He was there and then he wasn’t. Or maybe he was always there, and I just didn’t see him.
But then he went way so fast. He didn’t even say goodbye. He didn’t ask for my consent. Now he is just a whisper.
I am in denial. I am in shock. I never thought it could come to this.
Where there is love, it isn’t always enough. But when there is respect, honesty, trust, friendship, loyalty as well as love, then it should be OK. I want it to be OK. I guess it isn’t. It can’t always be. There are no assurances in life. No assurances in love.
I am sick. It feels like a disease is ravaging my body. It hurts so much that my mind won’t let it come all the way to the surface. I can’t feel it all now. I don’t want to. I can’t handle it. It’s too much.
I see what he sees. I need him to see what I see as well. But he cannot or will not. I don’t know which and I don’t know why.
Is there really anything new to say? Is it really anything surprising? Once I had room, I could think. Once I wasn’t seeing him, I could see him. And the clarity with which I saw was like a magnifying glass. But what I saw was devastating. I knew it was there. I knew it all along, but I found reasons for it. I found explanations. They still hold true. They were not lies to cover up the truth, but they were lies for me to stay. I minimized. I reasoned. I understood. I put myself to the side. I did it to avoid pain.
I had seen it from the beginning, as clear as day. As though I was looking into a crystal ball. And yet he convinced me otherwise. He convinced me to let my fears go and to jump in with both feet. He distracted me. He knew what I needed to hear. He was selfish in his pursuit of me, but I thought that would end. I had no idea how selfish he could be. But I do now.
Yet I know that he is not truly selfish. It’s a defense mechanism. It is self preservation for him. It is a way to keep himself safe from emotional pain. It is a way to avoid being hurt. He is so sensitive; he is so protective of his heart. But look at me, I am doing it again.
Is it love? Is it need? Is it want? Is it fear? Is it freedom? Is it safety?
Maybe it is all these things. And maybe that is OK. But maybe it isn’t. Maybe as long as we are aware of our motivations, it’s OK. Maybe as long as we know what is really going on, what our motivations are, and what we want or think we want, it’s just being human. And there is nothing wrong with being human. Being imperfect, being scared, being grounded and being crazy. Being neurotic and being level headed. Being rational and being irrational. Being aware and being blind. These are all the machinations of being human. Humanness.
I want to try to give it a color, a sound, a smell. Anything tangible. I see white. It’s wide open, never ending. Stark whiteness. Right now, as that comes into my field of mental vision, it feels comfortable. It feels exciting, but it feels scary and alone. Yet it gives the feeling of endless possibility. Is that possibility for me? For us? For both?
He sees white vastness as death. What irony.
I wrote to you to compliment you on your blog. I do not read many blogs so my opinion may be somewhat ignorant as to what constitutes an exceptional blog. I do, however, read a great deal. I also write when I can and at various points in my life have made my living as a freelance writer/editor/editorial director (in the very dry subject area of technology). My personal writing isn’t focused on technology.
ReplyDeleteI found your blog striking. It caught my attention and held it. I was just skimming around Wesley’s blog for fun and was in the same mode when I stumbled upon yours. In other words, I wasn’t reading with a critical or editorial eye. I do not know if there are grammatical errors or typos… I don’t believe there are. I do not know the stories behind and the connections between or among your pieces. What I do know with relative certainty is that your writing has a voice. I do not refer here to active, passive, indicative & locative from first year Latin.
Think instead of any significant character in any excellent writing (prose, primarily) you’ve ever read… e.g., Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye, the protagonist in the Great Gatzby or Love in the Time of Cholera or Bel Canto or the little redheaded child in Capote’s short story, Children on their Birthdays… etc., etc. All of these characters come to us through the written word. But we don’t not really read them… or at least, it doesn’t feel that we’re reading them. Instead, we hear them… we listen to them… they seem to speak to us and to us directly in the small intervals when they have our attention. We hear and listen because these particular characters or the writings that incarnates them has a voice. And this voice in interesting, eloquent, engaging, etc. It is clear and accessible and somehow (like the eyes in certain paintings in the museum) seems to be focused squarely on “you” (the reader). I do not fully understand what makes some written words readable and makes other words actually “speak”. Nor do I know precisely how one can write in such a way that any reader -- even an unknown, accidental, anonymous one – half believes that not only do these words speak… they speak directly and perhaps exclusively to me.
I do not grasp all the mechanisms that make these things possible, but I don’t need to in order to hear the voice in your writing. Like lightening, it (your voice) is there and strikingly so, even if I do not understand how and/or why.
On a tangentially related topic… the voice in your writing is not necessarily you. Like one’s child, it is “of you” rather than “you”; it comes through you but does not encapsulate you. I do not presume that I know anything… anything at all of you… simply because I hear the voice that you interject into your writing. But I think it would be interesting, perhaps fun, maybe valuable to learn what the person behind the voice thinks, what moves her and how and why, her response when moved etc. I wonder if you might like to exchange a few letters with me. You pick a topic, thought, or feeling at random and write to me about it. I will respond to your writing in kind. After an exchange or two, a synergy, interplay or dialogue may evolve, which would interest me.