{I've been playing around with randomized prompts, and bits of short fiction. So when I pulled "violin" and "person covered in tattoos" this was definitely not what I meant or wanted to write.}
Ink & Strings
I
am not who I thought I would be. Neither violinist nor person
covered in tattoos. Do I want to be either? Yes and no. Had I had
the money to spare in my late teens, early twenties, late twenties,
early thirties, etc etc etc I might have gotten a lot of tattoos that
I thought I needed--hard emphasis on “thought”--instead of the
one acquired at 42. I have a list now. Of need versus want...and
still no funds to accomplish it. So,
I could have been covered in tattoos, though they’d have been the
wrong ones.
As
for the violinist...as I write this, I sit under an antique violin
case hung on the wall. An odd sort of family heirloom gifted to my
father by the doctor who delivered him. It is not strung. It has
not been played within my lifetime. It hangs on the wall, where it
has been for as long as I’ve known it; not even a decoration, just
a thing we had. A prop for a story. Valued...but in an arbitrary
sort of way.
I
would have loved to have taken lessons in my youth. But it was
another thing we couldn’t afford, and the violin itself another low
priority “should”. As in, “We should get someone to check it
out.” “We should see if it’s still playable.” “We should
see about getting it restrung.”
When
I was a child I thought all of these should statements were things we
were going to do. That’s what “should” means in that context,
right? Something that you should do is important...?
As
an adult, I think should is a curse word. Not like saying fuck or
bullshit. A true curse.
I’ve
been beaten down by so many years of “it should work” or “we
should be able to do it”, “we should be okay on the bills”,
“the life insurance should pay out”, “we should be able to get
the car fixed this time”, and my all time favorite: “meh, it
should be fine”. I flinch every time someone says it anymore. And
I cringe and chastise myself on the rare occasion that it comes out
of my mouth.
Maybe
somewhere in an alternate universe there is a woman who looks like
me. Maybe she is healthy and less angsty, and not crippled by
depression and anxiety. Maybe she isn’t scarred by cursed words.
Maybe she isn’t alone. Maybe she is calloused from years of the
pressure of strings, and inked with artwork, only a few of which she
feels the barest twinges of regret for. Maybe she has a safe stable
house that she loves. Maybe she has a dog, or a cat, or a ferret.
Maybe she has a husband or wife or both. And maybe they all have
family dinners every month with both blood and bound.
Maybe
she has occasional nightmares of another woman, one with her face,
but none of her charm. Nights where she wakes in tears, and
becomes angry with her bedmate for not understanding why the idea of
“everything staying the same” is so heart wrenching. Nights
where she wants more than anything to go back into the dream, to hug
that other woman and tell her everything will be alright. But she’s
also glad that she’s awake, that they are just dreams. Because she
doesn’t really believe that it can be okay.
