Patchwork Quilt

You cry.  That's how you do it.  That's the only way.  You sit there and you feel your intestines twisting in upon themselves and the physical pain overcomes the emotions as you sit there in a ball and fall apart.  You let yourself be torn to shreds.  Because once that happens, you can be stitched back together, made whole, patched up with scar tissue.  And over time, it doesn't hurt as much anymore.  The stabbing pain is a mere pinch, if you feel it at all.  And then it all gets better.

I'm not writing this for you.  In a way, I'm writing it about you, because you've never been on the other side of this particular fence.  So I don't think you really understand the guilt in asking.  And I don't think it's possible to just get over it and say something, or not easily, certainly.  I need to put this down because it has to be written, not because it has to be read.

It's not a situation that you can change.  Do you remember that night when you needed her to say something first?  That's what this is.  It's another piece of that same puzzle.  It's needing to not ask for it, because asking is doing it wrong.  Asking is breaking the rules.  Asking is cheating and cheap and incorrect.  That's why this is a horrible game.  Because it isn't fair.  Because all of these rules are set by you and you pay the cost that you yourself established.  Maybe it takes a twisted mind.  And maybe this isn't how it actually goes, but that's precisely how it falls out sometimes.

I never really found the fix.  I just stopped feeling it.  Because after a while, you just can't feel it.  You've been torn and broken so many times that nothing else can get through.  The scar tissue is so thick that there are no nerve endings remaining.  I'm in no place to give advice, which is why I didn't say anything.  I have no advice to give, even though I should have a storehouse of it.  But all I have is the prospect of not feeling anything, which is at the same time a comfort and an anxiety.

Maybe I did it wrong.  And maybe I'll never feel anything the same way again.  But it seems that now I have no choice but to pay this price.  So it goes.

When everything is gone, we'll still be begging for more

"I just can't ever see myself getting off that slope," I said.  You said, he said, she said.  I'm borrowing some writing, mixing up stories, it happens.  That's just how the neurons fire.  One thing leads to another and then another and I find myself somewhere completely different.  Which doesn't by any means signify that I'm off that slope.  Just that I'm on another piece of it.

They like putting these dramatic scenes into movies, where a person is being held over the edge of a cliff or something and they slip an inch.  And then another inch.  Until they're hanging there, dangerously suspended.  In the movies  of course, we all know they're going to be saved.  Except Gandalf perhaps, but he comes back later anyway, so that doesn't count.  

But life doesn't really work that way, because I'm sure that anyone in that sort of life-or-death situation wouldn't be absolutely certain of being saved.  If anything, I think they'd be more certain of the consequences of falling.  So moving around on that slope, that's not necessarily a good thing.  It doesn't mean getting closer to the top, and it may very well mean being at the very bottom.

But I don't talk about it.  Because nobody wants to hear it.  Nobody wants to know the thoughts that run through my head when I stand in one place for too long, when I'm looking over the bridge into the water, when I haven't forgiven and when I think about the things I'll never forget.  Nobody wants to know those things.  Nobody wants to have to try and understand it, and I can't exactly expect them to when it doesn't make sense to me.

Because I'd love to forget.  I'd love to move on.  I'd love to ignore everything I know or everything I never did.  But that's not how my brain functions. That's not how my memory works.  I feel things that don't make sense.  I think thoughts that I never would have chosen.  And I can't make them go away.  I'm further down that slope than you think, but you wouldn't tell just by looking at me.  And you're never going to ask.  Which is okay.  But I thought I'd put this out there, since I'm never going to tell you and all.

There are many things I want to write...

...but this is neither the time nor the place for them.

There are some things I don't talk about.  And to me it seems really obvious what they are, but that is, of course, because I am the one who doesn't talk about them.  So I understand that most people might not know what they are or why I don't say anything.  And to be fair, I'm not at all sure why I don't say anything about them.  With some of them, at least, it's because I've tried, and it hasn't done anything except make me uncomfortable and even less willing to say them.  With others, it's because I've said everything that can be said, and it's gotten me nowhere, and it makes other people uncomfortable, so I just gave up on talking about it.

And sometimes I do want to talk about these things that I can't or won't talk about.  But here's the thing.  Some of these things will hurt people.  Others will make them uncomfortable.  And still others, well those just won't make any sense, because more often than not, they don't even make sense to me.  The problem is that I have nowhere to write it.  I could veil it in vague, confusing words, shroud it in long, convoluted sentence structures, and put it all here, but it's all too significant for me to just dress it up in that many layers.

I want to put it down as it is.  Raw.  Honest.  Hurtful, really.  Because that's what's in my mind.  It's like poison, slowly leeching through my brain, and containment only does so much good.  My thoughts are venomous and treacherous.  They seem to reach that point every time I let them steep in my brain for long enough.  Because now I can't sleep at night, and I wake up every few hours starting at five or six in the morning, and I can't sit alone with my thoughts for more than a few minutes, because something always starts clawing at my gut and I get that feeling where your stomach is trying to fall through your body and into the floor.

So clearly, my own mind is not the best receptacle for such things.  And it seems to me that they need to be flushed out somehow.  What this is really telling me is that I need a new place to write.  Not to replace this blog, but to supplement it.  Somewhere to put all of the caustic thoughts that don't belong here, to spill the corrosive contents of my brain that shouldn't be there anymore.  Because I really don't think I'm going to talk about it anytime soon.

The Writing on the Wall

There are certain places around where I live, where you can go in and sit down to eat and there are photographs on the walls and people's writing on the tables and over the pictures and the whole place just feels like it has a sense of history, of humanity, of life to it.  And I've never really thought of it before, not even when I've been in those very same places, but people had moments there.  They had the best nights of their lives, or the worst.  They will have gone there with friends and family and they've heard good news and bad news, and those photographs, those signatures, those names carved into the wood, they are all full of emotion.

I haven't felt that kind of emotion in a long time, especially not in the company of people.  There were all of those nights so far into the spring that it may as well have been summer.  Some with one person, some in a large company.  There were some winter nights as well, I guess, but those rarely compared to the hot and humid twilight that permeated my springs.  Maybe that's why I like heat and humidity so much, because so many of my memories are so thoroughly tied in with the moments that were shared on those nights.

I've never been a people person.  I don't really like people all that much.  It takes me a long time to warm up to them, and even then, I'm not always particularly comfortable around them.  But never, in all of the time I've spent alone (and I assure you, there has been a lot of such time), have I had moments, emotions, memories, anything even remotely close to the things that have happened when I spent time with people.  All of my best memories are from the times I have spent with people I am close to.

And it's been a while since I had a moment like this.  It's probably because I am looking for new people to be close to, but I'm not there yet.  I'm sad that I'm not there.  I miss people.  I miss having close friends, and I miss long evenings spent with them.  I'm still lonely, and I was really hoping that I wouldn't be anymore, by this time. I don't know.  I don't know when I'll stop being lonely or if I ever really will.  But I miss people.  I miss having friends.  So I really hope I figure something out, so that I can have evenings like that again.  So that I can write on walls, metaphorically, at least.

And I Wish You Were Here

I keep waiting.  And waiting.  Always waiting for something to happen.  That's always been my flaw, if you want to call it that.  But I always thought it made my life more interesting, because that's how I live it.  I told you two and a half years ago that I don't start things, and I don't end them, that I let them happen to me, that I go with what someone else sets into motion.

I've always been very interested in other people.  In psychology, although I never would have chosen it as a specialty.  I always want to know how people react and what they do and how their minds work.  More than anything, I want to understand what goes on in their brains, what neurons fire and how this sequence, this combination, how they all come together into thought, into action.  That's why I let myself live like this, why I let my actions be determined more by others.  Because I wanted to see how these choices would reflect on my life.

I think I might be changing, though.  I've started seeking other people less and less often to make choices for me.  Perhaps because I've found a path I want to follow.  And that path doesn't leave much room for error.  It doesn't encourage me to expand my social circle or increase my trust in anyone.  And I'm pretty sure that this is what I want.  So I guess that's why I've stopped asking questions about what I should do, why I've stopped letting people make decisions for me.  Because I've finally found something for myself.

But there are still things that I can't get over.  There are still people I want to know, people I want to understand, some of whom I have a chance to get close to, and others of whom I will never see again.  My mind won't let these things go.  And I imagine that's not necessarily a problem, but it's an itch I can't scratch.  It'll always be something I wonder about.  I'll always wait to see what people do.  And I'll always try to understand.  I hope it does me some good.  One day, at least.