A Conversation:
"What do you think of me?" I asked.
L. finished the song she was playing, stopped a while, then said, "I think you're very assertive, and stubborn... quite like an alpha".
"Really? I don't think of myself as an alpha... not at all actually"
"I know you don't... it's not in a bad way"
"Definitive mark of sam: always changing, because he can't remember," J. said as he dried the dishes and turned off the tap, "everytime I meet you you're different".
"Seriously?"
"Yeah, you said that to me the last time we met," he replied, "I can't remember things, so i'm always changing, because I'm always thinking about what's new and different"
"huh. I don't actually remember saying that," I said.
"it sounds like something I would say though"
A Story:
I've been meaning to leave this place for good, for some time now. Not for any reason in particular: I just don't like the idea of emo blogging, or dwelling on things unproductively.
I had a hard time for two reasons. The first is that deep inside I am actually a rat. A pack rat, who pathologically hates to let go of anything simply because in my mind, letting go is final -- you can never be certain that anything will ever come back. I don't really like things that are final. The second was that I didn't want to lose myself. Because I've always felt that somehow, who we are is anchored in what we do.. and not just parts of what we do, but EVERYTHING we do. Every tiny thing. Because once you turn your back on part of your life, you move on and you change, but you leave that part behind, and that makes you a whole person, but somehow less than before.
It's silly I guess. I just... didn't know how to walk away from here without leaving some of me behind -- the parts that were hurt, or angry, or vicious -- and I didn't want to turn my back on them. Like I said. Silly.
Then one day I woke up and I just said it, in an email, all the things that I should have said. And she was decent enough to call me back. And we talked, and it was a bit emotional at times, and a bit sad at the end... but the details are meaningless here. (To be honest, it was after a long day and I was completely exhausted, and I don't remember many of them anyway)
And then, all of a sudden, I realized that I had already left.
I think that we can perceive the world in binary. Any choice, or state of being, or perception can ultimately be reduced to a simple two-option model: "yes, or no" "i am, or i am not".
Of course, this often requires qualifiers, and specifically defined conditions under which the particular binary holds -- but confusion about these are what make the world "gray". And as we grow older, perhaps what makes the world grayer and less clearly defined is our increased capacity to see different options and different ways to draw dividing lines between things.
"We were so young then," D. said to me. For a long time, I took offense at that. To me it always seemed a way to write off our past, or reminded me that she had left and I was still unable to. But we were young, and my world was much blacker then.
This is my binary now: it is not a choice between the past or the present, nor is it a choice between love and hate, nor a choice between caring and apathy, nor a choice between holding on and letting go, nor a choice about who was right. None of that matters. It is simply a choice between two states of being.
"You have so many wonderful friends," she said. And the truth is, I do. There is a world filled with wonderful people, and new experiences, and strange and delightful things... and I want to go exploring.
"You know it's never too late," A. said to me as we trudged down the snow-covered walk, bundled against the cold. I was telling her why I'd been up late and thus half-asleep in class the next morning. But we didn't get very far that day -- "this sounds like the kind of story best told indoors, with a large bottle of vodka," she said. And that was the end of it.
A quote:
may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old
may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it's sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young
and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there's never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile
-- e.e. cummings
*I'm in the process of finding a new home online. Will post once I do.
