.jpg){kind=small}
Me And My Neighbours
I've never been part of a crowd. This fact bothered me when I was younger, yet every time I had a chance to become part of a group, I turned away from the opportunity. I'm a loner at heart, I can't fight my natural inclination. I'm not bothered any more, I guess I've grown into my own skin. Since I moved into this apartment, I've been invited to join the small group who live here in town, and knew X and me as a couple. I always turn them down, the invitations are coming less often now.
I don't mean to sound snotty, but these people are losers in a big way, I wouldn't want to join them even if I desired to be part of a group. This town has a drug/alchohol problem, as it is everywhere I guess, but in a small city/large town, it's more condensed. Everyone is pressed together, many people are related, everyone has been in everyone else's kitchen at least once. So you sit at the bus stop and hear conversations about who died of an overdose, and who his daughter is, and how she's knocked up by the guy who you happen to know is your next door neighbour. I lived my own dysfunctional lifestyle for years in the city, I'm no innocent. I understand the tragedy of addiction and how it takes hold of a person till they run themselves into the ground. Still, I get impatient with people who don't help themselves. After all, it is possible to overcome alchoholism and drug addiction. It's not farfetched to say a person can rise above their upbringing.
I turned my own sorry life around bit by bit. In fact, I'm still in the process. One of my self enforced rules is that I don't join the crowd here in town. It isn't difficult actually. I have no desire to drink all day every day, or to stand by my stove cooking cocaine and sudsy ammonia into little rocks. Most of the women my age and younger, support their habit by working as prostitutes. The big pimp around here is a 65 year old, wrinkley biker wannabe who employs his equally wrinkled wife as secretary / recrouter. Those local women whose looks haven't yet been ruined with drugs, are employed in their escort agency. The other unfortunates whose habit is beginning to tell in their appearance, work the highway, hitching rides up and down, servicing their customers in the bush on either side of the road.
During the years I worked on the street in the city, I met several women who had tried to quit, and now were returning to prostitution. I vowed I would never sell my body again, once I made my break. There are many factors involved in escaping from that life. Everyone uses a lack of money as their excuse for why they return, but really, finances are at the bottom of the list. The real reason women fall back into that trap is a lack of self esteem. Since I left the streets a decade ago, I've worked hard to build my own view of myself. I understand now, and have no doubt, that I am a person of value. I do not belong on a street corner. My body has no place in the arms of some stranger who paid cash for half an hour of my time. For me, the idea of returning to prostitution is unthinkable. I don't even consider it. Sadly, for most of the women in this town, it's the first idea that springs to mind.
Another common job for alchoholic local women, is cleaning. Women in their early fifties with faded tattooes and pendulous breasts swinging freely back and forth over their belly as they push their mop across cheap motel room floors. More often than not, these women have a daughter or two working for the elderly pimp. They are the ones who gather at the bus stop to discuss the latest deaths in their dwindling community.
I have been inside the apartment of one of these women. I have trouble believing she cleans for a living - her home is filthy. The kitchen sink is loaded with unwashed dishes and whiskey bottles dripping the last of their contents onto the congealed remains of last week's dinner. The walls are decorated with tacky framed posters advertising biker bashes from twenty years ago. The bathroom sink cradles a nest of greasy hair. I work with her some mornings, cleaning Boston Pizza. She prides herself in her ability to belch in time to the country songs playing on the radio, I can hear her clear across the restaurant, over the sound of my vacuum cleaner.
As I said earlier, these people knew X and me as a couple. They knew us years ago in the city, before they left, and took up residence here. They used to be cooler, their lifestyle has taken a heavy toll. X and I were never quite as hard core, we didn't slide as far down the slope. After we moved to the Island five years ago, we joined them occasionally, but quickly discovered they were beneath us. I realise that sounds snotty, but it was quite obvious. We chose to keep mostly to ourselves.
Since we split up, X is spending a bit more time with these people. He's more their type than I ever was, but still doesn't quite fit in. Unlike them, he's unpredictable, and he uses this to his advantage. A psychopath with a soft spot for kittens. A liar with occasional flashes of unexpected, and total honesty, even at the risk of ridicule. He will defend a woman against her boyfriend who called her 'stupid', and a moment later, strangle her until someone pulls him off. He once ran at me with a fork as I cowered against the wall, and half an hour later, insisted that we sit down together for Thanksgiving turkey. He's more dangerous than the group he hangs with, because he's not as dull and stupid as they are. They admire him for it. He's a wolf among sheep, and, although they fear him, they can't help but feel cool for having a predator in their midst - in a strange and twisted way, it proves that they are brave.
Meanwhile, I'm living here in my little apartment, creating my art, listening to my music. I am a stranger in a strange land. I'm looking forward to leaving this place, though I don't know when it will be possible to do so. I've become a sort of Pollyanna in the neighbourhood. I help little old ladies with their umbrella's, and chat with homeless men as they root through the ashtray beside the bench where I'm enjoying a smoke outside the mall. People here seem to like me, even though I'm so different from everyone. I think the reason might be that my personal happiness shows obviously in my expression. I realise that sounds very 'pie in the sky', but I believe it to be true. I'm overwhelmed with joy in the fact that I'm alive, and free, and moving forward in my life. It's too bad that so few people discover what it feels like to be truly happy.
I don't mean to sound snotty, but these people are losers in a big way, I wouldn't want to join them even if I desired to be part of a group. This town has a drug/alchohol problem, as it is everywhere I guess, but in a small city/large town, it's more condensed. Everyone is pressed together, many people are related, everyone has been in everyone else's kitchen at least once. So you sit at the bus stop and hear conversations about who died of an overdose, and who his daughter is, and how she's knocked up by the guy who you happen to know is your next door neighbour. I lived my own dysfunctional lifestyle for years in the city, I'm no innocent. I understand the tragedy of addiction and how it takes hold of a person till they run themselves into the ground. Still, I get impatient with people who don't help themselves. After all, it is possible to overcome alchoholism and drug addiction. It's not farfetched to say a person can rise above their upbringing.
I turned my own sorry life around bit by bit. In fact, I'm still in the process. One of my self enforced rules is that I don't join the crowd here in town. It isn't difficult actually. I have no desire to drink all day every day, or to stand by my stove cooking cocaine and sudsy ammonia into little rocks. Most of the women my age and younger, support their habit by working as prostitutes. The big pimp around here is a 65 year old, wrinkley biker wannabe who employs his equally wrinkled wife as secretary / recrouter. Those local women whose looks haven't yet been ruined with drugs, are employed in their escort agency. The other unfortunates whose habit is beginning to tell in their appearance, work the highway, hitching rides up and down, servicing their customers in the bush on either side of the road.
During the years I worked on the street in the city, I met several women who had tried to quit, and now were returning to prostitution. I vowed I would never sell my body again, once I made my break. There are many factors involved in escaping from that life. Everyone uses a lack of money as their excuse for why they return, but really, finances are at the bottom of the list. The real reason women fall back into that trap is a lack of self esteem. Since I left the streets a decade ago, I've worked hard to build my own view of myself. I understand now, and have no doubt, that I am a person of value. I do not belong on a street corner. My body has no place in the arms of some stranger who paid cash for half an hour of my time. For me, the idea of returning to prostitution is unthinkable. I don't even consider it. Sadly, for most of the women in this town, it's the first idea that springs to mind.
Another common job for alchoholic local women, is cleaning. Women in their early fifties with faded tattooes and pendulous breasts swinging freely back and forth over their belly as they push their mop across cheap motel room floors. More often than not, these women have a daughter or two working for the elderly pimp. They are the ones who gather at the bus stop to discuss the latest deaths in their dwindling community.
I have been inside the apartment of one of these women. I have trouble believing she cleans for a living - her home is filthy. The kitchen sink is loaded with unwashed dishes and whiskey bottles dripping the last of their contents onto the congealed remains of last week's dinner. The walls are decorated with tacky framed posters advertising biker bashes from twenty years ago. The bathroom sink cradles a nest of greasy hair. I work with her some mornings, cleaning Boston Pizza. She prides herself in her ability to belch in time to the country songs playing on the radio, I can hear her clear across the restaurant, over the sound of my vacuum cleaner.
As I said earlier, these people knew X and me as a couple. They knew us years ago in the city, before they left, and took up residence here. They used to be cooler, their lifestyle has taken a heavy toll. X and I were never quite as hard core, we didn't slide as far down the slope. After we moved to the Island five years ago, we joined them occasionally, but quickly discovered they were beneath us. I realise that sounds snotty, but it was quite obvious. We chose to keep mostly to ourselves.
Since we split up, X is spending a bit more time with these people. He's more their type than I ever was, but still doesn't quite fit in. Unlike them, he's unpredictable, and he uses this to his advantage. A psychopath with a soft spot for kittens. A liar with occasional flashes of unexpected, and total honesty, even at the risk of ridicule. He will defend a woman against her boyfriend who called her 'stupid', and a moment later, strangle her until someone pulls him off. He once ran at me with a fork as I cowered against the wall, and half an hour later, insisted that we sit down together for Thanksgiving turkey. He's more dangerous than the group he hangs with, because he's not as dull and stupid as they are. They admire him for it. He's a wolf among sheep, and, although they fear him, they can't help but feel cool for having a predator in their midst - in a strange and twisted way, it proves that they are brave.
Meanwhile, I'm living here in my little apartment, creating my art, listening to my music. I am a stranger in a strange land. I'm looking forward to leaving this place, though I don't know when it will be possible to do so. I've become a sort of Pollyanna in the neighbourhood. I help little old ladies with their umbrella's, and chat with homeless men as they root through the ashtray beside the bench where I'm enjoying a smoke outside the mall. People here seem to like me, even though I'm so different from everyone. I think the reason might be that my personal happiness shows obviously in my expression. I realise that sounds very 'pie in the sky', but I believe it to be true. I'm overwhelmed with joy in the fact that I'm alive, and free, and moving forward in my life. It's too bad that so few people discover what it feels like to be truly happy.
posted by Marian (Jolene) | 10:06 p.m.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home