My Level of Attraction

My level of attraction
            There is a stereotype that women who get into bad relationship have daddy issues. This may or not be true. For myself, I am constantly led astray by the aesthetic. There is a certain type that I go for that looks absolutely nothing like my father.
            I was what some may consider a late in life bloomer. I was very, very VERY interested in boys and catalogues there comings and goings in great detail in journals that I found in the house after the passing of my mother. I had different symbols to characterize if a person was somehow nice to me, said hello to me, generally acknowledged my existence. In retrospect, this was a sad tome, a reflection of my lack of social interaction. If someone had been interested in me, I surely would have folded into their arms with absolutely no boundaries. I was spared that challenge into my teen years.
            I had both a diary and a notebook. The notebook was of the spiral variety. I had my key in the front the reader, namely myself, could use to decipher my desperate attempts to catalogue any kindness. I was meticulous about this journal. I had every day entered into these pages as well as the scores from all the sports events I attended from sixth to eighth grades. I suppose from a modern perspective, I near the level of a stalker. Gladly, there was no  facebook back then so no one had the glee of declining me as a friend or placing painful comments on my wall.
            The transformation from layer hair, well scrubbed yuppie lover to supporter of all types of parolees seems a long journey. I would spend my entire summers watching television. We got cable television in 1982. This is the place where I learned everything I knew at the time about music and sex. This was long before the age of parental controls. On the weekends, I would stay up long after my parents went to bed and watch movies on the USA network. They had a program called night flight. My tastes in music and in men were transformed with every movie, every scene, every song. I saw movies such as “Decline of Western Civilization”, “Times Square”, “Ladies and Gentlemen the Fabulous Stains”, and “Breaking Glass”. My taste in young men went from button up shirts to closely cropped hair, leather jackets, and tattoos. I was not longer attracted to athletes. I wanted pale and angry. Soon, I found my place among people who felt as if they did not fit it. Always the asthetic that drove me.

            There is an expression that water seeks the lowest level. I was at the low point of my life. Years and years of being alone and isolated had started to take their toll. If I would not have found punk rock and Oi music, I probably would have killed myself. I used to cut and burn myself to relieve my stress. I had lost 40 pounds between my junior and senior year of high school. For the first time in my life as a teenager, people started to notice me as more than someone who you can use to get answers for a test or write your term paper for a fee. I wanted OUT. Out of my skin. Food was not working, tv was not working, I had no friends. When I started going to punk rock shows, for the first time in my life, I felt ALIVE. And the boys seemed interested in me. I was in the spotlight for the first time. I was out of my shadow. I wanted OUT in a totally different way. I wanted OUT of my house so I could go to the city and evolve into my true self.
 


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