A Memory That I Cannot Gather Anymore...

I saw a woman at a Furs show a couple of weeks ago and I've been thinking about her a lot.  Of becoming her, actually.  She was older, but probably not as old as she looked.  A hard living mid-fifties I'd say.  She was working at the venue, which is something I've always said I'd do when I retire-be the old lady usher.  She wore black mom jeans and combat boots. She had purple hair with that old punk cut that's part mullet and part mohawk. She was falling asleep at her station.  Standing up against the railing.   

Something about her told me she wasn't always like this.  She had a husband once, maybe still does. The tiny diamond ring with a wide gold wedding band gave it away.  It was perfectly ordinary in the way that ordinary hard working women keep their rings on no matter what they're doing, letting their hands turn to leather around the metal. She grew into those rings, but the jeans and the hair only happened about a decade ago. She was a little more middle of the road, maybe even closed minded about some things once. But something in her changed at some point and she got interested in something she never knew before and she just stopped giving a shit.

Maybe her mother had a special talent for making people feel meaningless. Maybe she lost a little girl to a junkie and family politics and had to live with the guilt of that little girl thinking she wasn't loved or wanted.  Maybe she had one too many dinners at chain restaurants with the kind of women who use the word "hubby".  Maybe she drove a GM. Maybe she didn't sleep well at night and at some point just stopped sleeping at all. Maybe her days were full of bullshit artists thinking they were going places on the backs of people who just wanted to be anywhere but where they were.  Maybe she had to say goodbye to someone in her head because it was just better for everyone whether they would ever know it or not.  Maybe she just got tired of taking her shoes off at the airport. Maybe she just didn't have anything else to say. Maybe her health started failing and she was tired of achy bones and water retention and stomach ulcers. Maybe she knew that everyone else would always come before her because that's just the way she'd let it happen. Maybe she just wanted everyone to just shut. the fuck. up.

So one day she left her husband sitting on the sofa watching a Burt Reynolds movie and spent a day on her own.  And she wandered into this club and had a beer while they were setting up for the show that night.  And she asked about a job.  And she was at the right place at the right time.  And even though she was wearing a sweatshirt with a wolf on it and meant it, they gave her a chance. 

And then there she was. For herself.  And for me. And all the ladies who disappeared into their teens again when Heartbreak Beat happened.