toxic avenger

Interesting arrays of disconnected events tend to visit us in dreamland. In the morning we string it all together in an effort to make some sense of it, like some over-worked film editor, toiling away at turning six scrubbed films into something coherent. I tend to think that life runs through a similar course as our memories steadily become more and more vague with images culled from actual events, photographs, stories, wishes, dreams, and a smattering of some TV show we once watched. To some extent, assembled in whatever form we see fit, they become us.

I can't quite recall if it was during first grade or second grade (in fact, I did a quick Wikipedia search to see if I was even close), but at some point we all lost our baby teeth. We'd sit there at the center of the classroom, or lying in bed at night, or even on the playground at recess, doing everything in our power to fiddle with, tug at, or flick our tongue toward that irritating dangling piece of bone hanging by a string from our jaws, in a concerted effort to cause some change. At times the damned thing didn't even feel the least bit connected, merely held on by very weak magnets. It was frustrating, and as a tooth in its present form it was also completely useless.

Sometimes life gets this way. It reminds me of Dexter Morgan, that wonderful sociopath of print and screen. Like many a sociopath, he's the perfect outsider, quite able to recognize the nuances of humanity, who dons his life like a wardrobe. I wouldn't suggest he's necessarily the best of role models, but I would say it's true that one's world, one's lifestyle, one's reality does go in and out of fashion with time, sometimes fitting with ease and at other times chafing us to the point of action. When it gets like that, you have to do like Dexter would, and yank those teeth out!

A couple days back I spent the hazier part of the afternoon with my parents, who are recently estranged from my siblings. I didn't know what to expect when venturing out to the local Chick-fila, but it did give me several revelations. As I got a better gist of who these people are without the context of the seeming baggage that a functional family unit allows and they got perhaps a better sense of me in this space and time, I began to more fully grasp something about toxic relationships. In this instance, and likely in others, without all of the vile undercurrents, both parties are better off.