not destroy the people who worship at its altar the way you do.

In the early years, you and I were inseparable.  I needed you all the time, at least once an hour, maybe more.  You made me feel cool, alert and strong.  You created distance between just the right people and me.  You were my wall.

Then, I began to love other people in a way that I never had before.  For the first time, I met somebody who loved me so much that I was forced to love myself completely.  My heart opened to the goodness in life.  I realized that you kept me from fully experiencing that so, though it was hard at first, I willingly let you go.  We separated.  There was a powerful finality to it, too.

Until.

Life got messy and complicated.  I started to believe that it was all too much.  I was feeling too much and not feeling like I was enough, getting frustrated, and my biggest fear loomed before me:  I was showing too much of myself to the world.

You promised to take the edge off.  You promised to help me hide all that emotion, all that weakness.  You promised that you could do this for me even if I just met with you every once in a while.  Maybe at a party.  Maybe at a lunch.  Maybe in the late hours of the night, when the baby was fed, and everyone was sound asleep.  Just every once in a while.  Nobody needed to know, and it might make all the difference, you seemed to whisper.

It’s a beautiful story, but a lie nonetheless.  I know now that you actually make me more nervous.  See, when the toxins you put in my body began to fade, my skin crawls.  I feel like screaming.  I feel mean.  I can’t sleep.  My head hurts.  I want to do anything and everything to just make the pain of not having you stop.

You don’t calm me.  You make me worse and to add insult to injury you make me believe that the opposite is true.

Truly, I have never been more gullible and stupid than when I am consorting with you.

Yesterday, I stood in front of a woman who took x-rays of my lungs.  As I stood there, coughing, wheezing and gasping for air, I thought about all of the lies I told myself about you.  I thought that just a sporadic association with you would save me from this.  Other people cohort with you hourly, daily… I only see you every once in a while.

Apparently, everyone is different.  My brother, the doctor, told me that some people can commune with you ten times as much as I do and never have a problem like this.  But, he quickly added, you’re just not one of those people.

I’m not one of those people.  I don’t want to be one of those people, either.  Any relationship with you carries a price, whether it’s a relationship that is daily or as sporadic as once every few months.  The price must be paid.  I don’t want to pay it.  I don’t.  I can’t.  I won’t.

I think about my family and how they deserve a mother, wife, daughter, aunt and sister that smells like beautiful, clean and fresh air all the time, a woman that can run and play and keep up with them, and that is … alive.

I think about how I deserve to be proud of everything I am, how I am too old for secrets, hypocrisy, inconsistency and shame.  I think about how I am so much better than you and how low I feel when I let you get the best of me.

Over seventeen years ago, I made a ridiculous choice while sitting in a lifeguard stand on a chilly November night.  Last week that choice turned into a head cold, that turned into a deep chesty cough, that turned into an x-ray, that has turned into a desperate prayer… and a firm resolve.

You and I?  We will no longer be even the sometimes friends that we’ve been of late.

The falseness of your promises roughly washed over me yesterday as I desperately hoped that the X-ray tech would break protocol yesterday and say, Oh, you’re fine, it looks perfect, I don’t even know why you’re here.

But she didn’t say that, so, now, I wait.

Notably? 

Without you.

So, I genuinely do not know the answer to something.

I know.  I’ll let you catch your breath on that.

Done?  Okay, moving on…

Do you think it’s possible to give certain people too much respect?

Yeah, I said it.

I’m contemplating this because I’ve noticed a disturbing trend recently.  As I go about my day, whether it’s a visit to my or my kids’ doctor/the drive through/Target/a restaurant that the less respect I give a service “professional,” the more they seem to fall over themselves to help me.

Wait.  Before your fingers start flying at the speed of a bullet train intent upon admonishing me for my need to actually support rude behavior… I am a very polite person.  I’m beginning to think I’m too polite.

I start off sentences with stuff like, “If it’s not too much trouble…”

Or, “Do you mind…”

And this is when I’m speaking to people who work at McDonald’s.  No joke.  True story.

The other day, I think because I’m so incredibly sick right now, I was too irritated to have good manners with the service people with whom I was dealing.  And something magical happened.  They started bending over backwards to do stuff for me.  And I swear it felt like the bitchier I got, the more accommodating they became.

So, I ask you, really, with honest to goodness innocent wonder in my heart, do you think it’s possible to give some people too much respect?

Oh, yeah.  I’m still here.  I suppose I could explain where I’ve been, but I think I’ll save all that for another post.  In the meantime, a quick New Year’s post for you:

10 Things I Learned in 2009

• Baby boys are the bomb.  Especially ones that are chill, love their mommies and smile at anything with a soul.  Or even without a soul, actually.  Soul optional

• Just when you think you can write “bomb” on your blog without worrying about the repercussions, someone goes and tries to blow up an airplane and ruins it for everyone.  (Hi, Homeland Security Intern who now has to read my blog for the rest of the school year, it’s so nice to meet you… be sure to leave a clever comment!)

• People’s opinion of me is pretty much already formed.  What I do or say has little effect in the long term.  An opinion of me is more of a reflection of the opinion holder and less of a reflection of who I am.

• For every one person in this world that is hateful and unkind, there are twenty who are loving and decent.  And they’ll text you to remind you of that when you’re feeling down when prompted by a vivacious curly haired head mistress of the Internet.

• Tiger Woods.  Really?  REALLY?

• The fulfillment of familial obligation is not a virtue in and of itself.  Be right and you will do right, not just by your family but by everyone you meet.

• I cannot waste my time trying to earn the respect of some people if it costs the respect I have already earned from others.  Some people will like me, some won’t.  The people who don’t like me are none of my business.  They may have their reasons for not liking me, but I no longer care what they are.  This is who I am.  Love me or leave me, people.

• I have friends.  Really good ones.

What about you?  What did you learn this year?

P.S. It came and it went, but December 28th was my two year anniversary for this blog.  Two years!  I just want to say to all of the bloggers/readers that I have met because of this blog:  Thank you.  Thank you for being there when I was happy, sad, alone, funny, serious, angry, whatever.  You are not my Internet friends.  You are my friends.  Real ones.  In every way.  Happy belated birthday, Native Born, and thank God that Al Gore decided to invent the Internet.

Life is incredibly good.

That is all.

How are YOU?

In a house not so far from this one, right over that hill, a peculiar little daisy lived in a small, but tidy garden.

This peculiar little daisy, whose name was Upsy, lived in a bed of roses.

The flowers to her right and to the left and even behind her had dark, tough stalks and velvety petals.  Petals of red, pink, yellow and even some pretty oranges enveloped Upsy’s life.

These were the kind of colors that made you think of love, passion, and heartache.

Upsy, on the other hand, had a soft stem and bright white cottony petals that would bend and shiver when the wind blew too hard.  If you were to look at Upsy, you would only feel what most people feel when they look at a daisy: very happy.

And because she was a daisy, Upsy was very happy.  Mostly.

You see, since most daisies live in fields or gardens surrounded by other daisies, they are always thinking happy daisy thoughts and living happy daisy lives.  And because of this, most daisies never think the thoughts that Upsy thought.  But Upsy was special because she was a lone daisy in a bed of roses.

Sometimes, when the day waned, and the pinks, reds and oranges of the roses blended with the colors of the evening sun, Upsy would notice the white of her petals, the brightness of her face and the green of her stem.

She would wonder why she was different than all the flowers she had ever known.

She would wonder why the sky was blue and why the grass was green.

She would look at the House where The People lived and wonder what was inside.

She wondered quite a bit while the roses slept and since the roses never seemed to care about any of these things, Upsy would feel a little lonely when she wondered.  Yet wonder she did.

Still, Upsy was loved.

The roses around Upsy would whisper softly to her, We love you Upsy, you are our special daisy, we are so happy to have you here. This made Upsy feel happy and special.  In fact, she felt happier than most daisies ever feel because feeling special can make you very happy.

But many of you know that even feeling special will not make a daisy stop wondering when roses are asleep.

One day, Upsy heard a voice, “Since it’s my tea party,” a tinkling voice said, “I want to make the flower arrangement.”

Upsy was excited.  She knew this pretty dark eyed girl, she was one of The People.  If this girl took her into the House, Upsy might find out about what was inside, what made the grass green, or even why the sky was blue.

With all the might that any daisy has ever mustered, Upsy leaned forward eagerly, towards what she hoped would be answers and to what she knew was sure to be an adventure.

What are you doing, some of the roses whispered excitedly.  Don’t lean forward so much, she’ll pick you.

I want her to pick me.  I want to go, Upsy chirped.

Some of the roses were angry and thought Upsy was being silly.  Others thought that this must be some strange thing that daisies do and just watched.

Ignoring them all, Upsy leaned as much as she could.  And it worked.  The little girl’s dark eyes fell right on her.

“This one.  Only this one”  She said gently.

“Are you sure you want just the daisy,” the older woman asked, “it doesn’t really match the table setting, and I’m not sure it will fill the vase…”

“Yes, I’m sure,” her voice stated resolutely as she clasped Upsy’s stem and tugged gently.

Then, Upsy felt the most curious thing happen.

Some of the roses who were angry with Upsy for wanting to leave clawed with their thorns in an attempt to keep her with them, Why aren’t you staying, they said, why don’t you like us?

But the ones who really loved her, the ones who wanted her to be happy more than anything, pushed her some more and they whispered, We never wondered about those things because maybe they are simply the things that daisies wonder about, but go and find your answers … we trust you… we love you…

Those words made Upsy feel brave, so she pushed away from the ground as hard as she could.

Upsy quickly told the angry roses that she did like them, more than that she loved them, but she wanted to know, she needed to know why the sky was blue, why the grass was green and what exactly was inside that house.

Some of the angry roses stopped pulling and said they understood, others just gave up and a stubborn few continued to  pull.

But by that time, any pulling was simply too late, for even if Upsy had wanted to stay, she had already leaned forward towards the girl and the girl had already chosen her.

So, Upsy, clasped tightly in the hands of a pretty little dark eyed girl bounced away from her bed of roses towards new adventures and maybe even some answers.  And while she felt a little sad for the home she left behind, she knew that this felt right, too.

She felt happy and proud.

Proud because when her chance came, she had leaned forward.

Eagerly.