Relic

Sacred ruins.

Mi general aspirina et su hombres by Leonora Carrington

All the stuff I wrote off as part of the past, everything that was declared over and done thanks to a break up, thanks to a move, thanks to a change of heart, thanks to a revelation, everything that didn’t belong to me anymore, everything that never belonged to me in the first place, it was all an illusion, it was a trick, I was so gullible, I was so foolish, every artifact that proved how naive I was, every souvenir of my unguarded enthusiasm, my short-sighted embrace of things that weren’t mine and could never be mine, every scrap of the past and every desire and hope attached to it that I threw onto a pile and set on fire

in order to move on, in order to grow past it, in order to reinvent myself, in order to convince myself that I was always improving, always becoming more enlightened and mature, always upgrading and refining my choices, always evading the snags and snares, always escaping in the knick of time or dodging a bullet, always adapting and adjusting, always better this way, I can see it all so clearly now and

it was all a delusion, it had to be, everything I once loved and believed in, it was all just a fantasy, a manifestation of my desperation, my weakness, my immaturity, and other traits I’m leaving behind for good like greedy passion, selfish ambition, gluttonous joy, lazy lust, prideful swagger, all of it ill-considered, all of it disagreeable and dangerous

everything I ever saw or touched or heard or tasted, everything and everyone I ever loved, everything I purposefully discarded or avoided or moved past:

I want it all back now.

I’m calling you on the phone today. Then I’m buying a record player and I’m going to play every one of these dusty albums from the attic and I’m going to show my kids photos of every single guy I ever dated and I’m not going to say that anyone was boring or irritating and I’m not going to point out how ugly my bangs were then and I’m not going to mention that I felt stupid in that dress.

And when my kids look at me at age 18 and 22 and 28 and say “queen” and “period” I’m going to say “yes, exactly” and “absolutely” and “so true.”

By then we’ll be eating nacho cheese Doritos with cold cans of Canada Dry ginger ale without feeling guilty about all of that sugar or whatever fucked up chemicals are glued to those chips, and we’ll be scattering tangy orange dust all over my photo albums without worrying about the mess, and we’ll be listening to the second side of Led Zeppelin III without growing anxious over what a fucked up person Jimmy Page was.

And I won’t feel sorry for the version of me that listened to the song Tangerine every single night for a whole year. Instead I’ll marvel at how I would put the needle on that song and then turn the lights off and get to bed and hear

I was your love and you were my queen

and now a thousand years between

And when the song was over, I’d get out of bed and lift the needle and turn the stereo off and then I’d get back into bed and go to sleep. That girl.

That girl was

so romantic, so earnest, so effusive, so steadfastly devoted to everything she hadn’t touched or heard or tasted yet.

She’s back now

and today

she’s

calling

you.

---

Thanks for reading Ask Molly. Here’s something I wrote about how authors crave love and books don’t sell and life is humiliating but when you admit all of that, sometimes it snaps you out of your funk and you can write again. Which Ask Mollys do you like the best? Link to one of them in the comments and maybe you’ll convince me to keep this goddamn thing alive for another year. Paying for a subscription is another good way to convince me!