Still Kicking

I originally began writing the post below in January of this year; for some reason, I crapped out on it, slid it into draft mode, and left it there to molder. I was prowling through the hind-end of my blog today, though, and lo: I found it there, waiting for me.

If you've been reading lately, you might have noted a hint of melancholy in my virtual voice. Usually, I have to work to contain my exuberance, but I've been in a funk for the past few weeks, a funk I'm actively working to extricate myself from. I don't like myself when I'm like this, not one little bit, but believe me when I say I've got a plateful in my personal life at the moment, a lot of big decisions to make, a major life change to put into effect in the next few months. To be honest - instead of your normal brash-and-swagger Queenie - all this shit scares me to death, makes me doubt my ability to cope successfully. Somehow, though...reading what I wrote ten months ago is a shot in the arm.

***

Key Monroe, in a comment on an old post, remarks that the more she reads, the more amazed and thankful she is that I am still alive. Me and you both, honey, me and you both.

I'm telling you - not only do I have a natural proclivity for odd situations and an inner nutjob magnet, but up until about age thirty I was an idiot who placed herself in highly questionable situations, over and over again, in search of a buzz or a thrill. You find me now much reformed, but still...thirty years of magnificent slackerhood has left its mark.

I've been stalked, knifed, beaten, pulled out of cars, robbed, shot at, and raped in my own home. I've traveled to most of the states of the Union by myself, and halfway around the world both alone and in company. I've worked in titty bars and political offices, for doctors and actors and lawyers, for women of high consequence and sturdy moral fiber, for men of questionable repute and shady dealings. I've slept with both men and women; I was celibate for a number of years, for others I was a serial monogamist, and I've been married for quite some time now. I've been sober and drunk and everywhere in-between; if there was an illegal substance that was easily available between 1983 and 1995, I probably smoked, snorted, swallowed, dropped, or shot it. I might have even dropped it into my eyeball, in certain cases.

I've had Toxic Shock Syndrome, food poisoning, kidney stones, a ruptured appendix, and I aspire to minor liposuction and breast reduction surgery. I spent a year of my childhood in bed, unable to walk or see, due to a mysterious neurological illness that "went away" one happy morning when I was eleven years old...but came back, with a vengeance, in my late twenties. I'm related by blood to back-woods moonshiners, nouveau-riche social climbers, middle-class NASCAR fanatics, European aristocracy, old, old Charleston money, and poor white redneck trash.

I've tended bar, hung out in bars, played music and sung in bars, and been thrown out of bars. I am officially "banned" from the town of Crawfordville, Georgia, having run naked up and down Main Street one Fourth of July, singing Patsy Cline songs at the top of my lungs with my friend Cecelia. The cops were amused - but ran us out of town, anyway. I've lived out of a car, in a shotgun shack, in a faculty office on the campus of a major state university, and in a succession of nice, respectable, suburban homes. I've had apartments and townhomes and flats and condos, and have, at times, been on the verge of owning a cardboard box under an overpass on the interstate highway.

I am blessed with amazingly acute eyesight and a prodigious memory. My hearing suffers from ten-plus years of overexposure to raw and undistilled rock and roll, but I can still effect the reproduction of a perfectly pitched note, which is all I really care about, anyway. I've been called a beautiful woman, been paid for the commercial use of my image, and simultaneously, I've been told I'm the ugliest white woman on the face of the planet in the mornings. My dermis carries the scars of accidents, deliberately inflicted injuries, surgery, and childbirth. I've worn both a size four and a size twenty-two in my adult life, finally settling into a respectable ten. I'm delicate and feminine, mannish and brutal, vicious and nasty, sweet and loving, not by turns but, I believe, all at once.

I'm liberal, and conservative. I'm black and white and every shade in-between. I am simultaneously my greatest fan, my harshest critic, my worst enemy, and my best friend. Yes, Key - honey, momma, dear woman - I'm damn lucky to be alive, and fortunate enough to have finally, finally reached a point in my life where I'm happy with it all. More importantly, I'm finally mature enough to be cognizant of the fact that it can all be squeezed into one small package, with no nasty psychological side-effects.

***

In short, sitting here today and reflecting on all this, I think I can make it. Yep, I believe I can do this. I read this at the right time, tonight; I read enough sci-fi to almost comfortably believe that I sent myself a message, into the future, sometime last January.

This, too, shall pass. And bless y'all, for caring.

Posted by Queenie at October 30, 2005 09:07 PM