ihavebeenfloated

I shaved my head this morning. As low as I can go without being totally bald. It was a battle, not shaving it totally bald with a razor.

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2 hours later: Sigh.

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2 and a half hours later: I hurt myself really badly a few months ago. The pictures of it were here, yet I never told the story of how it happened. This is that story.

I had just gotten this $160 longboard, brand new, off some crazy tweeker for about $15. Don’t ask me how or why, I was just in the right phone at the right time, I guess. This was during a week of hell, one of my depressive horrid states where I’m hating the world and, even more than that, myself. I wasn’t really in my right mind, I suppose, and I decided to try to bomb this massive hill at this park, smooth sidewalk, really steep, no end in sight.

I had no prior skateboarding experience. Not a single iota of skateboarding knowledge existed inside my head. I had no concept of speed wobble, or carving, or even how to fall properly if the time came to it.

Nick and Kristie were with me, and they got to watch as I sailed down the hill. I took it straight, no carving, just gaining pure speed in one direction. I was standing the whole way, which probably helped me fall but it didn’t help me control the board any.

About halfway down, speed wobble set in and my legs were shaking like nothing else, but I was holding on. I think about how minor speed wobble terrifies me now and I’m not sure how I didn’t throw myself off the board the second I felt it. How I held on, even, is surprising to me.

But I didn’t hold on forever. Right at the end I knew I was going to lose it. I threw myself off the front of the board. My left foot hit the ground and got smacked by the tip of the board, bruising me through my Converse. I spun, one-eighty, from my left side facing forward to my right side, and hit the ground on that side.

I slid along that side for about five feet or so. Tore up my elbow and bit a chunk out of my side. My side is pink and scarred, my elbow doesn’t look like much at all. It didn’t hurt when it happened. When I stopped sliding I rolled onto my back, thrust my arms up into the air and shouted, “Yeah!”

This old guy who saw me fall walked past me and said, “Man, that is going to feel good later.”

I replied, “Feels good now, going to hurt like hell later.”

I was just skating at that park, taking all the hills in both directions, but not that one. I look at that hill now and I’m utterly shocked at the audacity I had, thinking I could handle that. There is no chance in hell I could ever handle that hill, not on this board at least.

It humbles me to think: I could have died. I could have hit my head and ended my life. I could have broke something or caused some sort of irreparable damage to myself. I could have ruined or ended my life in that moment. Why didn’t it occur to me? Shouldn’t I have known better? If not out of experience, as most of the things I know are, but out of common sense?

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1 hour later: Two nights ago I got a message from this girl, Amanda. She instant messaged me and sent me a MySpace, seemed frantic really, the barrage of sudden contact, but that was like her. We go back about two years. Before Trista and I got together, I was with Amanda for, uh, about a week?

Anyway, I cheated on Trista with Amanda early on, and immediately dumped Amanda, just severed contact, and next thing Amanda hears is that I’m with Trista. So, bad burn on my part, really fucked things up.

A little while after Trista and I break up, I hear from Amanda. We hang out, things go great, I’m legitimately happy around her and I feel comfortable with her. We talk happily for about a day after I see her. The next day there is some sort of argument on AIM and she drops me cold. It hurt, it sucked a lot, I liked her a lot, blah blah blah. Just deserts really.

A couple months later, I hear from her, and much the same thing happens.

Couple months later, I hear from her. And again, day later, she says she can’t see me anymore. I get pissed off and tell her that she can’t just drop me whenever she wants and just drop her myself.

It’s been about nine months since then. I’m not mad anymore, and besides, I always liked her. So, I message her back. She starts going on about how it’s been so long since she’s had sex, and she just wants to say hi, and oh man it’s been so long since I’ve gotten laid. I say, so, uh, do you want me to hit on you or what? And she says, are you dense?

So, I get the address to her new $2k/mo apartment in Encino. It’s 35 minutes away at 75mph but, hey, sex?

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3 hours later: Today has been a day of recovery. I’ve been skating nearly endlessly. I started the day with about fifteen, or maybe half an hour, of skating up and down and around my street. My street is a bit of a hill, as well as being a cul de sac, which isolates me from traffic, so it’s good. But, it’s not enough of a hill. Anyway, I skated long enough to be dripping sweat off my face onto my board as I was coming down it. Then I skated a ton at a park, and then in the parking lot outside Kristie’s apartment, and it’s just been skating all day.

In the morning, the thought came down to this: skating will help me feel better about being crapped on. So, I’ve been skating all day, trying to feel better about getting crapped on, and I’ll admit, I feel a lot better now. It only took about a combined three hours of skating.

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Just like all the other sections, imagine that there is a bit of time between then and:

When I got to her apartment, I set into my usual self, my usual routine. Sarcastic, passive aggressive, and slightly scathing, but in a funny way. She was all amazed that I was tanned, scarred, and skateboarding, as well as various other changes in my lifestyle. She commented on how we seem to be two entirely different people and then I started to think: you know what, we are different people, maybe shit will work out this time.

Then she started giving me crap about my personality. I’m so sarcastic and nothing I say can be sincere, I’m just an endless barrage of passive aggressive comments. Blah, blah, blah. She really made me feel like a bag of crap for it, and kept asking me why I have to be so guarded. I explained it to her like this:

1.) Every time I like someone, I end up getting shit on.

2.) Every time someone likes me—and I think you like me—I end up getting shit on.

3.) Every time I come over here and see you, two days later, I end up getting shit on.

So I have to be guarded, because if you like me, I lose. If I like you, I lose, etc. On top of that, you have so consistently proven to me that you will crap all over me every time I come here, that I can’t allow myself to get close to you.

She goes on about how I fucked her over and I go on about how I think we’re pretty fucking even. Eventually we wear that topic down so thin there’s nothing left to talk about and we start to make out. She stops at one point and says something like, “I can’t do this, I just felt myself giving my heart to you,” which is typical shit from her side and generally means she’s three seconds away from getting angry and kicking me out, though that has never happened before, that is the type of comment that would always prefix, “I can’t see you ever again.”

But it passes as if it never happened, and before long, bedroom, sex. Something hilarious happened that I have to talk about: right as we finish, while we’re still all sweaty and nasty and I’m still inside her, Iron & Wine’s cover of Such Great Heights comes over the stereo. I started laughing hysterically, and she started laughing too, and it was generally just so horribly cliche that it was impossible not to be amused.

We pass out a short while later. Wake up at about seven in the morning, sit around a bit, and I go back to sleep, mostly because—and this is pathetic—I don’t want to leave because I fear I’ll never get to come back. I wake up around ten, get dressed, we say our goodbyes, make plans to get together on Thursday, and I leave. We talk through AIM and txt messages a little bit, but I’m busy and I like to keep contact to a minimum. On top of that, the pattern has always been that talking to her on AIM the next day or two always results in some sort of bullshit fight where she gets upset over nothing and drops me. When we do talk, I walk on eggshells and never say anything that could possibly mean anything. Black and white statements only. I’m terrified.

I like this girl, and if she drops me, that would fuckin’ blow. It’s so hard for me to want to like someone, after the last couple situations I’ve gone through with girls, I don’t really want to allow myself to get close to anyone. I look at it like wanting to snuggle with a loaded gun that fires at the softest of caresses. So, when I woke up this morning and saw this message on my screen:

Amanda: i cant do this

I felt a little bummed. I messaged her back, even though I really didn’t want to, and we set into a huge conversation about how I failed. Apparently,

1.) I am an intolerable asshole.

2.) I’m cheap. (Nevermind the fact that I am a jobless student and she lives in an apartment that costs $2,000 a month.)

3.) I’m, uh, a dick.

4.) See above.

She listed off all the horribly awful things I said to her, and I said: if these things were so upsetting, why didn’t you get pissed off then?

And she says: I was upset when it was said. I didn’t say anything because I wanted to get laid.

And I say: ...Ow.

In short, I guess I got used for sex. There are worse things. I just wish she had told me, I wish she hadn’t have strung me along with all this I’m giving you my heart nonsense. The thing is, I’m more pissed at myself for letting down my guard, which then pisses me off even more because all doing this taught me is that I can’t let my guard down for anyone. Maybe I’m looking at it wrong.

I knew what was going to happen. I’ve done this dance so many times before that I knew what steps were coming, I saw them from far off, I was even afraid of them approaching, and yet I did my best to stay on target and let it all happen. It’s not a matter of: you can’t get close to anyone. It’s a matter of: you can’t get close to people who have already hurt you. But she’s different now, I say. No, Brad, you know that people don’t change who they are on the inside. You know that.

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Transitional periods in my life are marked by the loss of hair. This happens every couple of months, sometimes it takes a year, but when things get to crazy or I’m unhappy with the place I’m at, I end up shaving my head. Sometimes bald, sometimes just down to half an inch, it really depends. Today, I took it down as low as it’ll go while still having some hair. I shaved off all my facial hair, too, meaning my goat and my sporadic stubble. Today was a big day of change.

Without realizing it I took this hill at the park that I had never taken before. Toward the bottom of the hill, I built up a lot of speed, and for a couple seconds speed wobble set in. Terror flashed through my mind and my legs locked a little bit, but right as I started contemplating on how to fall and what to fall on, it passed and I was back in control of the board. It was the worst, and best, feeling I had ever had. My heart was beating out of my chest and I had to lean over to breath while the board was still moving.

I went back a little later and did it again. The same thing happened, small amount of speed wobble, sense of terror, but my heart didn’t beat as hard. I knew what was coming, I was prepared for it, and even though I can’t say I worked through it, I managed to hold steady and deal. Maybe eventually, with a different board, and with some safety gear, I can bomb the hill there that fucked me up. Some day I’ll be able to take it, if I have to start half way or three-quarters of the way down the hill and build my way up, I’ll do it. At least I’ll come back, and some day, I will conquer it.

A small victory, maybe, but like all things in my life, if something hurts me, I just gotta keep running back to it. Only now, however, do I realize that in order to face something that you know could kill you, you should take real small steps toward it, one at a time.

Or, in the case of women who have scorned you: maybe you just shouldn’t step toward it at all.