Tabitha tiptoed through the dark, sleeping household. It was such a pain in the ass to be an adult living back at her parents' house just because her next seasonal job wasn't due to start for two weeks and until then she was homeless.
But here she was creeping through the darkness, laptop and waterbottle in hand, down the hall, past her sleeping, aged parents; past her four month old niece and single parent sister; past her thirty-year-old-never-lived-on-his-own brother to the only room in the house that still had a light on, her (read: guest) bedroom and quietly secured the door behind her. She kicked off her shoes and jeans, pulled on a pair of old, soft, comfy sweats. Ignoring the yet unpacked piles of boxes, she turned her attention to the computer, now, settled on the mattress.
It had been a long day, actually, scratch that, it hadn't been a long day, but it had been a day when she found out a thing or two that she wasn't exactly thrilled about.
That day, her first week back in her hometown, Tabitha had heard from a couple of friends she talked to fairly regularly, ran into someone she hadn't seen since high school, had a long conversation with her college roommate who now lived in England, texted a coworker from the seasonal job that just ended and talked with a very reliable source of hometown gossip.
It was Michelle, the very reliable source of hometown gossip, who had told her a thing or two that Tabitha wasn't exactly thrilled about.
"Well, I do have one tidbit of news for you," crooned Michelle.
"Only ONE tidbit, Michelle, you're loosing your touch!"
"Not exactly, there's plenty of other things, but this one actually applies to
you, sweetie!"
"Applies to me?" scoffed Tabitha. "Michelle, I don't live here anymore!"
"Yes, but this tidbit absolutely applies to you, my dear. Remember Sean?"
Sean. Ah, yes, of course Tabitha remembered Sean. Sean had been the main source of turmoil in Tabitha's life for a number of months before she returned to her hippie existence in the woods, the sojourn she was just returned from. Sean had been her world over the summer. He had been her existence. She was fairly certain she had been in love with Sean, and Tabitha
never fell in love.
Therefore, that fateful night, two weeks before Tabitha left for the woods again, when Sean ended things between them, Tabitha's world crashed all around her. She became every mopey girl she despised. She cried, she slept all day, she got angry, she screamed, she hated him, she hated herself, she questioned her worth, her value that a guy like
Sean didn't want her, why would anyone else?
Sean, who it was amazing even remembered her birthday; Sean who had once called her by his ex's name (Candie) during an intimate moment; Sean who refused to go to one of her best friend's weddings because that would mean he'd "have to take some time off work".
Sean, yah, she remembered
Sean alright.
Tabitha had been pretty pissed with Sean for a while. Nearly six months of her life was wasted entirely on that jackass. Nearly six months on a relationship she knew from the start wasn't going to last a full year. But she'd loved him like she'd never loved anyone else; or, at least, she
thought she'd loved him?
A few weeks passed and Tabitha was back at a job she loved, socializing with people she hadn't seen in nearly four months. She went hiking, taught classes and partied with her friends. Over the summer Sean and
his friends had been her social life, now that she was back at work, she was remembering the benefits of having a wide circle of friends, more importantly she was remembering what it meant to have friends of her own; and, she was remembering what it was like to be single.
As much as she had been content with Sean for the time they were together, afterwards she was presented with new men, pretty men, charming men, delicious men that, if only for a moment, saw her better than Sean could ever have. They were delightful, easy on the eyes, they were interested in her . . . and Sean wasn't.
Tabitha found comfort in the 'only for tonight', it was a validation in a bizarre twisted way. Validation Tabitha desperately sought out. Actions, behaviors, results Tabitha soon didn't understand; she couldn't comprehend how she'd become That Girl.
Oh, wait, yes she could: Sean.
It all boiled down to Sean, at least, it did for a little while. Tabitha realized months later that she'd been "on the rebound" longer than she thought. A very wise and not appreciated (at the time) comment from one of her best friends made her realize that, she couldn't blame all her decisions on Sean anymore. The first few, he granted her, but the later ones he would not give her. Those, he said, were her own doing and she needed to acknowledge that.
Thinking about it long and hard, Tabitha realized they were, in fact, her own doing. And she really needed to stop. Sean had hurt her, sure, but after a while it was up to her to learn something from that relationship and get the fuck over it.
Since when was she the type to need a man to define her life anyway? When did
that happen? When did she start depending upon men for her worth? She was
Tabitha! She was strong, intelligent, beautiful, good at her job, loyal, bitchy when need be and a damned good friend. She had friends! People liked her! Even Sean's friends wanted to kick
his ass when he broke up with her!
She saw what her life had become and she could not honestly say she was a fan of herself anymore. So Tabitha made a positive decision in her personal life: no more! No more frivolous affairs, no more random hook ups, no more whinging and whining over men, no more putting sex and men first in her life. She was a mess! She needed to clean
herself up before she could be looking at any of those delectable men out there! There were classes to teach, knowledge to pass along, art to create, awareness to be made! And Tabitha was determined to be the woman to do all that!
"Yah, I remember Sean. What he do now? Insult a child and steal it's candy?"
"Close," muttered Michelle.
"What? You gonna tell me or do I have to guess? 'Cause, frankly, I'd rather not."
"Well, Scott takes the bus to work, right?"
"Yah, I know."
"Well, he took the early bus one day about a month or two ago and guess who was
on the bus!"
"Not Sean?" she gasped sarcastically.
"Yes,
Sean! He was getting off at the connecting bus to the airport. So Scott asks, you know, 'so where you going?' and you know what Sean says?"
"France?"
"No, you know he's too scared to leave the country! He tells Scott, looking horribly sheepish, by the way, 'San Francisco'."
"Reeeally?"
"Yah," said Michelle, pointedly, "
Yah. So Scott asks, "oh, you going to see Candie?' and he says, 'Maybe I'll see her if I have time' as if there's another reason in that man's pathetic little life to go to San Francisco!"
"In.teresting. Are they back together, then?"
"No idea, sorry, love."
"Well, I hope he gets everything out of that that he's looking for."
"You're way too nice!" Michelle disapproved.
"Don't get me wrong, Michelle," said Tabitha with a smirk. "Secretly I hope, at least once, he accidentally calls
her by
my name!"
Michelle laughed so hard she had to hold her side.
Gasping she declared:
"You rock, Tabby!"
That night Tabitha thought about the past few months of her life. The men that riddled those weeks. The fact that weekends could be counted by which man she'd made out with. There was Drew, Jason, Yaacov, Mike, Drew again, Dave, Dan, Drew another time, the other Dan, Mike's roommate aaannnnnnnd Drew one last time. Was she forgetting anyone? No, that was it. The only one that actually mattered to her, she realized, had been Drew. But dating Drew was out of the question. Drew was as big a mess as she was! She'd had to deal with his shenanigans for months and she definitely didn't want to get herself wrapped back up in that!
She had just shaken Drew from her life and now Michelle had dropped the new bomb on her and it was bugging her. Fucking Sean!
Tabitha crouched down next to her laptop and considered the silence that permeated the house. She pulled out a set of earbuds and plugged them into the laptop. Youtube was an amazing feature on the Internet, Tabitha decided.
She scrolled through a number of videos until she found the one she wanted: P!nk. "God is a DJ".
Tabitha inserted the earbuds and hit 'Play'. Then, Tabitha rocked out!
Her body swayed, her arms flew through the air, she twisted left, she twisted right; she turned up the volume and turned the computer for maximum rockage. She sang along to the song in her head and jumped when the beat moved her.
"IF GOD IS A DJ/ LIFE IS A DANCE FLOOR/ LOVE IS A RHYTM/ YOU ARE THE MUSIC/ IF GOD IS A DJ/ LIFE IS A DANCE FLOOR/ YOU GET WHAT YOU'RE GIVEN/ IT'S ALL HOW YOU USE IT!"
Tabitha swayed, pumped her fist, twisted, jumped and turned for a solid three minutes and forty four seconds. Hopefully no one in her family woke up to her blowing off of steam. As she jumped and shook her thang, all the stress of the past few months rolled off Tabitha's shoulders. Gone was Jason, gone was Mike, gone was Yaacov, gone was Dave, gone was Dan, gone was the other Dan, gone was Mike's roommate, gone was Drew, gone was Drew, gone was Drew, gone was Drew and for fucking certain gone was Sean!
Gone were all the questionable, out of character decisions she'd been making; gone was the focus of men in her life; gone were her negative perceptions of herself; gone were all these things that were weighing her down to a place that was beneath her. They ripped off her with the music, they floated away and were replaced by everything postive. Endorphins shot through her body detoxing all the negative and drawing the giant grin on her face as the song ended and, now exhausted as well as exhilerated, Tabitha reached for her waterbottle.
"...you get what you're given ... it's all how you use it... THEN GET YOUR ASS ON THE DANCE FLOOR!"
Damned straight, P!nk, she thought as she chugged the water,
sometimes you've got to dance!
Comments (2)
Like your writing.
Keep writing. definately keep dancing!