I don’t miss people.
That sounds awful to admit out loud, but it’s true.
As a baby, I’m told I wouldn’t leave my mother’s arms without screaming and crying and shrieking and balling up my fists and shaking them frantically until someone PUT ME BACK IN HER LOVIN’ ARMS, DAMMIT!
But after that yellow bus came to get me on the first day of kindergarten and I saw there was a new place, with new people, and fraking fingerpaints! And delicious cookies! And glorious song singing! And Jill, with the beautiful blonde pig tails! And Joey with the giant blue eyes and weird laugh!!! – Well, I just never looked back.
It used to hurt my mom and dad’s feelings that I could go away to camp or summer stock or, you know, go live in England for awhile, and when I’d come back they’d say, “Did you miss us?” and I’d say, “Nope, because listen to all the cool stuff I did! I was too busy to miss anybody.”
I’ve lived a lot of places and visited even more and been lucky to have an incredible life full of friends all over the world. Sometimes they say they miss me. Or they get teary-eyed and frownie when I leave from a visit. And I don’t GET it. I mean, I’ll see you soon, right? Or soon enough. And in the meantime, we’ll Twat and FaceSpace and I’ll send you emails with links to kittens frolicking in flowers with Star Wars music playing in the background. Or this.
AND in that same time, I’ll be busy making new friends and squeezing all the good shit out of life and collecting stories about weird Bulgarians I partied with who had gurneys in their living room and referred to people as “Fucking Cunts” as a term of endearment and drank cheap, piss-like champagne but insisted on squeezing fresh orange juice for the vodka so that the next time we get together over beers I’ll have awesome things to tell you about.
See?? There’s no reason to miss people, right?
That being said, I miss my VC.
In life, sometimes you say things, but you don’t really mean them. Like when I say your amorphous, hairy, drooly baby is cute. Or when I say I’d love to help you move. Or when I say I don’t know where I got The Herpe because really I’ve never put my lips on anything but my toothbrush. Wait ... that’s called Lying. My friends have been talking to me about this concept. (Oh, and I don’t have The Herpe. At least, I’m 99 percent sure of this. In case you want to make out. Which, I know you do.)
There were times during the last 10 months of this long distance gig where I said “I miss you” but what I really meant was, “I’d like to see you.” Or “I’d really like to have sex right now.” But I didn’t have a feeling of actually missing something. I didn’t even know what that feeling was because I don't think I had it before. I used to think it was about tears, and pining and all that stuff that's for the birds.
Well, now I know what it is. It’s still going to the party and still having fun but catching yourself thinking it would be more fun if that person was with you. It’s seeing that weird Bulgarian guy, wearing a shirt he’s cut the sleeves off of and drinking a drink he just found laying around and knowing that if that person were there you could just look at him in the eye and you’d both be thinking the SAME THING and that later you would sit on the couch and make endless jokes about it in bad accents. And that in the morning you’d wake up and get to have morning sex and all would be right with the world.
Someone has taught me how to miss things. Good work guy.
I'm ready to move.
