Category: love

Yesterday, I was struck with the realization that at some point I began to apologize for myself. It’s not that I wasn’t happy with who I was, but that I became afraid, I think, of what other people would think of me. It’s strange to have these realizations about yourself, that you might have been doing this for so long and not even been aware of it. I think that my tendancy is to try and adapt to situations, and I don’t always know if that is the best course of action. And perhaps there are situations where it is almost never the correct course of action. I’m speaking of relationships.

I’m fairly sure, and I say this without any blame, that I really started this practice in earnest during my relationship with Emily. I’m equally sure that I had this tendancy long beforehand, pretty much as far back as I’ve been dating. And it sucks. The truth is, nobody is going to like everything about me. I’m a heap of jumbled wires, a mass of contradictions, a logician and a dreamer rolled in nori and rice with a large dose of wasabi. The thing is, that’s fine. Without sounding arrogant, I like me. And that’s more important to me than if you like me, or anyone else likes me, or anyone at all likes me, honestly.

I don’t remember becoming so concerned about popular opinion. I’m unsure when it happened. I suspect it rolled out of a sense of self-consciousness brought about by home-schooling and a constant feeling of being different. And not really different in a “you’re unique, a beautiful flower with its own, joyous blossom”. More like a “well you’re a weird one, aincha?” sort of unique. I guess the weird part is that I was never very conscious of it. How the heck did that happen?

The goal, now, is to embrace my multitudes, I suppose. I’m a gamer-geek. I do, really, like to play video games. Sometimes for hours, and even days, on end. I’m a grammar nerd, and I’ll hesitiate for long minutes over a comma; sometimes I’ll haphazardly throw in a semicolon for the sheer sense of danger it gives me. I’m a cinephile and a romantic; a caustic cynic who is endlessly acerbic to his friends and who would do anything for them without them even having to ask. I will never ask for reciprocation. The thing is in the doing. I will not ask for permission to be myself, or hesitate away from my own honest opinion. Emile Zola said, “I am here to live out loud.” And I am. I don’t like television, and I don’t like ignorant people. Still, I’m endlessly forgiving, and I don’t think I’ll give that up. I have a gaggle of interests, and you don’t have to like all of them. They aren’t all very exciting. Vocally, I don’t always tell stories very well. That bit I’m working on. I’m listening to comedy so I can learn how to tell a joke, and I think it’s working. I will work each day to become something new. Something better. Life is just a process of clearing away all the clutter and grime we attach to ourselves, to rediscover that shiny core underneath.

I have my faults, too, but I’ll take them. Who knows, maybe one day, I’ll find someone else who can take them too.

Keep in mind how fast things pass by and are gone — those that are now, and those to come.

I horde things. I pack them away in boxes, store them in attics, hide them under beds, and treasure them in my heart. I’m an afficianado of personal memorabilia. I must have the best, for only the best will do. Among the treasures most valuable to me are the many letters I have kept over the years: postcards, holiday greetings, announcements, letters of love, and letters of brokenheartedness. Being that we now live in a digital age, on top of my collection of letters, I’ve horded away a much larger collection of emails. Since Hotmail archiving sucks, and used to suck much more, and it’s the email client that I used, this unfortunately only goes back to around June of 2001. Even so, I printed out most of the important emails from before that, and put them with the letters.

Every once in awhile, and fairly often when I’m feeling introspective, I’ll shuffle through these artifacts and try to repiece the memories of past loves, triumphs, and failures. I have every written correspondence between Margaret and I (the printed emails) from India to France. I have Prairie’s letters of the Summer of 1995, from Colville to Port Townsend. Perhaps most poignant of all, I have the letters that Amanda Stevenson wrote me as she was bouncing around the country looking at colleges. She wrote letters that were works of art, and if I were to publish an autobiography I would include them solely on the merit of literary perfection. Her last letter, hurt and angry and confused (and rightly so, unfortunately), contained a sticker sheet of gold stars (“for my achievements”) and a condemnation so pure and powerful that it actually changed my life. Almost exactly six years later, and I still feel my stomach churn when I think of how I acted then. I’m slightly comforted in the fact that though I absolutely acted stupidly, I never acted maliciously.

Existence flows past us like a river: the “what” is in constant flux, the “why” has a thousand variations.

Sometimes I pore over the emails between Emily and I, trying to find the crisis point; trying to recreate an entire relationship through the brief thoughts we would send each other day after day. I don’t do this with regret, though nor can I claim that I examine them with any sort of detatched intellectual curiosity. All of it, in the end, is in the hope of personal salvation; the idea that if I put my failures under the microscope, I will be able to see how they came to be, avoid the same mistakes in the future. And even here while I call these moments “failures”, like some mad scientist trying to create life, the word feels false. Perhaps they weren’t my best moments, and they certainly aren’t my happiest memories, but who is to say that the end of a relationship might not be a triumph? Certainly, leaving Ohio was one of the best things I ever did, which isn’t to say that moving there was bad, but that enough was enough. I don’t know if I could have lasted another year there, sane.

Nothing is stable, not even what’s right here. The infinity of past and future gapes before us — a chasm whose depths we cannot see.

The past is a blur filled with brief moments of stark clarity: that night by the river with Prairie and Cree; waterfights in the summer in front of Jamie’s grandparent’s house; Monday, 1st period, getting pulled out of Biology class by Sara completely unaware that the world was about to give me the first of many lessons in “fuck you”; sitting on Kas’s roof singing “semi-charmed life”, and the walk that followed; the night, too nervous to sit, when Amanda and I listened to bull frogs and counted shooting stars; all of the various dances Margaret and I went to, and many of the nights of tears that I tried so hard to understand; the day Emily drove away in the back seat of a rented car; our early, failed games of chess, and the day I drove away and felt more liberated than bereaved. Perhaps, as a whole, I’ll never understand my past. I’d settle for understanding those few moments that seemed so lucid that they couldn’t have happened any other way. I’d settle for really, truly understanding any one of them. And it’s terrifying and exciting to think of a future as full of these moments as the last ten years have been. Will time slow down as the years go by? Will those clear moments of the past fade away as the new ones occur less and less frequently, until finally I look back on my life and see only a blur of faces and events, none distinct from the others?

So it would take an idiot to feel self-importance or distress Or any indignation, either. As if the things that irritate us lasted.

Honestly, I don’t worry much about the future. I tend to think a lot about the past, though, trying to find answers and insights into who I am. The problem with looking into myself in this way is that I don’t know if I looking at who I am or who I was, or where the two might merge. Every once in awhile, though, these musings lead to a cathartic sort of revelation, sometimes loud and sometimes subtle, that takes a strange weight off my mind, and for a moment makes my heart feel whole. And for these moments, it’s all worth it. Because the things that irritate us don’t last, but those few, clear glimpses of beauty in this world, those last forever.

Keep in mind how fast things pass by and are gone — those that are now, and those to come. Existence flows past us like a river: the “what” is in constant flux, the “why” has a thousand variations. Nothing is stable, not even what’s right here. The infinity of past and future gapes before us — a chasm whose depths we cannot see.

So it would take an idiot to feel self-importance or distress or any indignation, either. As if the things that irritate us lasted.

-Marcus Aurelius

And ‘lo there was a great smoting, and those quiet moments between words were banished, and the cup of conversation runneth’d over, and there was a great rejoicing.

Sometimes you just can’t do events justice with words. Letters glued together like matchsticks trying to build the strongest bridge, but that annoying kid who eats lunch with you sat on it, and it was never meant to withstand that sort of “earthquake”. Poor, poor matchstick bridge …

My analogies keep running way the hell away from me. We’ll simply call them expeditious and leave it at that.

The short of it is that I met a girl. Those of you who are vigilant would have noticed two posts, that lasted just a day or so, and were then deleted, expressing my enthusiasm about said girl. They were deleted because, when the pot comes to boil, some things are still private, and even if I don’t care that strangers know my most intimate moments and/or embarrassing analogies, it’s not my place to share everything that involves other people. Besides, sometimes you just have to play your cards close to home. This blog is, after all, ridiculously easy to find.

So it was one of those conundrums. And I panicked. These things happen.

So I met a girl, and I was completely flabbergasted. As a friend has told me since (and I would tend to agree, now), my being completely flummoxed about this girl said a lot more about where I was then it really did about her. But you can’t tell these sorts of things to a madman. We went on a date, I bought her dinner, I was smitten instantly. We talked about France, and film, and school and friends and London and travel and language … oh the things we said! The conversation was good, to put it simply. The next day I sent her flowers, and then I didn’t hear from her for a couple days, and got dreadfully anxious. When I happened to run into her at a restaurant downtown, it all seemed so serendipitous that it HAD TO BE FATE! Seriously, my brain was all gunked up with romance. Stupid thing.

A few nights ago, as I was walking around my neighborhood, admiring the stars, she called me and we had a nice conversation. It was nice until the “I can only offer you my friendship” part, and then it was kind of not-nice. But it did help get my head screwed back on straight, and it really didn’t hit me as hard as I was setting myself up for. Thank goodness for skeptical friends who are completely willing to balk at your inexplicable enthusiasm and give you sketchy glances when you’re being foolish. I pay heed to these things, anymore.

So the “f” word was dropped, not so much like an atom bomb as like a … I dunno, water balloon. I was disappointed, sure, but I don’t have anything if not perspective, and I’m a resilient son-of-a-gun, anyhow.

Besides, y’all wouldn’t love me if I weren’t unpredictable and spazzy. The longer people know me the less surprised they get when I do completely off-the-wall things, without explanation or warning. And usually so mild-mannered and level-headed … but that’s what makes life snazzy!

So last night I met the girl of my dreams …

it’s a pity I was only dreaming.

It was incredibly vivid, and I woke up really disappointed that it hadn’t really happened. For what it’s worth, if you see her around, she was: tall, about 5’8″, I’d guess, with a medium/fit build, and shoulder-length medium-brown hair worn back in two braids. She had a kind face and a mischievous smile.

I’m such a sap sometimes.

——

In completely unrelated, and more disturbing news, I’m concerned about the number of people who have been finding this blog with various searches for Second Life “furry avatars”. Seriously though … ick.

Alternately, I wonder how long it will take someone to start making movies using either “Second Life” or “There.com”. With the amount of freedom these programs offer in both character creation and movement, it’s only a matter of time …

My ring broke.

In the same fashion as all the previous ones have, with a perfectly horizontal crack, like a fault-line in a once infinite loop.

I don’t wear a lot of jewelery. At one point in 1999 I had two rings and a bracelet, all silver. I gave the smaller ring away, which I had worn on my left pinky, to a girl I had just met. I didn’t have any romantic intentions at the time, it just felt like she should have it. Just before I went to France I gave the bracelet to my girlfriend at the time, that she would have something to remind her of me. That she broke up with me while I was in France (and she in India), means either it didn’t work, or it worked all too well.

Since then, I’ve constantly had one ring on the ring finger of my right hand. Stupid people ask me constantly if I’m married. Wrong hand. Okay, some of them weren’t stupid, they were Japanese. I have no idea what, if any, customs they have surrounding rings and marriage, and don’t expect them to know ours. But other people have asked, and they were, in fact, dumb.

Now that we’ve cleared that up.

Rings have always had a lot of symbolism for me. They’re both small and go on forever. By themselves, they’re empty. Worn, they’re a part of you. I’ve always thought that silver, too, was a very neat metal. So yes, they’re very symbolic, and when they break, it usually portents change. Usually, I suspect it implies a breaking free of residual attachments that are holding me back. This, in turn, implies a heightened ability and chance to move on to something new and good. Sometimes, it means I’d better shape up and change some of my bad habits, because even things which seemed to go on forever can all of a sudden have an abrupt end. Once that crack is there, you can still hold the ring together for awhile, but you can never really get rid of it. I used to wear cracked rings until they completely broke in two. Now I’m much more ready to let go of them when they say it’s time. Holding on until the bitter end has never really done anyone much good.

Who knows, maybe I attach way too much meaning to a piece of metal. But I think they’re cool, and it never hurts to have a little impetus to create some revolution. Besides, my necklace broke pretty recently as well, so it’s obviously like, a sign from the heavens or something. Yes, that’s right. God broke my ring.

*FREEDOMCOSTSABUCK-O-FIVE*

On being freshly single, meditations:

The first week, nearly every member of the opposite sex appears physically unattractive. Those that are physicially good-looking are obviously either very shallow, completely vacuous, or outrageously mean-spirited. The newly single despairs over ever again meeting someone who contains that perfect mix of inner and outer beauty that their recent ex somehow maintained.

The second week, nearly every member of the opposite sex seems to be a sex god(dess). Those not physically attractive obviously radiate an inner beauty, have perfect smiles, nice laughs, and save puppies from burning buildings. The universe seems to be mocking the newly single, who believes themselves unworthy of any of these avatars of sex and goodness. The newly single despairs that they will never again be desired as they have been desired, for the past was but a fluke which will surely never reoccur.

The third week, I suspect, involves drinking, swearing, and a general attitude of waving the middle finger at the dating scene and the opposite sex. This loud display will fool no-one, particularly not the newly single, who needs another shot of tequila.

—-

And that’s about as far as I’ve thought that through, so far. If you’d like to buy me a drink in week 3, I’ll take a rum and coke. Stroh 80 if you’ve got it, light on the coke.

Had a sparkling conversation with Margaret last night, for an hour and a half. The first time we’ve spoken since 2000 or so, though our paths may have crossed once or twice in 2001. Nothing was the same between us after the break-up. For some reason, I was seriously hung-up on her in a major way. I was a different lad, then. Thinking back on it, that fact is obvious, and I’m glad for it. Now, years later, we enjoyed an amusing conversation about the past, present, and future; about dancing, music, movies, Montreal, grad school and careers. And relationships, of course. From the sound of it, after a literal slew of short relationships, she’s settled down quite a bit. Conversely, in my case, one long and serious relationship, and now single and swinging (well, swing-dancing anyway). It was nice to connect again, even briefly over a phone. Time really does heal all wounds, and bridges never really burn.

Last night, my version of courage: “Here’s my number. Give me a call if you want to hang out, anytime.” No exactly a, “So can I get your number so I can call you for hot monkey love?” But, you know, baby steps, baby steps.