Now I get it. This place is my past, my present, and will also be my future unless I can resolve some things. That's why this big trunk is here; it holds all the clues. This is a big, funny game for somebody. A game. Well, I won't play.
I'll just sit here, up against this dusty old trunk and wait until something happens. That's right, I'll just wait it out.
You won't catch me playing this dumb game. I don't play games anymore. You hear that, I don't play games! I'm too grown up for that stuff. So I'll just be sitting here by myself forever. And that's OK by me.
I used to play games. Or maybe I should say one particular game. It was a wonderful game for some reason. I remember it so well I can put myself right back there next to that banister on Pat Duffy's front porch. That's where the game was played. The object was to stand at the top of her stairs and then descend, saying a color on each step: "red, yellow, blue, green, gold, fire." "Fire" was the bottom step, which you'd tag with your toe and then dash back up to the top before you got caught.
It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me now, but I remember the feeling inside when we played. It was the joy of friendship.
I'm sure I played all kinds of games before then. I know I did because I had a sister who, because she was younger than I, always agreed to any of my games — mostly the make-believe kind which usually consisted of pretending. Pretending we were on a yacht (our little wooden ironing boards turned upside down, smoking our candy cigarettes and being very sophisticated and grown-up adults); pretending we were cooking (the jelly beans from our Easter Baskets or little colored macaroni flowers from the necklaces we never made because cooking with them was more fun); pretending we were nuns (with our blanket veils and necklace rosary beads hanging from our waists); or priests (dispensing Necco wafers from a yellow cut glass vase to rows and rows of imaginary communicants).
As I grew older, the pretending became more serious and far more private and personal. I imagined myself the person I wanted to be: all grown up and on my own; attractive, unafraid, witty. I also imagined a man who was handsome, gentle, and brilliant, but without my incredible sense of humor. It all fit together beautifully, thanks to my excellent orchestration. And it kept away the loneliness I felt.
I preferred this pretend world to the real one in which I was homely, awkward, shy, and afraid. I guess that's why the "red-yellow-blue-green-gold-fire" game made such an impression on me. The feelings of joy I experienced as part of friendship were similar to those in my pretend world.
I could have spent my whole life on that porch playing the game, but when we were in seventh grade, Pat grew up. I guess that's what you'd call it. She started going to Dayton Street with her older sister Noreen. She didn't want to be a kid anymore. She began wearing lipstick and grown-up clothes and pursuing the guys who also hung around Dayton Street.
I couldn't go with them for a lot of reasons, and it hurt to lose that part of my life. It hurt to stay behind and watch Pat grow different, grow up, grow away from anything I could participate in. I wanted what she had — something to look forward to: going to Dayton Street with Noreen at night; getting dressed up to attract someone's attention; capturing someone's glance and, finally, his desire.
Then something terrible happened. I found I could no longer escape into my dream world because I realized it was not a fairy tale that never comes true. It was coming true for Pat and probably for Noreen and for all the other girls on Dayton Street. But not for me. I felt suddenly hopeless.
I lost everything when Pat moved out of my life because I failed to realize I could share the experience of friendship with someone else. Instead I retreated into the hopelessness of my situation and waited in the background for another person with another fun game to come along and notice me. No one ever did.
Oh, other friendships came and went, but none awakened anything in me like that first one. I was always on guard, looking for signs of Dayton Street: the turning away of a glance just a hair sooner than the glance before; the return of a call just an hour past the time I felt it would be returned; the laughing becoming strained instead of exuberant. Yes, I waited for rejection, and it always came.
When the rejection didn't come from others it came from within me. It was I who didn't feel joy at hearing their voices. The thought of being with them no longer thrilled me. They became quite dull and ordinary when once they had been so special. It was I who began returning calls just a bit later than I should, turning away rather than holding a gaze, offering an obligatory chuckle or artificial smile.
I was never satisfied. Relationships could not sustain me. Not forever and sometimes hardly for a week. In this increasingly vacant and detached state, however, I discovered I could again retreat into my fairy tale world where I was who I wanted to be and never was hurt because life worked there according to my script.
The more I retreated into this inner world of mine, the less I wanted or needed to be involved with people. Occasionally I would feel guilty about not participating in relationships, but the lure to go the other direction was far stronger and more appealing. What was the harm? Maybe escaping was part of everyone's life, and because I was so introspective, I could create my own scenes while others had to rely on books or movies for theirs. This retreating could even be a very healthy thing — filling an unmet need all on my own, without hurting or involving anyone. Maybe I needn't worry about it.
But I did worry, and I feared some day I would have to give up my fantasies unless I could find a valid reason for their growing presence.
Come to Life.
What?
Do not hide from hurt, from loneliness.
Take courage. Come to life.
Where will I find this courage? I have searched and searched and do not know where it abides. Can you tell me, please, where I might find it?