Three years ago today

Three years ago today, well, actually I’m a day off, but to me it’s still the 16th because I’ve yet to go to sleep..

Three years ago today I bought a bunch of kids valentines. For twenty-some-odd of them I wrote each of them to you, one for each year, reconstructing in my head for each year what I’d likely write to my Valentine for each year. It was a taller task than I had envisioned in my head, but after what totaled near two hours I completed them. In a way, I poured out 21 years of my heart into them. Even as a child, I never got these foolish kids valentines in school. It seems like even the kids who brought them for the entire class still forgot one for me. I was satisfied with my work, which was good, because it was time for our night by the time I had finished.

We met in the dorm. If I were more awake and less delirious, I bet I could remember every tiny detail about you, but in my basically drunken state, all I recall is that you appeared, to my eyes, like the perfect cut out, as always– you were as beautiful as ever. Of course, this only made me more nervous. I would have to compensate by being more ridiculous than usual to cover it up. We got to my car and that was when I blitzed you with my Valentine assault. We both hate Valentine’s day, it’s a shallow holiday, but this meant a lot to the both of us. You received it better than I had hoped. I was 1 for 1 with a homerun already. I then fired up the playlist of really old French songs, which seemed apt not 0nly because you were a former music turned French major, but French songs are romantic. Lord knows what they are saying, and they may not even sound good, but it hits the right mood.

We ate. Not Italian, like we’d hoped, but that’s ok, we ate plenty of Italian in our time together following, because we never were not in the mood for Italian. That was fine though, Zoe’s or whatever we ate was fine because it was with you. You also enjoyed the fact that it wasn’t crowded as much as me. Persepolis. That was the name of the comic turned movie that we saw that night. Like many things that night, it too was French or France related. It still makes me sad that it was the only time I’ve seen it, it was good, and it will always remind me of that night and you, but now I guess watching it would be a bad idea. I remember holding your hand during practically the entire thing. I’ll be honest, hand holding is arduous through an entire movie, but it is funny to say; I had always admired your hands. They seemed to be an extension of your gentle personality. They are. I had been envisioning this for months by this point. Even if it was cliche, even if by the time we had been dating for a while we didn’t hold hands during an entire movie, we did for Persepolis. I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Such a strange symbolism, holding hands. When you’re young, it’s practical. Your mom or older sister might hold your hand to keep you close and together, to make you feel secure. When you have romantic inclinations it is more of a unification thing, weird how the associations are just what they are– different. There is no gradual shift or learning of this other symbolic weight the gesture carries, we just assume it.

Three years ago today that movie ended, but it was still very early in the night. Plus a movie is something one might do on a date, but it lacks necessary interaction. We ended up going to the Natchez Trace that night. It wasn’t warm, but it wasn’t cold. It was partly cloudy, but more on the clear end rather than cloudy. The moon was very present, and the mixture of shadow and illumination on the sprawling, flat clouds combined with the starry patches for a pleasant picture to gaze at. It was around that place and moment that we first kissed. Considering the months of build up and waiting for you to come around on me, it was about time, no?

We didn’t get back to school until sometime after 1 AM. Of course there was that trip to Jack in the Box that preceded it. I have a habit of having an accelerated appetite on dates, especially those initial ones. It must be the nerves. Crazy to think that back then it seemed insurmountable to get you to eat junk food with me, it was always a salad, two grains of rice and algae for you, miscreant. Over time, I trained you well, though. I remember walking back into the dorms with a milkshake in hand, and you by my side. Everyone was still up. Everyone was still in the lobby. It was almost annoying, because I didn’t expect it. I wanted to float back inside, kiss you good night and continue hovering, much like a wisp, and drift into my bed directly to sleep, as if I had been dreaming the entire time. This way, when I woke up the next morning, I’d have to separate reality from fantasy, and be overcome with the joyous epiphany of my great fortune. It was ok though, I didn’t get that, but the crowd in the lobby was a reminder of the support I’d gotten along the way. Plus I played the rest of it out like I wanted after we hung out with everyone for a while.

From that day we spent every day aspiring to be as close to one as possible. We were eachother’s.

And if some things, mainly myself, been just a little different, we’d have been together today, looking back on that night three years ago. That is both a really long time and also a very small amount of time. I guess if I had known that three years from that night, that you’d have completely removed me from my life, I would have never had that night. It wasn’t worth that much loss. Yes, I know I ended that special bond between us, but I wasn’t trying to end us as a whole. I guess I have to play the villain sometimes. I believe that I’ve been miscast though, maybe one day that will be corrected.

I guess I am writing this partially to reflect, to reminisce on fragments of a very close, warm memory of mine. Partially because the nightmares have been coming back. You’ve been in my dreams a lot lately. We often try to meet each other, but obstacles and unbelievable trials always get in the way. I caught fire in my last dream! By the time I had extinguished the flames you had left without me, and gone to the place we had planned on going. I tried to get there myself, but got hopelessly lost. Not only did I not find you, but I didn’t make it back home either.

Speaking outside of the context of a stupid dream, wherever home is, I am far from it. I don’t know anything anymore. The first month being out of a relationship was basically my first month alive that I spent being asexual– at least, that’s how it felt. Being sucked in to something so intensely and for such a prolonged amount of time, I fear that I lost my ability to interact with a female of any sort. Even now, I haven’t gotten much of it back. I guess I’m still rehabilitating. Any of these female types that I previously knew were about the closest I could find in terms of interaction. I guess it is just one of those things where prior memories remove any occlusion on this interaction, like finding an old comfortable place. Yet, even so, it only has helped so much anyway. I still feel limited even in these instances anyway. Everyone is so settled down. It seems everyone is so hellbent on being as far away from alone as possible. Are we really that insecure? Are we really in that much of a rush to have the rest of our life bound, in metallic glow, around our finger? Life expectancy in our society is astronomically high compared to what it was even in the last century– the rest of our life is a long time. Shouldn’t we live some of it ourselves before we commit to it together? You would think we would tend to let the proportions of this extension mirror these monumental changes in our lives, but it seems like a good chunk of my generation is actually quicker than the prior in this regard. Are we really that vain that everywhere I look, an acquaintance, a comrade, a close friend is continuing their line; miniature versions of themselves wound up and set down to roam the earth, likely repeating their days under the same veil of ordinary-hood that their parents have settled down under? Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for all of these people. Close friends, acquaintances, strangers and the like, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t annoy me at the same time.

I just can’t be sucked in. I can’t be strapped down. I’m not trying for anything either. I just want to be me. I still want to spend time with you. I still like seeing all of you, but you’re a drag, too. If you’re a girl and you’ve tethered yourself to someone, we can’t hang out. Not because I’m some sort of threat to that tethering, that’s just ridiculous, but rather just because of protocol. Because I’ve had my share of protocol and headaches and insecure parties causing fits over nothing, and I don’t want to risk anyone being in that position. Because it just isn’t worth it to me. I don’t want to see you if I have to be on my guard anyway. Not alone, not in a group. Because your intended life path is so clearly written out for me to see. We’re headed in different directions. It works for even my guy friends too, though. For instance, there is almost a guarantee that we won’t be able to get into anything that we’d look back on and just fawn over how crazy it was. It isn’t the craziness that is good, it is the potential for craziness. Life is unpredictable. Unpredictability is a necessity.

I will admit, I’ve had time to readjust to this concept of being single again. I’m getting a grasp on things. I already knew one thing for sure:

There will be no relationships. Not in Houdini’s foreseeable future. It’d be nice if everyone could just automatically understand that about me. Why would I anyway? The only woman I needed in my life in that way, I had. I let her go not because she wasn’t adequate in that regard, but just because I wasn’t fitting into the constructs of a relationship– or at least headed, quite rapidly, in that direction.

With that said, I miss genuine friendships with the opposite sex. I spend a couple of years, to nobodies fault, yet still largely my own doing, alienating the good friends I had that were girls. And now I am in a place where I must fix this absence, granted, I had never wanted to distance myself to begin with. Things just turn out like that do sometimes. While I have come back around, I find that I can only remain in the periphery of pretty much all of these women, at best. Periphery is not good enough for me. I have half a mind to have a screw you mentality about it if I can only be a blip on your radar, a flash of motion on the outskirts of your vision. I’ve spent enough time being on the outer perimeter of your lives anyway. Forget that I spent all that time knocking on the gates of the castle, I really am sorry for everyone who encountered the same when things were flipped around, but I’ve knocked and begged to be let in enough. The nice thing about peripheral vision is that it is easy for me to be out of sight and disappear completely. So I plan on that.

I don’t know where that leaves me though. There are still enough of these specific types of friendships for me to successfully mend, but I have too many fears or concerns, I think. For one, I fear that I’ve entered into a more shallow phase in my life. I guess maybe I’ve always had that shallowness, and I just hid it well, even from myself. It is kind of like when I tell people I’m not nice.

You might think I’m nice, but I’m not. I was just raised that way. The ‘me’ that I know is not a very nice guy, at all. He just isn’t the me that anyone else knows.

I also have concerns that pre-existing friendships are too easily boxed in. There are plenty of sides to me that people don’t see. Different people might see different sides, but generally, you know someone for long enough and you really can’t change up or open up too many more of those sides without it feeling or being weird. At least, I don’t know if it is worth coming off as acting unusual (in what is actually perfectly usual of myself) instead of just relying on what has always been expected out of a friendship.

Once again, you could pose that whole, “I’m really ready to move away from here,” campaign I’ve been on. I don’t want to go there, but it handles a lot of this. You have to meet new people. Everyone is a new, clean slate. I don’t have to feel forced into this pseudo faux nice guy act that I have hear, because everyone wouldn’t know me as that. Secondly, it seems easier to re-surround myself with those pesky penis-less friends we call women that way. I think because there is a tendency to go for the convenient. Convenient hear means sticking with what you already have, and also building off of what you already have. That element of convenience doesn’t seem to lend itself to the full array of friend-types I’d prefer.

You know what would be killer? Well for one, I think I have always gotten plenty emotionally when it has come to all of my close friends who were girls in my life. So yeah, that would be killer in a sense, because I know that at least I feel a lot more whole when I have closeness on every end of the spectrum, because the way I’m close with DUDE1 or DUDE2 is just going to be so vastly different than what it’d be with CHICK-A or CHICK-B. I think this is a given though, as in, it will be killer, because I’d be bound to make these connections again. So what would really be killer is the kind of girl who is just someone you can have fun with and hang out, get into whatever. This seems tricky in my mind, because I’d think that this type of female friend would have to come with a high level of closeness and emotional trust, but as soon as you do that you lend yourself for that higher emotional investment. Exactly what I’m trying to avoid. No relationships, remember? I know I wouldn’t be susceptible to this, but a single female emotion is about seventy-eight times more FIERCE than a male emotion. So I have to wonder, does this really even exist?

I guess this is something I will have to find out. These are just thoughts and concepts I’m trying to grasp in my head as someone who is still newly single, and someone who will be remaining that way indefinitely. Not that I even know how to cope with all of these feelings anyway, because as I alluded to earlier, the nightmares are back. Three years ago today.. and such and such. At the same time, I have to accept and continue to push for newer developments, yet drastically different developments, all while feeling like I’m notably my most shallow I’ve ever been in my life and having a bitter taste in my mouth towards a majority of my old friends, of whom I am responsible for the rift developing in the first place.

These are thoughts I have. These are feelings I have. And I will definitely have to continue rehabilitating my ability to interact with fema-sapiens again, such a touch in my life is one that I am starting to feel the absence of.

“Is that you John Wayne? Is this me?”

It might not be pretty. You might not like it, but

this is me (3000 words at a time).

this would’ve been better as drunken rambling..