jackasses

This week, Nancy and Erin have the following Red Writing Hood prompt for you and we think that this one is going to be fun!

Revision is about looking at a piece with a new-vision. Sometimes, it's about sprucing up the trim, but sometimes it's about knocking down walls. That's today's challenge. Go back in the archives and pick a fiction or nonfiction piece. Perhaps something you posted on your blog, or an old Red Dress Club prompt? Find something that you're proud of, but something you haven't read for awhile. Do a complete overhaul. Change the point of view. Write it from a different perspective. Try dialogue. Make it a narrative. Play with tense or organizational structure. You know, kill those babies.

Oh, and by the way? Trim it down to 400 words or less.

The world is full of a bunch of ignorant jackasses. Some may even be family members. You can try to fight their ignorance and try to get them to open their eyes a bit-  or you can choose the harder path... the one in which you sit back and watch them be... jackasses, but do so in a manner in which there is no hate. (Because once you hate, once you expel that negative energy to the Universe, you're just as big of a jackass as the ignorant ones. And yes, I've been a jackass before as have most of us, I think.)

It's not always easy to choose to go down the harder path, hence it being the harder path, but sometimes it can be a fun one. Sometimes, you get to watch from the sidelines as people who think they know it all stumble in their own shit (which stinks just as much as the next persons, by the way).  But, here's the thing: if you sit back and watch the ignorant jackasses with hatred brewing inside of you, it really won't be so entertaining- so there's another reason to save that energy that would be wasted on negativity.

It's taken me a really long time to grasp all this, to understand that there are things - lots and lots of things - out of my control that I just need to let be. If they aren't in my control, what's the use in getting all worked up over it? Why put myself in a bad mood because of someone else's ignorant behavior and/or actions? I'm better than that.

That's why I choose not to fight the ignorant jackasses. That's why I choose the harder path whenever I can. And I'll do my best to teach my daughter to do the same: Know that she is a good person, know that there are good people in the world, but that there are also a buttload of jackasses, too. Some might even be in her very own family. And just because these jackasses exist and may be everywhere, doesn't mean she has to join them.

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This revision stems from an entry I posted a month after starting this blog. Back when I had no readers. It's a long one so I'd rather link to it, than copy and paste. While it was kind of fun to go back in time and read something I haven't even thought of much in a long time, I definitely think the original entry is better as it truly captures the raw emotions I carried with me at that time.

Old Letter

(The following is a take on fiction. It's been a LONG time since I've tried creating any but you gotta start back up somewhere, eh? My point is that names, numbers, etc are all made up and if they relate to you or someone you know, it's pure coincidence.)

With the kids at my sister’s house, I was sorting crap in our bedroom into a Keep Pile or a big black plastic garbage bag when my eyes spotted the fading blues and yellows on a small, paper crescent moon box that was tucked behind some books. 

Goosebumps invaded my arms.

Marco was nowhere in sight. Why would he be when it was time to pack and clean? Fucker.

I grabbed the box and opened it, preparing myself for its contents: a dried rose that was so fragile, my breathing nearly destroyed it; a folded photo of two happy kids from another life taken at my sister’s house one Christmas morning; a piece of paper folded over and over again so that it might be overlooked.

With my eyes shut, I studied the photo for a moment. His backwards baseball cap… his blue eyes that were so much older than the 22 years he was… the veins that stuck out from his deliciously toned forearms… his soft, plump lips. 

It had been 16 years since we last talked, last saw each other. 16 years, 2 marriages, 2 babies, and about 10 moves.

And through it all, I kept that small moon crescent shaped box with the rose, the photo, and the piece of paper folded so many times over in hopes of being overlooked.

I unfolded the paper and read its fading scribble:

757-584-8758

Corey

Instantly I was brought back to the first time Corey and I finally talked. We worked together for a couple months and would run into one another in the cafeteria at times.  We would smile at each other but that was about it.

I longed for him from the first time I saw those blue eyes, those thick lips, and those forearms. But there was no chance he’d go for a fluffy bitch like me so I just kept to myself.

Then he opened up the conversation one morning while we were alone in the cafeteria. The next night we went for dinner and a movie. He didn’t leave my house for another 10 hours. All we did was talk and watch tv and play cards. He finally asked to kiss me as he was leaving and as much as I wanted to do nothing more than to leech onto those lips, I told him he should’ve just gone for it and not asked.  I was so dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

I was sure he would want nothing more to do with me. The next day after work, I found a rose under my windshield. 

We dated for about two months before I finally gave up my virginity. I finally won’t die a virgin, I remembered thinking on one cold, snowy day in January. 

A couple months later I got a new job. And when I left the old job for the new one, we stopped seeing one another. 

I was mortified and so heartbroken.

“You’re gonna do so much better than me,” he told me as we hugged good bye in the parking lot at my old job on my last day. 

“I do love you,” I said through my uncontrolled tears. 

And I did. He was my first love. And I’ll never forget him. Never.

I crumpled the piece of and put it into the box alongside the rose and photo and shoved all of it deep down into the black plastic garbage bag.