Many people I know tend to point out how unusual it is that I can never recall thinking my parents were infalliable, nor as an only, ever really expressed any desire/regret about not having a sibling. I had no imaginary twin a child, no need to be called words that were never meant for me. Frankly, the desire puzzled me, and even as an adult, when I've heard other onlies speak of it, I've been moderately lost.
Despite the way I describe my childhood, I did have friends, just not that many and those relationships were frought with the politics that come with being smart, knowing where you are on the food chain, and being a girl. While I've written about my friend Meg a few times, I've never really written about my friends from earlier.
Today, for whatever reason, I find myself thinking about Elyse. Maybe because Elyse and I were crazy, although not in a way I can recall being toxic. I remember that were fannish before we knew what that was, and that we wrote a spoof of our favourite TV show that we were going to borrow her dad's video camera to film it. When it came to pop culture I had crushes, while Elyse had role models, and I was so envious of her ability to do that. Of course, I never got to hear the story behind that from an adult perspective, and it may be different than I think. We never really created anything together, although maybe we wrote some stories, and Elyse is, as far as the Internet says, a lawyer now, and probably happy doing that. It suits the girl I remember. I suspect, in a grim, insecure way, that were we to meet now, we might not have very much to say to each other. Perhaps she is all Sex in the City grace adept at the art of talking enticeingly about nothing. Perhaps she seems 32, in the way I never do.
But sometimes I think about her when I think about this drive towards collaboration I have, my regret over all the things I didn't learn to build in my strange childhood and the specificity of what I do and don't have in those around me.
I convey things through stories. I rarely say, "I feel happy" or "I feel happy because," I say, "I feel happy because it's like that time when" or sometimes too, "that time that will be," because I just decide things like that. So it occurs to me, that in its way, writing about Elyse is the same in a way as writing about Dana,
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ladyjaida, Michael, or many of the stories I've told about being at NIDA. They're all terribly different tales, with different amounts of bittersweet, silliness, and in some cases rage, but in the end, all stories are I suppose the same story.
There is a poem I quote all the time, because I think it's funny, by Bob Holman:
Night Fears
That everyone is in love except you
It's not actually an emotion I feel very often regardless of whether I'm with someone or not. I've had people tell me the only reason I don't want to get married is because I don't think anyone would ever buy something as expensive as a diamond to have me. I think because I danced for so many years, and because I so often lacked the instruction in basic social functioning that I desired as a child, I have long been bent on being a finer thing and seeking some sort of elevation by whatever means necessary. I think, for many people, this urge as it exists in them comingles with the idea of marriage, for this is where they understand partnership, collaboration and the creative urge for all definitions thereof, and so their Night Fears are what they are.
Mine though are terror that no one will ever want to make art with me in a meaningful ongoing way as opposed to "yeah, we can put up with you for the 5 week rehearsal and the two week performace", and regret at friendships either poorly maintained or the limits and possibilities of which were poorly understood. Is this a simple desire for a sibling misunderstood and lacking vocabulary? or merely the fault of finding people to admire farther along in life than most do? Perhaps it is just the desire to be chosen, not fully accepting that with the thing I've chosen to pursue I must make choices and take control of my destiny as often as I can, because the reality, as an actor, is that it's never often enough.
It is an unlikely life I wish for, and I seem to plod towards it efficiently and cleverly enough, except, of course, that's nearly always not enough. And, I should note perhaps out of both civility and clarity that my desires are not recent, just recently describeable -- well, more or less.
I could circle this back to the beginning by a long damn route, or I could just ask: What are your Night Fears?
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