charleston
what a juxtoposition, the brilliant facades and fancy gowns, and bridesmaids and brunches and plantations, often not mutually exclusive. the old slave-auctionhouse-turned-museum; she waited in the car while we walked through - "that doesn't sound very fun". it, decidedly, was not "fun". the contradictions, like the weather, can feel altogether hot and dizzying, not too unlike our life there.
most of which remains packed away or, rather, un-unpacked. i wonder how much there is to unpack, though. in remembrance, the images are sharp and clear. the pennsylvania turnpike cuts through the appalachian mountains and is how google, apparently, takes you from florida to upstate new york. our car died in the middle of the night, in the middle of the road, in the middle of those mountains. i think it did the same on a bridge heading down south, maybe in north carolina. we had the momentum to roll through and pull over. we slept in the parking lot so they could "fix" our car the next morning - the kind of fixing you could provide an ancient $750 car, at least. i remember the gas prices started with a "1"; that was a plus.
we did eventually make it to charleston in that car. it turns out we needed it after all, its dying breaths puttering us from parking lots to the state park campground to shower, its shell . i don't remember how long we had to stay in the car, but i do remember the heat and how it messed with your eczema. i, viscerally, remember changing the gooey bandages on your hands in front of a walmart in the middle of the night by phone-flashlight. and escaping inside every couple hours for air conditioning, like coming up for gasps of air from underwater. we tried to sleep on the tires in the back.
i don't know how much changed once we got an apartment. i do remember yelling and crying and heating a fork with a lighter to press against my skin. i remember wrestling a razor blade from your hands; i have no idea how i didn't cut myself in the process. i remember biking downtown to harris teeter in the middle of the night - ours was open for 24 hours - with you on the handlebars, to buy and eat an ice cream cake for no reason. i remember my flickering episodes of mental health, probably to some extent embellished, performative, a fact which, in itself, was clearly indicative of something more real underneath. we did christmas, i remember, in bed with chinese food and stocking stuffers. i remember "smoking to die", or whatever - we both probably read a little too much john green.
like much, it was complicated. neither of us were doing well and that manifested in our relationship. i wish i'd done better, as you'd deserved, but what a time. i hope you're well.