Did a bunch of adulting today. If you’re trying to get hold of me, just keep pinging. I feel like my ability to track what needs to be done is very low.
I made the mistake of putting Chess the musical on, and now I have to listen to the rest of it before I can not-listen to it.
“Why do my seconds always want to believe their great propaganda?”
Yoga this morning: I skipped most of it; for some reason my brain was going, “Time to walk! Walkies! Walk walk walk!” so I went.
On the walk, the WIP character who doesn’t like to be out and about during walks was out; she’s the character who’s been around the longest, since early high school, I think. She’s kind of the person I wanted to be, but never was–I’ll leave her description in the book–and pretty goth-y.
This morning, I did a beeline straight for the cemetery, which cracked me up. I wasn’t consciously aware there was one there; it’s further out than I’ve walked before. I *might* have seen that there was one on Google maps or something, but it nevertheless cracked me up to arrive there. It feels like she contains or overlaps the part of me with the eye for the good textures.
After the cemetery, we had a good long talk about being the character/author pair that knew each other the longest but probably knowing the least about each other. I’m not sure how to say it? but it was like sitting down with someone I’d resented for decades and working some shit out and learning how to be friends instead of enemies.
I resented her because she was everything I wasn’t and couldn’t be, right? The Heathers when you’re the Veronica, as it were.
She’s afraid no one will love her; she’s afraid that she’s too aggressive; she’s afraid that being truly seen means being judged; she wishes she were taller and had bigger boobs. (Which, ugh, sweetie, no.) She wishes she were smarter, like me, and could just learn things for the love of learning them, instead of having to force herself to learn most things. She doesn’t understand having ADD and the stuff that goes with that. (I think she’s on the autistic side, if that makes sense; she has that intense focus that I associate with several friends.) She wishes she had an actual sense of humor–she just feels judged when she makes other people smile. She’s jealous of how easy it is for me to get along with most people, even as she thinks of me as a pushover most of the time. She wants to be cool like me (what even?) and doesn’t want to be *cute* anymore, but also refuses to not be cute, because if she’s gonna be seen, she’s not going to leave any vulnerabilities exposed.
I don’t know what I was expecting from having her present on one of these walks, but it wasn’t this. I feel like I’ve been asking for a lot of help and guidance from my internal sources of inspiration, with a little bit of compassion needed toward my characters. This was a reversal, and felt like the character was demanding more than support. She kept telling me she wanted me to do things for her, and I kept saying “no.” “No, I won’t love you no matter what you do. That kind of love can’t come from me. I won’t be proud of you if you’re a complete asshole.” “No, I won’t promise to stay with you forever no matter what.” “No, I won’t change myself for you, and I don’t want you to change yourself for me.” “I really will kick your ass if you cross a line.”
The more of this that I said, the better she seemed to feel and the stronger her presence was.
“I won’t just let you hurt me. If you want to be here, you have to take the risk of it ending someday. You have to not take me for granted.” “If you rot from the inside out, I will leave you.” “If you want to protect me, you can’t do it for my sake. Being protected all the time really isn’t that good for me. You have to do it because you want to protect *somebody* and I’m there.”
What she wanted: “If you’re overspilling and need to love on someone, pick me. If you *have* to bother someone with your horrible sense of humor, bother me. I don’t want to be surrounded by a matching set. I want to be appreciated for me.”
It was nice. I’m really glad she finally showed up for a story, or I invited her–same difference.