Two Mes

I’m in my home town right now, house sitting for my parents while they’re away for a weekend. I have three weeks of school left, then I’ll be back here for the majority of the summer, working and taking some classes. I’m dreading the thought of being back here. In some sick way, as unsafe as I feel at school right now (a slowly ending relationship, rocky roommate situation, just some rough friendships) I feel much more unsafe here at home. It has nothing to do with my family. I feel perfectly fine here, it’s just this town, the memories.
I feel like there are two different “mes” sometimes. There’s the Me from school – Cooper. And there’s the Me from home. The people who know Cooper don’t really know this other me. This me feels weaker than Cooper. She feels weakened by people, and she’s afraid to get a job, because she’s going to have to see these people who hurt her so badly. And if she has to see them in a workplace, she’s going to have to be polite, instead of screaming at them like she wants to.
I stopped by the ice cream place I worked at last summer when I got into town on Friday, and this kid who works there used to be a part of the junior high youth group at my old church when I was leading it. He wouldn’t even give me my fucking ice cream before saying “Why did you leave us? Come back and visit, everyone wants you to. Why won’t you come back.”
“Dan, it’s a long story, I can’t come back. I miss you guys to, but I can’t.”
“I know it’s a long story, but it’s not like it was that big of a deal. No one cares anymore. Just come back.”
Ok, so I know this kid didn’t do anything, and I know he’s just young and he was way too young to know what was going on when it happened, but it was all I could do, not to grab him by the collar and say, “Look, you don’t know. Yes, it was a big fucking deal, and no, people haven’t forgotten. I won’t ever come back to that place. I wouldn’t even if it hadn’t been for people telling me they don’t want me back. You have no fucking idea how bad that place hurt me, and how much it still hurts and how much I want you to stop talking to me about it. I can’t work with you anymore because you won’t stop fucking talking about it.”
But there were people at the window, and I this kid’s parents were around, so I just said, “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” Took my ice cream, and left.
I’m so tired of dealing with it. You’d think, after 5 years, I would be able to move past it. But the me who still lives here still hurts a lot.
There are other somewhat interesting things about the me who still lives here. She doesn’t date, or at least doesn’t do anything at all with the boys she does date. She dated this guy last summer for three months. Never held his hand. Never kissed him. Hugged him the last time she saw him. But other than that, nothing at all. What’s also weird, is she doesn’t smoke much either. Cooper smokes. Cooper smokes half a pack a day sometimes. But the me here has maybe one a day, if even that, and that’s only during the semester when she’s home. During the summer? A pack lasts all four months.
The thing is, the me here wants to hurt herself a lot more. She beats a punching bag until her knuckles bleed, then she backhands it until her hands are bruised and it hurts to move her fingers the next day. The me who lives here still wants to cut. Cutting doesn’t work for Cooper. She tried it once, and it didn’t work.
I think moving away from here was very freeing and very healing for me. I gained a lot of strength. I don’t understand why I lose that when I go home. Maybe there are issues I still haven’t dealt with, maybe there’s too much I don’t remember. Maybe I just find it hard to accept that I can heal.
I really don't know what this summer is going to hold for me. I'm scared, I'll admit. I'm finding myself pulling far away from my relationship. I've been home a lot recently, and that always helps me put things in perspective as well. I'm realizing that if I do end up in a fulfilling relationship someday, it's going to have to be with someone who believes similarly as I do. Yes, Derek might be someone like that, because our views on God are similiar, but he has a lot of growing up to do yet. So right now, he's not that guy for me. So I'm pulling away, and that's scary, and I'm looking for a job that will have me working with people from my town, and that's scary, and I'm coming home to live with my family. And I have this little sister who looks up to me, and she's sad because my older brother and she were really close, and he just moved out, and I don't think I'm much of a role model, but I want to be here to love her and hope that maybe she's smart enough not to make the same decisions I've made. And that's scary.