There is profound comfort to be found in an over-sized sweater. I get why girlfriends have asked for them kindly, and sported them so beamingly, as if only my ownership offered them happiness in their baggy-clothed appearance. Something greater hangs slackly from your arms in an oversized sweater. Perhaps it's the miniature feeling, the way our wrists slide themselves down and in the sleeves. The drifting edge of the shoulder opening. The hanging paunch of pockets.
More than a layer of warmth, an over-sized sweater is another entity. A shell of protection, a display of personality. An instant insistance of function over fashion. "Here I am," our draped apparel proclaims, "but to my wearer I am everywhere." A world inside an over-sized sweater. An escape route through two sleeves and a neck hole. A safe haven to be taken with you. Worn closely. Enjoyed thoroughly.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Friday, August 3, 2012
counting
Stuck like tired tar. Darting eyes and hard blinks of hope, anguish, or something unfelt and deeply affecting. The pause, the grey and subtle hesitation. The over-thinking of mistake and mis-alignment. The way a candle burns at night to new music and a swirling wash across your eyes, making the candle's flame a blurred beacon of focus, and you blink several times to be sure it's there.
A morse code of memories. The instants spread across a blank sheet of several years. Where they tear though are glimpses into in unwritten biography, and they widen, with provocation, into fuller scenes of crying and laughter and heatbreak. Do you remember what you did, or what someone did to you? As these holes know of untrained scissors.
So Fridays keep coming. That nervous twitch of music and my knee keeping time. The space between the lyrics of memories and how some moments might be made for smashing old pains with new kinds of better pains. What might keep me up at night or send me straight to sleep. I honestly couldn't say. Is that indecision the real love I've been seeking? In the crossed out drawings ever smaller and smaller. The most of a given situation might be made, but we are only ever in control of the parameters. Where blacks and white fade to colors, I keep thinking, and writing. Losing count; that was all part of the plan. All part of the love, trying to grow.
A morse code of memories. The instants spread across a blank sheet of several years. Where they tear though are glimpses into in unwritten biography, and they widen, with provocation, into fuller scenes of crying and laughter and heatbreak. Do you remember what you did, or what someone did to you? As these holes know of untrained scissors.
So Fridays keep coming. That nervous twitch of music and my knee keeping time. The space between the lyrics of memories and how some moments might be made for smashing old pains with new kinds of better pains. What might keep me up at night or send me straight to sleep. I honestly couldn't say. Is that indecision the real love I've been seeking? In the crossed out drawings ever smaller and smaller. The most of a given situation might be made, but we are only ever in control of the parameters. Where blacks and white fade to colors, I keep thinking, and writing. Losing count; that was all part of the plan. All part of the love, trying to grow.
Monday, July 2, 2012
summer sweat
Summer sweat. And a neon confusion from exhaustion. That awakening pain and explosion of muscles. In your mind you see a pool. The great pool you knew as a child, and how you can still smell it in every drip of summertime water. Any given lake house. The sprinklers dotting your neighborhood. And the tiny beads of salty perspiration gliding slowly down your temples.
You think of cheap pizza. An afternoon of video games in your grandma's unused bedroom. Or maybe you see the faces of those most familiar, who held you through playgrounds. The thud and scattering of woodchips under a swingset. The metallic odor of a jungle gym on your hands. A dog barking at fresh cut grass. All in the summer sweat.
The summer heat makes it run. Makes you run. Tears at the inspiration in your mind and says, "more". It says "now". It says "forever". Only second guesses would dare say otherwise. Only failings and hard lessons speak with wisdom for slowing down. The pull to summer's push. The flowerly falling of moisture to the earth and grass under your bare feet screaming, "go!" Only cycles. Seasons and reoccuring nightmares. The intangible fear of not falling asleep. The tiny aches of worn skin and countless thoughts blowing free in the sun and warm air. A burn on the skin and the bleached feeling of outside. When a cool breeze comes to answer the call of heat, it must whisper. It must blur the divison between those first and second thoughts. Where the infinite finds purpose. Where white divides and spools of difference unravel. They are ropes to climb, and pull, and jump from in afternoons that could only be out of time.
You think of cheap pizza. An afternoon of video games in your grandma's unused bedroom. Or maybe you see the faces of those most familiar, who held you through playgrounds. The thud and scattering of woodchips under a swingset. The metallic odor of a jungle gym on your hands. A dog barking at fresh cut grass. All in the summer sweat.
The summer heat makes it run. Makes you run. Tears at the inspiration in your mind and says, "more". It says "now". It says "forever". Only second guesses would dare say otherwise. Only failings and hard lessons speak with wisdom for slowing down. The pull to summer's push. The flowerly falling of moisture to the earth and grass under your bare feet screaming, "go!" Only cycles. Seasons and reoccuring nightmares. The intangible fear of not falling asleep. The tiny aches of worn skin and countless thoughts blowing free in the sun and warm air. A burn on the skin and the bleached feeling of outside. When a cool breeze comes to answer the call of heat, it must whisper. It must blur the divison between those first and second thoughts. Where the infinite finds purpose. Where white divides and spools of difference unravel. They are ropes to climb, and pull, and jump from in afternoons that could only be out of time.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
slow down
A race with no end. Constant inertia in that feeling you've forgotten something. And what fear decays each moment. What to strive toward but a replacement for the paranoia; love, but not some mythical answer. The short evenings for long days. The back patio or the record room. My home's working desk, and the clutter of papers. When I close my eyes I see video games. My purple and see-through GameBoy color and the many hours I spent playing Pokémon. Head down, I opted out of the race. I stepped into another world.
The uselessness begs to fight with all I've understood; to be creating would require a ceaseless effort. And I've discovered, or been in awe of, my existence as a creation and creator. The river which flows through me and all life. So calm and hazy and unseeable to anyone not looking, but clear as day and a summer sky to the quiet believer. Not an unending explanation of "how" or "why", but simply what overtakes the mind, as hours give themselves to nothing and no one. But to you, and everything you know, what the world becomes.
Where Science tires, and religion turns its nose. Where colors double back on themselves, and the glowing white meets the engulfing black. In pastels and neons; matte or impossibly bright. Those moments which exist as fairy tales. The "time when..." A legendary existence, how humans came to make themselves happy, was the only guidepost we needed. An imagined town, an imagined street, an imagined life. In the mind you can remain, but your idleness will be your destruction. Only know what walls need tearing down. And where languid breaths of air are water for the soul. Taking their time until taking their leave.
The uselessness begs to fight with all I've understood; to be creating would require a ceaseless effort. And I've discovered, or been in awe of, my existence as a creation and creator. The river which flows through me and all life. So calm and hazy and unseeable to anyone not looking, but clear as day and a summer sky to the quiet believer. Not an unending explanation of "how" or "why", but simply what overtakes the mind, as hours give themselves to nothing and no one. But to you, and everything you know, what the world becomes.
Where Science tires, and religion turns its nose. Where colors double back on themselves, and the glowing white meets the engulfing black. In pastels and neons; matte or impossibly bright. Those moments which exist as fairy tales. The "time when..." A legendary existence, how humans came to make themselves happy, was the only guidepost we needed. An imagined town, an imagined street, an imagined life. In the mind you can remain, but your idleness will be your destruction. Only know what walls need tearing down. And where languid breaths of air are water for the soul. Taking their time until taking their leave.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
summer 2012, a prologue
All the sun to look forward to, and drugs. What stung so strongly as failure, now where my eyes close to warmth and purpose. The uselessness of an afternoon in the grass, or a gin drink. Love in passing clouds. Reverb and flip-flops. The cold of my fingers at work and plans that might follow through. The rhythm of a repetition that we can't hold onto. Blankets of chilly nights under the stars. What I might look forward to, or what might scare me, and a colored infinity where they meet. What I draw with you by my side. All the universe that exists between us which I can't help but continue to explore. The thoughts I learn are wrong as clouds become bunnies above our heads. And we whisper to each other falling asleep. Or bike to the farmer's market in the morning.
essays on love, a table of contents
4. - Not How To Be Nice To People (obsession)
The blog post she'll never know I was reading. That virus way she replicates sometimes in my head. Or the bacteria way she infects. Something gross and applicable. Chalk it up to nausea, the pause of maybe being sick. The parties we pass out at alone. Well, not together.
5. - Lying Liars Who Lie (stimulation)
The way I rub my eyes with my thumb and lower index finger. All sorts of details that were so lost in her overly-air-conditioned bedroom. Always adjusting my steps around her, I never found solid ground. But still I could press into my face for thoughts to come pouring out. All the confusion I could find in one summer.
3. - What To Do With You (hope)
The most that timidity could hope for in cold weather. Checklists and great ideas lacking in initiative. The tea we never drank and what I would call trying. Such unbalanced scales, though she laid so wonderfully flat.
1. - An Engagement (respect)
The creak of floorboards. All of two people that you could fit in one tiny room. What could be easily overlooked and the moments where mistakes were only launching boards for something stronger. The Autumn colors we dressed ourselves in to stand back to back and find a future far away.
2. - A Life Of Possibilities (honesty)
The tiniest of promises that an eye can be full of. What spring air means to a 3:00 AM drive home. And all of the the wonder that could be found in a first date that's too much for two people. Not what died shortly after.
The blog post she'll never know I was reading. That virus way she replicates sometimes in my head. Or the bacteria way she infects. Something gross and applicable. Chalk it up to nausea, the pause of maybe being sick. The parties we pass out at alone. Well, not together.
5. - Lying Liars Who Lie (stimulation)
The way I rub my eyes with my thumb and lower index finger. All sorts of details that were so lost in her overly-air-conditioned bedroom. Always adjusting my steps around her, I never found solid ground. But still I could press into my face for thoughts to come pouring out. All the confusion I could find in one summer.
3. - What To Do With You (hope)
The most that timidity could hope for in cold weather. Checklists and great ideas lacking in initiative. The tea we never drank and what I would call trying. Such unbalanced scales, though she laid so wonderfully flat.
1. - An Engagement (respect)
The creak of floorboards. All of two people that you could fit in one tiny room. What could be easily overlooked and the moments where mistakes were only launching boards for something stronger. The Autumn colors we dressed ourselves in to stand back to back and find a future far away.
2. - A Life Of Possibilities (honesty)
The tiniest of promises that an eye can be full of. What spring air means to a 3:00 AM drive home. And all of the the wonder that could be found in a first date that's too much for two people. Not what died shortly after.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
essays on love, an epilogue
"It was never my choice" screams the blind hand of loss. To see the dawn of any morning other than the fog. The full eye of melancholy. The refresh of again. What new sun shines past the footnotes and explanations. Over whatever road came into view, and the dirt. The backwards route of getting lost. And the uselessness. For all it taught me will be water in my life. Change as a Christmas card. Reminders in the soup, of somewhere I once knew. Not another story, or the way I felt it needed shoving. My own two hands, and tales of lines I knew were best, and afraid. Wouldn't it be adaptable to put myself into a chair? Always hearing history, when I listen. Icicles are another page in a tome of my world. No two pages alike, no sentiment unseen. There, as needles drip languid for awakening. And the spit of being done. Whatever I lined my bed with, it's making me uncomfortable. Where sleep sees me under. The promise of my insults, that slowed so freely, and lovingly. And gave you strength against me, the wrongs which were under every breath. Wooden floors, which called me to them. Always driving, always driving, always driving. Silence of age. The tiny drawings lead to something. We're all creations.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
essays on love, part 5
What alcohol will do is allow for an ex-girlfriend to speak to me when really both of us would rather inhabit opposite sides of the planet. An obituary on my 79th birthday would be enough contact for her to make with me. When I'm sober. Somewhere where we don't have the same favorite bar and mutual friends. But I'll admit, as a product of forgiveness, I enjoyed talking with her. Today I can see many of her intentions in ways I wasn't privy to when we were dating.
She came up to me between turns playing pool with her friends. She had an "I know I don't belong here - and neither do you" look on her face. She asked me a favor. She asked me to not write about her in my blog anymore. I paused for a moment to think about what she could've been referencing. Beers hadn't blinded me to remembering what I'd possibly said about her. I just didn't care anymore. In the past several months I had moved on, and thoughts of her had dwindled down to nothing, or turned themselves into self-observation. I didn't hate her. I hated the person I had become when I was with her. Her presence in my mind was only an afterimage of the mistakes I had made and needed to learn from. When she began calling and texting me, only hours after we'd broken up, I knew that all I could've gained from her attention was far, far behind me.
Such a calm distaste I felt then. I wanted so badly to trust her smile and kind words, but some things even the blind can see when they're willing. Here is someone who claimed to have let me know them. Here is someone I'd convinced myself I loved. Here is love's potential for illusion, and illusion's potential for persuasion, and persuasion's potential for faith, and faith's potential for fear.
A vacation gave me insight to forgiveness: loving even the things that hurt you and knowing they cannot cause you pain unless you let them. When I read back over the blog post which had sent her over to me, I laughed and knew that she couldn't have read into the meaning with which I wrote. The only thing I can do for us now is the opposite of what she asked. I am writing about her. I am thinking aloud to the world with an absence of fear. Choose hate if you must, because there's certainly meaning in a strong emotion like that, and it's nothing that comes from someone else. It always comes from within.
She came up to me between turns playing pool with her friends. She had an "I know I don't belong here - and neither do you" look on her face. She asked me a favor. She asked me to not write about her in my blog anymore. I paused for a moment to think about what she could've been referencing. Beers hadn't blinded me to remembering what I'd possibly said about her. I just didn't care anymore. In the past several months I had moved on, and thoughts of her had dwindled down to nothing, or turned themselves into self-observation. I didn't hate her. I hated the person I had become when I was with her. Her presence in my mind was only an afterimage of the mistakes I had made and needed to learn from. When she began calling and texting me, only hours after we'd broken up, I knew that all I could've gained from her attention was far, far behind me.
Such a calm distaste I felt then. I wanted so badly to trust her smile and kind words, but some things even the blind can see when they're willing. Here is someone who claimed to have let me know them. Here is someone I'd convinced myself I loved. Here is love's potential for illusion, and illusion's potential for persuasion, and persuasion's potential for faith, and faith's potential for fear.
A vacation gave me insight to forgiveness: loving even the things that hurt you and knowing they cannot cause you pain unless you let them. When I read back over the blog post which had sent her over to me, I laughed and knew that she couldn't have read into the meaning with which I wrote. The only thing I can do for us now is the opposite of what she asked. I am writing about her. I am thinking aloud to the world with an absence of fear. Choose hate if you must, because there's certainly meaning in a strong emotion like that, and it's nothing that comes from someone else. It always comes from within.
Friday, November 18, 2011
How I'm capable of so many threads of thought, deep and meaningful in their own individual ways. It could be that no avenue matters more, and would head in a direction I am destined to travel. No, I think that is not some magical answer hanging like the stars over every planet of thought in the universe of possibility. The stars are energy. My own fear keeps me reaching in so many directions. I now know that each force of gravity could pull on me and my potential could nestle, for a time, into comfortable recognition. So I struggle between sustainability and an assertion that no one thing need hold me for too long. I am like a magnet stabilizing, and as such I know there must be a point of attraction! But now happiness is the exertion of thought and effort as wholly as possible in every direction imaginable. The fear of overexertion is the imbalance of energy in a particular direction - whether too much or too little.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
last night I penned our first poem
it was in thoughts after my laptop died
and I'd resigned to turning in my mind
there was no ink
it was fleeting hazy thoughts
inspirations becoming dreams
that composed our first poem
it was wonderful metaphors
and peaceful imagery
I was not scheming to construct
an instrument for ensnaring you
I was only celebrating:
tiny party balloons
which floated me to sleep
it was in thoughts after my laptop died
and I'd resigned to turning in my mind
there was no ink
it was fleeting hazy thoughts
inspirations becoming dreams
that composed our first poem
it was wonderful metaphors
and peaceful imagery
I was not scheming to construct
an instrument for ensnaring you
I was only celebrating:
tiny party balloons
which floated me to sleep
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
essays on love, part 3
Giving trust to someone you wish to receive it from should not be so difficult. There is a difference between knowing how you feel about someone and living that emotion. I remember the Saturday afternoons I spent in tense anticipation of having dinner with her. I remember the build up to Friday evenings and the let down when she would pause, kiss me quick, and turn out the door without a hint of looking back. I remember the text message admission that she didn't want "any of this" or to see "anyone right now". What sort of foundation is that for honesty?
When I ran into her a month after breaking up, I was overcome with a realization that I missed her. Her response when I told her was that she didn't know what to do with me, but she really didn't know what to do with herself. I had stood in calm appreciation of the beauty of her face, unable to express however I was thinking. Her dark hair and glasses were prettier than I could've painted, given a brush and the talent to do so. And she was mine, though looking back it's more of a fisherman's tale than a believable reality. Our courtship was a challenge, trying to crack the shell of her defensive, distant attitude. It took me too long to ask, 'what could I stand for?'
She texted me about a month ago, saying that "(she) was an idiot for pushing (me) away." She had not realized our issue was her refusal to open herself up. I turned to the girl I was sitting next to and read her the text. I was not afraid to say, "I don't want her back." When the two of them met recently, I knew a happiness in standing next to someone that she never provided me. When she asked me how I was doing, I absolutely froze. There was no way I knew how to convey to her how great my life had been since I began forgetting her.
When I ran into her a month after breaking up, I was overcome with a realization that I missed her. Her response when I told her was that she didn't know what to do with me, but she really didn't know what to do with herself. I had stood in calm appreciation of the beauty of her face, unable to express however I was thinking. Her dark hair and glasses were prettier than I could've painted, given a brush and the talent to do so. And she was mine, though looking back it's more of a fisherman's tale than a believable reality. Our courtship was a challenge, trying to crack the shell of her defensive, distant attitude. It took me too long to ask, 'what could I stand for?'
She texted me about a month ago, saying that "(she) was an idiot for pushing (me) away." She had not realized our issue was her refusal to open herself up. I turned to the girl I was sitting next to and read her the text. I was not afraid to say, "I don't want her back." When the two of them met recently, I knew a happiness in standing next to someone that she never provided me. When she asked me how I was doing, I absolutely froze. There was no way I knew how to convey to her how great my life had been since I began forgetting her.
Monday, July 11, 2011
essays on love, part 4
It was somewhere between 7:00AM and 2:00PM and I was lying in the bed of a girl I had met the week before.
Simultaneously exhausted and unable to sleep right away, I kept adjusting myself on her mattress in an attempt to get comfortable. I am completely unsure of how much I slept in that span of time. I would feel like I had dozed off for only five minutes before waking back up and tossing and turning for another twenty. Somewhere in that fog of half-sleep I had an incredibly clear vision. It came with a focus and lucidity that punctured the hazy bliss of the past twelve hours. The vision was of my ex-girlfriend. The one I spent every hour of eight months trying to convince that we should get back together. The one every good friend of mine fought their impulses to tell me was no good and a waste of time. The one who couldn't understand why I liked her so much. The one that was a tumor on my brain, a static infatuation and a hopeless grasp for sanity.
The image I had of her was sly. She was standing in front of a dark grey, nondescript brick wall. Her posture conveyed an untrustworthiness that I could feel. What I remember above all else were the details of her face. She was ugly. Ugly in a way that I never noticed, but had to (just had to) have been there all along. Her smile was stained and black with a permanent chasm in her lip where a cigarette would usually sit. Her hair was frayed and pulled back, giving her face a taut, sinister look. Her height had always attracted me, the way it rose so close yet stayed under my gaze, but in that moment I saw her demeanor as cold and repelling. She looked a foreigner; a vagabond in the palace of a king; she knew she didn't belong. In that moment she freed herself from my heart, as she had been dreaming to do. This, now, was my dream.
Simultaneously exhausted and unable to sleep right away, I kept adjusting myself on her mattress in an attempt to get comfortable. I am completely unsure of how much I slept in that span of time. I would feel like I had dozed off for only five minutes before waking back up and tossing and turning for another twenty. Somewhere in that fog of half-sleep I had an incredibly clear vision. It came with a focus and lucidity that punctured the hazy bliss of the past twelve hours. The vision was of my ex-girlfriend. The one I spent every hour of eight months trying to convince that we should get back together. The one every good friend of mine fought their impulses to tell me was no good and a waste of time. The one who couldn't understand why I liked her so much. The one that was a tumor on my brain, a static infatuation and a hopeless grasp for sanity.
The image I had of her was sly. She was standing in front of a dark grey, nondescript brick wall. Her posture conveyed an untrustworthiness that I could feel. What I remember above all else were the details of her face. She was ugly. Ugly in a way that I never noticed, but had to (just had to) have been there all along. Her smile was stained and black with a permanent chasm in her lip where a cigarette would usually sit. Her hair was frayed and pulled back, giving her face a taut, sinister look. Her height had always attracted me, the way it rose so close yet stayed under my gaze, but in that moment I saw her demeanor as cold and repelling. She looked a foreigner; a vagabond in the palace of a king; she knew she didn't belong. In that moment she freed herself from my heart, as she had been dreaming to do. This, now, was my dream.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Milan Kundera quotes, part 1
"I beg you, friend, be happy. I have the vague sense that on your capacity to be happy hangs our only hope."
from the novel Slowness.
from the novel Slowness.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
essays on love, part 2
We were both very tired. In between the heavy blinks and yawns I felt that we'd been together several years, sharing this apartment, cat and that one framed poster she had on her wall. It was closer to living with someone than I could've imagined possible in the six hours we'd spent alone. Our bodies would have sighed under sheets together, and her whispered 'goodnight' would have sent me rolling over the edge into blissful slumber. I felt at ease, in a new, exciting way. That part of me that has no concept of sustainability just wanted to sit on that couch and watch TV forever.
Instead we realized how late it was around 2:00. While I fumbled with my shoes for as long as possible she moved herself to stand in front of me. We kissed that first date kiss that bursts with a range of emotions: shyness, aggression, confidence, gratitude and melancholy. We walked to the door and the faraway, ethereal world I had misplaced where I lived without her 99% of the time. It felt like fear of being alone that turned us to each other one more time. A deep kiss and a sincere hug that had me believing after I'd left that some of me was still in her arms. As I drove home in a state of transient elation, I dreamed of possible futures to come where I would be welcomed into her world again.
Instead we realized how late it was around 2:00. While I fumbled with my shoes for as long as possible she moved herself to stand in front of me. We kissed that first date kiss that bursts with a range of emotions: shyness, aggression, confidence, gratitude and melancholy. We walked to the door and the faraway, ethereal world I had misplaced where I lived without her 99% of the time. It felt like fear of being alone that turned us to each other one more time. A deep kiss and a sincere hug that had me believing after I'd left that some of me was still in her arms. As I drove home in a state of transient elation, I dreamed of possible futures to come where I would be welcomed into her world again.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
essays on love, part 1
We had planned a pink and brown wedding. We certainly planned a lot of things, and I swear that I never just blindingly nodded my head to her dreams. They were my dreams too. I can safely say that the hardest thing I've ever done was break up with her. Insert joke about it being better to have "loved and lost". Insert heartfelt, nauseatingly optimistic assertion that "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger". Now cross them out and try looking your mistakes in the face. Embrace them, thank them, and love them in the way you never loved your ex-girlfriend. While you still have that love inside you it's obvious that no one has received it.
Where we started is fantastically familiar territory for me, now. The weeks after our first kiss were a barren tundra of unrequited love, begging me with empty promises of satisfaction from strife-ridden devotion. But alas! She was not so scared of my total abandonment of reason. She too believed in song lyrics and christmas decorations. She believed my blind optimism that yes, indeed, love could conquer all. Love could even conquer my own doubts. And let me tell you, dear reader: it can.
From there we spent several blissful years attached to each other's hip. Together we learned a great deal about growing up. Renting an apartment, buying groceries, playing bills, abandoning our friends; sacrificing so many things that we wanted in favor of what the other wanted. We breathed in compromise, unaware of an alternative. Hand in hand we stepped ourselves into the recently discovered shoes of adulthood. We lived together, in so many senses of the word that I felt more at peace when I was with her than when I was alone. We practically became halves of one whole, scarcely able to function independently.
And then we found them: the careers we'd been searching for. So much of our time that was once occupied by whatever jobs we could find in order to make the month's rent was now occupied by the opportunity of a promising future. Career paths. Attractive coworkers. That strange look on someone's face when you mentioned your fiancee and the naggingly suspicious tone when they asked, "how old are you again?"
While the "straw" of a crush which broke the camel's back was exactly the one which I pursued not days after our tear-streaked, tumultuous break-up, there was more to my change of feelings than a pretty face. For the first time since before we'd met, I realized the potential to shape my own future, free from anyone's controlling hand. I started to see just how big the world was. An inkling of life's possibilities was inside me and I could only stare our commitment in the eyes for so long until turning away.
And so I turned. In an admission of failure rife with any underlying embracement of finding inner peace, I emerged from the cocoon of our engagement as a fully formed individual. I didn't need 'us' anymore. Finding love from then on would never be about finding a 'half' to pair perfectly with my own. The concept of yin and yang does not involve two complementary fractions. The happiness of love has nothing to do with submission, complication or pride. You'll know it when you get it but you'll know it even more when you give it.
Where we started is fantastically familiar territory for me, now. The weeks after our first kiss were a barren tundra of unrequited love, begging me with empty promises of satisfaction from strife-ridden devotion. But alas! She was not so scared of my total abandonment of reason. She too believed in song lyrics and christmas decorations. She believed my blind optimism that yes, indeed, love could conquer all. Love could even conquer my own doubts. And let me tell you, dear reader: it can.
From there we spent several blissful years attached to each other's hip. Together we learned a great deal about growing up. Renting an apartment, buying groceries, playing bills, abandoning our friends; sacrificing so many things that we wanted in favor of what the other wanted. We breathed in compromise, unaware of an alternative. Hand in hand we stepped ourselves into the recently discovered shoes of adulthood. We lived together, in so many senses of the word that I felt more at peace when I was with her than when I was alone. We practically became halves of one whole, scarcely able to function independently.
And then we found them: the careers we'd been searching for. So much of our time that was once occupied by whatever jobs we could find in order to make the month's rent was now occupied by the opportunity of a promising future. Career paths. Attractive coworkers. That strange look on someone's face when you mentioned your fiancee and the naggingly suspicious tone when they asked, "how old are you again?"
While the "straw" of a crush which broke the camel's back was exactly the one which I pursued not days after our tear-streaked, tumultuous break-up, there was more to my change of feelings than a pretty face. For the first time since before we'd met, I realized the potential to shape my own future, free from anyone's controlling hand. I started to see just how big the world was. An inkling of life's possibilities was inside me and I could only stare our commitment in the eyes for so long until turning away.
And so I turned. In an admission of failure rife with any underlying embracement of finding inner peace, I emerged from the cocoon of our engagement as a fully formed individual. I didn't need 'us' anymore. Finding love from then on would never be about finding a 'half' to pair perfectly with my own. The concept of yin and yang does not involve two complementary fractions. The happiness of love has nothing to do with submission, complication or pride. You'll know it when you get it but you'll know it even more when you give it.
Monday, March 14, 2011
dry heat
If I had a dial for my senses, right now I would turn them down.
The same biting sensations are returning, eliciting a tired weight at the back of my eyes. Under my skin burns a numb fire of fatigue, and while it begs to be stoked it won't simply run its course. The blind constant want to solve my own discomfort, when release just might really be the answer. But closing my eyes to the world would only subdue for a while the blaze behind my frustration. The knowledge that this is not right. This is not working. I am only looking up at the better before me that knows I've got it in my sights. No sense in stopping now, but it's not a heavy-handed trying: it's a weightless submission to the future that lets me fall softly into it. But the fire inside me won't let me rest. It won't stop my mind from tripping over its own thoughts. The ache is ever present and sometimes I'm not sure how to make it stop. And if I had a dial for my senses, right now I would turn them down.
The same biting sensations are returning, eliciting a tired weight at the back of my eyes. Under my skin burns a numb fire of fatigue, and while it begs to be stoked it won't simply run its course. The blind constant want to solve my own discomfort, when release just might really be the answer. But closing my eyes to the world would only subdue for a while the blaze behind my frustration. The knowledge that this is not right. This is not working. I am only looking up at the better before me that knows I've got it in my sights. No sense in stopping now, but it's not a heavy-handed trying: it's a weightless submission to the future that lets me fall softly into it. But the fire inside me won't let me rest. It won't stop my mind from tripping over its own thoughts. The ache is ever present and sometimes I'm not sure how to make it stop. And if I had a dial for my senses, right now I would turn them down.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
"Walden" quotes, part 1
"To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust."
Thursday, February 24, 2011
pensive
I really like the word "pensive", and think of it as a state of being I'd like to achieve. I also apply to it my own, expounded-upon, definition outside of being deep in thought. I add an element of patient excitement that makes me think that's simply how I view life. Every moment I have a sort of wondrous longing for what's coming next. Sometimes that leads to an impatient anxiousness, and the tightrope between paranoid and calm is one that I am always walking from one moment to the next. If this balance is to be the struggle of my life, than perhaps redefining such an enchanting word as "pensive" is the key to my happiness.
When a simple phone call could set in motion a series of events which would bring about an answer to the question I've been posing myself - not necessarily an answer to what I need - the momentary supersedes the long-term. The grounded awareness of strict and unadulterated desire stakes its claim over the impulses of action. My hindsight has developed twenty-four years of looking back all for the benefit of looking ahead to something that will eventually become a rearview thought; a page in my chapters of growing which humbly accept they're nowhere near the end, yet always the most important. My tomorrows ask of themselves not to be worried over. They tell me, "you have more to do today, we'll have our fun when you are ready." To that, I pensively embrace what's in front of me.
When a simple phone call could set in motion a series of events which would bring about an answer to the question I've been posing myself - not necessarily an answer to what I need - the momentary supersedes the long-term. The grounded awareness of strict and unadulterated desire stakes its claim over the impulses of action. My hindsight has developed twenty-four years of looking back all for the benefit of looking ahead to something that will eventually become a rearview thought; a page in my chapters of growing which humbly accept they're nowhere near the end, yet always the most important. My tomorrows ask of themselves not to be worried over. They tell me, "you have more to do today, we'll have our fun when you are ready." To that, I pensively embrace what's in front of me.
Monday, February 21, 2011
reactions
I can't really think of anything wrong with being a reactionary. Some people might imagine it as a disregard for consequences or an ignorance of cause and effect and deem it a dangerous practice. But those are mindsets separate from allowing yourself a little less restriction from the blunt honesty of your thoughts. I know she wasn't faking the look on her face before I caught her off guard; standing at the back of the balcony, barely in sight of the stage. Less than two days prior she had voiced disconcertion over seeing a band she had never heard before. Yet, here she was displaying the kind of genuine smile and unabashed happiness that I could only react to by being practically speechless.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
potentional
I'm gonna write about her. I'm gonna do it. There will be quite a lot of blogger.com saved drafts and Moleskine notebook pages of scribbled prose. And yet I'm so cautious about doing it. Like, almost afraid - which I should be, considering the pain I have experienced. Still, it doesn't always feel like defense as much as a steadfast patience. That is something new, and in its own way exciting. The eve is always better than the day, I think. The potential of love's lightness intrigues me more now, and "meeting her in the middle" is a thousand times more fair that the "fair" I've settled for. But I am not writing about her beauty now. I am not expounding for pages on the curls of her smile and soft response of her skin. This is me predicting those pages. This is something we call "potential".
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
