Sunday, March 28, 2010

PARALLEL UNIVERSE ME

I met her late one night while trolling the internet. She was on a blog telling someone he was nothing more than a half wit and should really consider late term abortion...for himself. I read all of her blogs, all 305 of them and learned so much about her. So much it was scary to me because if I felt like I was reading my life but without all the horrid things that accompanied my tragic existence.

Her name was Amaryllis and she was born to a child-like, alcoholic father with anger management issues and a co-dependent, naive mother. She endured their fights with an on-looker’s attachment and a clinical fascination once she was old enough to understand that the fighting was the only thing keeping them together. She rebelled by being perfect, being an ideal student and taking people pleasing to an extreme.

By the time Amaryllis turned 12 she felt and appeared to be a woman. She met a much older man that spoke to her like she was an adult and she wanted him to like her. He fascinated her with his carefree lifestyle. Amaryllis, with her submissive nature and quiet personality, had never met anyone who simply did not care about what he was supposed to do. She dressed sexy to make him pay attention because she was well read enough to know that she could fascinate men with her perky, gravity defining chest and softly rounded curves. He of course saw what she was doing and told her no. In spite of his free nature he knew better than to take advantage of a child.

Instead of taking what she offered freely he told her to save herself for someone she cared about. He told her she was beautiful and some guy would be lucky to have her but he was too old for her and no matter how much he wanted to touch her, to have her, he could not do that to her. Amaryllis credits him with changing her views on men.

Amaryllis was mad about the rejection but she knew that she couldn’t show it. It would make her look childish and petty so she just stopped going around that family and broke up with the boy who lived there that she was dating. When school started back that year Amaryllis went to a whole new school. A smaller school allowed her hidden rebel to emerge and she became a hit with the students there. Schoolwork came naturally to her, leaving plenty of time for socializing. Her parents did not mind Amaryllis being gone all the time since it left them to pursue their love of drinking and fighting without a 12 year old telling them they were acting like children.


Her new life involved softball games and dancing with older boys until midnight. Her parents hardly knew where she was at since they let her rely on her friend’s parents to take and supervise her. They didn’t notice that sometimes other people, mostly men and boys old enough to drive brought her home. They didn’t notice the nights that she didn’t come home until much later than normal. Amaryllis wasn’t doing anything wrong those nights though. Unlike a lot of girls Amaryllis didn’t throw herself at boys. She would let them kiss her but nothing further. The rejection from the first man she had attempted to seduce she was very shy when it came to sex, fearing further rejection. She knew that the boys wanted to do more but she always said no, preferring conversation in an attempt to understand the purportedly stronger sex.

In high school Amaryllis was on the debate team, in the drama club and making straight A’s. She was even in the chorus, lip synching her way through most songs since her singing voice left lots to be desired. She was a perfect student, never causing trouble but always vocal when it came to debates in class. Her friend’s loved her but thought she needed to lighten up. They loved the wild side of Amaryllis that came out when she drunk or high. She so rarely partook in what they considered typical teenage behavior that some people wouldn’t believe she had ever done anything at all though. Sometimes they wondered if she wasn’t secretly religious or something but she was so nice to everyone and took such care of them when they imbibed too much that they never held her straight laced behavior against her. She was definitely the mother of her group of friends.

By the time college was over Amaryllis was completely independent of her parents and had no debt due to a full scholarship. She had never seriously dated anyone and never really taken up drinking as a past time. Instead of being a typical co-ed she volunteered her time with children and the homeless and she had a lover who was in his early 30’s, a businessman who had pursued her for months before she gave in. She loved the sex, the freedom it gave her to submit completely to a man she trusted implicitly; still she had no desire to commit to him legally or permanently.

She went into social work while writing in her spare time. Amaryllis advocated for abused and neglected children with a passion that her co-workers had lost within their first months on the job. In spite of her love for children and her adamant defense of them she knew she wanted none of her own. Her 26th birthday present to herself was a tubal ligation and a trip to Europe, not at the same time of course. By October of the same year she published her first book, an apocalyptic drama set in 2099.

I cried when I finished reading about her. She was me, had I not made the choices I did; had I not had the people who took advantage of me and used me in my life. Instantly I knew we could never be friends. Even if we both loved rock music and think politicians are the root of all evil I could never tell her my life story. I couldn’t tell her what could have happened had she changed just a few decisions, if she had just made a mistake here or there that her life would be mine. It would mortify me to let her see herself in me and be grateful for the choices she made.

I closed the browser without book marking the page and tried to forget her face. I swore I would not search for her. Sometimes though, late at night, when the kids are in bed and the day has been particularly rough I go and find her and see what I could have been doing lately.

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