I know I’m behind, I got a little busy this week—but I wanted to follow through with this idea. For me, the song I Said I Was Going and I Went by Joe Kaplow is the epitome of the entire Ellie-returns-to-the-farm scene, of everything she thinks about having left. So in the spirit of contributing a healthy variety of media to Ellie x Dina Week, I recorded my own cover of it.
Disclaimer: I’m not a singer or even a particularly good guitar player—I play guitar in my kitchen for my audience of approximately two cats. Which is exactly how this was recorded. The cats gave mixed reviews.
In the suffocating sea of turmoil, Ellie and Dina find a ray of light in their son, JJ.
Slight headcanon but Ellie definitely gives Dina her hamsa bracelet while she gives birth and swears it gave her the superhuman strength to crush her hand into dust stop laughing Dina you’re a monster-
I can pile on the lies, but I know what I meant. Thread a jumble of words together into something that can pass for the truth. Paper it against the inside of my eyes so I can pretend I believe it, too. I don’t plan on dying. Semantics. Plan, don’t plan—what’s the difference, really. It happens or it doesn’t. Not sure anymore which one is worse and that’s the bones of it. That’s the thing scraping at the back of my brain, the intruder prying at the back door, waiting for me to splinter and break and give in. That’s the truth, the god’s honest kind, and I’ve been holding it between my teeth like a stone I just can’t spit out.
Some point you just run out of ways to say things. Run out of ways to say them without flaying yourself to the bone. Without showing how small and simple and fragile you might really be—how afraid you are that you’re just as breakable as anything else. How afraid you are that you’re already profoundly broken.
I won’t say it out loud. Not to her. Not gonna let her see me like that. Not gonna let her remember me like that.
Leaving was always the only choice.
It was only a matter of time anyway. She was tolerating me. Because she’s—who she is. She tolerates and fixes and patches and holds. I’m the blood all over the floor that just can’t be put back where it belongs. Can’t be poured back into a throat. A chest. A gut. Just can’t be made whole. A fixer and something unfixable—someone had to give. Why not me. Let it be my fault. She doesn’t deserve this.
If I do make it back—maybe the inside of my head will finally be quiet again. Because right now it’s loud, and vicious, and it doesn’t stop. The worst things that have ever been said to me are the things I’ve said to myself. Things I can’t stop saying now. Some of it is illogical and irrational and just plain lies—but does it matter? The line between realandnot real gets lost really quickly when you’re in the process of torturing yourself to death.
If I really do make it back—
God. I hope she can forgive me.
Maybe I’ll have figured it out by then. How to tell her that I wasn’t abandoning her. I was trying to abandon myself.
[Images description: Images of Dina and Ellie with words underneath them. First image of them kissing in the dance day with the words: ‘Where are those happy days? they seem so hard to find’ Second image of Dina holding Ellie, words underneath read: ‘I try to reach for you but you have closed your mind…’ Third image: Ellie standing on their farm looking out the window. Words underneath read: ‘You seemed so far away, though you were standing near’ Fourth image: Dina hugging Ellie after she comes back to the theater, when she confessed she made Nora talk. Words underneath read: ‘You made me feel alive but something died, I fear…’ Fifth image: Dina looking to the other side as Ellie is in the back, they are in the farm and Ellie is about to leave. Words underneath read: ‘Whatever happened to our love? I wish I understood’ Sixth image: Ellie, JJ and Dina dancing in the kitchen. Words underneath read: ‘It used to be so nice, it used to be so good’]
So for today’s Ellie/Dina week theme, I have decided to post a little video of the happy family together.
For this one I timed it so they would be dancing to their song. Much time with JJ was sacrificed for this. Also, bonus Dina jamming on her own while I waited for the right song to start.
