lxforever

“Just keep following / the heartlines on your hand! / Keep it up! / I know you can”

—Florence and the Machine

Seven Devils all around me!

Seven Devils in my house!

I am struggling. Some days are better than others. But it is getting dark, dark, dark, folks. Thanksgiving break gave me a reprieve but this latest funk I just can’t seem to shake. Fuck this year.

Sorry, harsh. And naive – why would 2012 be better? – but true. There have been many high points, surely, as documented here, and indeed I do live a generally charmed life, but I am so so sick of so so much and so tired of myself. So tired.

And I don’t know who I can trust.

Least of all myself. Which is a problem.

Seven Devils…! / Hang In There Hang In There Hang In There HangInThere HangInThere Hanginthere hanginthere hanginthere hangintherehangintherehangintherehang

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I am grateful for today’s employment report, though – 8.6%. Yesssss.

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(Not-so?)-Random MEMORIES follow:

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Monday, standing in the dry dark basement gym of Edison, shouting over the sounds of thud-thud-thud-BANG! of teenage girls attempting front handsprings onto an eight incher…

“Will you EVER see your landing on a front handspring? Answer, NO. You will never ever _ever_ EVER see your landing, _EVER_, on a front handspring. So DON’T try. You will NOT see it. EVER.”

(I struggled with this for much of my competitive years. There’s a picture of me from Chicago Style 1999, where I’m turning a front layout, body arched and bent in all sorts of ways as I strain to see that landing [that I’ll never see].)

Thud-thud-thud-BANG!

“Look at your hands! Look back! Are you looking at your hands?? You should be looking back when you stand up!” I shout again.

You will NEVER see your landing. EVER. You can NEVER see ahead. You will NEVER catch up. EVER. NEVER.

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Walking through the courtyard of Pioneer, I catch sight of the skinny red-headed girl, Ange (“not Angie!”) and her tough, ‘popular’ friends. They’re standing in the fall air smoking. It’s 2000 and I’m struggling to adjust to college and I know I’m not cool enough for Ange and her crowd, but she enthusiastically says hi as I pass by anyway.

11+ years later I’m standing in a gift shop in an art museum, locked in an embrace with that same Ange, heart beating so fast, voice shaking, taking-taking-taking. (I am oh so wary of all this taking I am doing. I am going to exhaust my resources before I can handle it.) She pulls back, inches from my face, stares in my eyes, tells me it’s okay. “Lex – no. It’s okay. It’s O-KAY.”

Turns out that redhead both wasn’t too cool for me and is far, far too cool for me still all at once. Pretty lucky.

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It’s 2003, I’m feeling pretty lost, I’m HOH but confused and scared and not sure who I am able to trust anymore. Including myself? Susan and Peter both, out of nowhere, remind me that they’re my friends, that they’re there for me, that they trust what I can do, that if you can’t trust your friends, what are they there for? 8 years later I’m baking in their cozy house, a lesson made just for me. Who can’t you trust?

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Keep it Up / Hang In There / I Know You Can?

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