Thursday - Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

[ninanevermore]

Today on my drive into work, I was thinking about why I kept Patty in my life for so long, despite how different our temperaments, socio economics and core values are. It occurred to me last night that she was my Ferris Bueller and I was her Cameron. This realization has been tickling my brain ever since.

The parallels between the character of Cameron in Ferris Bueller's Day Off and me are so obvious that I can't believe it took me so many years to notice them. Very much like Cameron, I've seen Patty's number come across my caller ID and thought, "She's just going to keep calling me and calling me until I say yes." Cameron needed Ferris to shake him up and wake him up, for a while I needed Patty for the same reasons.

I admit that it would be harder for most people to imagine Patty - a white-trash, pot-smoking, drama queen of a single mom – as Ferris Bueller, but you have to look beyond the obvious. Like Ferris, Patty was fearless. She did what she wanted. She didn't care about people's opinions. She didn't let anything get in the way of her having a good time. She not only bucked authority, she mocked it. She never accept "no" for an answer.

Because of her, I went places, saw things and met people that I never would have on my own accord. I now have stories to fill my blank pages with. While I'm glad to not have her around anymore, I miss having a Ferris Bueller in my life to get me out of the house force me to have adventures in spite of myself. I just don't want my Ferris to be Patty anymore.

Please understand that she started off as a great Ferris. When I met her she was holding down a job and had her life more on track than it had ever been before or has been since. By the time I cut her lose, she very Ferris anymore; she was more like Charlie Sheen's character in the police station, strung out and inquiring about, "Drugs?"

Loving movies the way I do, I wish I could tie the ending up in a pretty bow. I wish I could write her a letter and thank her for all she gave me, without bringing up all of the ugliness. The letter could be read aloud as a narrative as I walk off into the sunset just before the credits roll. It would say something along the lines of:

Dear Patty,

I want to thank you for the things you did for me, to help me grow as a person.

Thank you for dragging me downtown to hang out in gay bars until closing time. And not just any gay bars; thank you for taking me to the most notoriously sleazy gay bar in all of Houston, where the bartender happened to be a friend of your. I'm glad I got to see Roxanne the drag queen lip-sync to Dianna Ross songs; he is amazing and more woman than I could ever hope to be. I'm glad that I got to meet the leather-clad bisexual stripper with his fisherman's cap, his riding crop and his unexpectedly innocent school-boy smile. I'm also glad to have met the strait stripper who worked the gay circuit because men tip better than women do; I still think about the way he made sure that I wasn't your girlfriend before he hit on me.* My point is, a nice bourgeois girl from the suburbs like me would never have gone into that place if you hadn't dragged me, and I'm so glad you did.

Thank you for sneaking me into the participant's campground to the Texas Renaissance Festival to camp out with the odd mix of eccentric close-knit families and drunken freaks that work there. I don't mind that I had to dress up as a wench to sneak into the fairgrounds the next day; I looked cute with my breast pushed up to my chin like that. In spite of the fact that I discovered that I don't like roughing it and that sleeping on the ground without an air mattress is not to my liking, I confess that, overall, I had a great time.

Thank you making me drive you and your children to see your boyfriend while he was in jail, even though I didn't want to go because I was 8 months pregnant and didn't feel well that night. Seeing the number of children in the visiting area shocked me. Seeing that the water fountain didn't work and the bathrooms for the visitors were dirty and in disrepair angered me. Seeing that no one except for me felt outraged at these things saddened me. You made me think about injustice and inequality; no place that middle class people gathered with their children would be allowed to be so squalid; but poor children visiting their fathers in jail can go thirsty and be exposed to filth and no one cares. If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't care. You made me want to change things and make a difference, though I'm still working out the details of how to go about this.

Thank you for introducing me to enough characters that I could spend my life writing books about them and never get to use them all. I stepped out of my middle class boundaries and met people who provoked strong emotions in me, ranging from admiration, to pity, to disgust. Before you, most people in my day-to-day life inspire apathy, but the people you surrounded yourself at least made me feel, even if all of the feeling weren't to my liking.

Thank you for opening my eyes to segments of my own society that I would never have noticed without you as my guide. Thank you for focusing eyes on people who were once invisible to me.

Patty, you are a lot of trouble and a hell of a mess, but I'm not sorry that I met you. I know I hurt you when I turned my back on you, and I am sorry for that. Having a child caused me to rethink my life and unstable parts of it, such as you and the chaos that surrounds you, had to go.

Even so, know that the wisdom I gained from knowing you is something I will pass along to my son as he gets older. Though I've ended our friendship, please know that I wish you nothing but the best. I may not like you as a person, but part of me will always love you.

Peace,

Nina

I know her too well to send her this letter, though. She wouldn't understand it. It would pour salt on the wounds I've already inflicted on her.

When I started writing this, I thought I wanted someone in my life to be my new Ferris, but I think now this isn't the case. I'm not looking for another Ferris Bueller, Patty was Ferris enough. The reason I let her go is because I'm no longer Cameron. I'm ready to graduate on to something more.

I want to be Ferris now. I'm looking for a Cameron of my own.



* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

* At the time I felt a little offended that he thought she was the best I could do, but I didn't say anything about it.

Comments

[preci0us.livejournal.com]

It's funny

I've been ferris all my life..and all my Cameron's turned into Ferris' of their own...x10

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

It's the Ferris Bueller Syndrome. Ferrisism is like a virus. After prolonged exposure to a Ferris, a Cameron person will start to take on Ferris characterics and cease to be a Cameron. Once this happens, the new Ferrises go out and start spreading the syndrome to other, unsuspecting, meek and well behaved people...

[welfy.livejournal.com]

This was so sweet to read, and yet so heartbreaking. I wish people who have cut me off would write me letters like that.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

Sending a letter like that is hard. Here I've written the letter, but I'm not showing it to the person it's addressed to because I don't think she would understand it and it would only cause more pain.

Then again, maybe I'm not giving her enough credit. You've given me something to think about.

[manicmandi.livejournal.com]

I have my own Patty that still clings to me and I a bit to her. She packed up and moved off to michigan so it makes it a lot easier not to get tangled up in her now. I love her with every fiber of my being but I cant be the things we were at 16 anymore. She seems to be stuck there. Recently divorced with 4 children she always calls me to tell me of nights she spends having sex with random married men in semi trucks. I'm appalled at this behavior. She's 33 and leaves her young children in the care of her 18yr old (ya she had her when she was 15) so she can go out almost every single night. Its not fair to her 18yr old who should be having fun of her own. I am distancing myself from her emotionally for my own good. Its hard because I love her so much. She was the only person I needed as a child and for so long. I wish she wasnt this way now.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

It is hard, I agree. When Patty moved out of state (for a month) 2 years ago was when I discovered that I liked her better gone; it was the real beginning of the end. When a person gets stuck in her own destructive spiral like that, the best you can do sometimes is walk away and save yourself.

[noblwish.livejournal.com]

Funny thing is, once upon a time you were MY Ferris when I was desperate to shed my small-town Cameronism. :)

I have to ask: Which gay bar was that? Was it the gay strip club, or was that another one?

Someday, when our kids are a little older, you'll have to show me how to sneak into the participant's campground. Or, maybe by then, I'll have found a way to participate myself without stressing out so much. Maybe we ought to go audition/volunteer some year just to say we did it once!

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

The bar: EJ's, next to Numbers on Westhiemer. The strippers are part of a nightly "amateur" contest, so it's not technically a strip club: they are just "talent show contestants."

Ren Faire: You need to know someone who works there to facilitate this. How do you feel about riding in the trunk of a car for a short amount of time? Because if you're claustrophobic that could be a problem.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

She might call me and want to discuss it.

While the overt point of the letter would be to thank her, the underlying point of the letter would be that I am hereby telling her "no" for the rest of her life. She doesn't accept "no" for an answer and would want to argue the point.

It would be unpleasant for both sides.