A Few Words On Love And Loss

Love is not mythical, or magical. It doesn't appear for no reason, and it doesn't go away for no reason either. When one love goes away, you haven't lost your one shot at it. In my brief time falling in and out of love, the one thing that I am absolutely sure of is the endless capacity for love. One love does not need to be compared to another, one love CANNOT be compared to another. Books and movies have the entire planet running on the notion that for some reason, even if you don't consciously believe in soulmates, in the back of your mind you still think you would KNOW when someone is right for you. Nostalgia begins to run in montage reels. Clips of memories; all the reasons why you were meant to be together; all the terrible times that should point to the opposite, but somehow has you believing even stronger that it was meant to be, because you worked for it, you know?

“We all have the potential to fall in love a thousand times in our lifetime. It’s easy. The first girl I ever loved was someone I knew in sixth grade. Her name was Missy; we talked about horses. The last girl I love will be someone I haven’t even met yet, probably. They all count. But there are certain people you love who do something else; they define how you classify what love is supposed to feel like. These are the most important people in your life, and you’ll meet maybe four or five of these people over the span of 80 years. But there’s still one more tier to all this; there is always one person you love who becomes that definition. It usually happens retrospectively, but it happens eventually. This is the person who unknowingly sets the template for what you will always love about other people, even if some of these loveable qualities are self-destructive and unreasonable. The person who defines your understanding of love is not inherently different than anyone else, and they’re often just the person you happen to meet the first time you really, really, want to love someone. But that person still wins. They win, and you lose. Because for the rest of your life, they will control how you feel about everyone else.”

Chuck Klosterman - Killing Yourself To Live: 80% Of A True Story

Those stories of childhood sweethearts who get married young and stay happily married and tell you that they knew, instantly? I can assure you, their relationship went through just as much theatrics, it just ended up working out. Stop anyone in a happy relationship in the street, and they can tell you that they "instantly knew", catch them when it all falls apart and who knows what the story would be. Memory does that to you.

Losing love feels just that, losing. And you can either be a gracious player, shake hands and say "better luck next time.", or you can be a child, and demand a rematch with the same player. You think of all the mistakes you made, you tell yourself you will fix them; "This time I can make it better, this time I can make it work. This time I won't fuck it up." And if you're not given the opportunity to try again, you repeatedly go over those mistakes, again, and again, and again. By this stage you're not trying to save love, you're trying to conquer it. It's all bullshit. Misery is easy, letting go is hard.

This is to tell all the little girls and boys out there. Let it go. That's the only way the next person can hope to get in there. And I promise you, there will be a next person. Loving is incredibly easy, if you are willing to love. Learn to be a gracious loser.

Load My Resolver.

I think I have been here before, I recognise that tree. Circle back Qin, circle back. The X should be right behind you.

***

2012 gave me moments of bliss, and patches of frustration. It was the year everything changed, but nothing moved on to make room for it.

A round up of the apexes!

Most played song of the year, BY FAR: Patrick Watson - Adventures in Your Own Back Yard

Favourite movie experience: Beasts of the Southern Wild.
Walking out of that cinema into a sunset, everything looked different.

Favourite day: 4th July. Not much else in my life could touch the cinematic perfection of that beach, on that night.

Favourite decision: All the impromptu bus trips to new places with wonderful people.

Favourite discovery: That I can love new friends wholeheartedly, swiftly and without irony.

The opening months and for much of the Spring, the sheer driving force of irrepressible optimism kept me afloat. The Summer brought with it rest, romance, and all that Californian sun. Coming back to New York and being shoved into the real world with all the cushioning and protective gear one could be swaddled in, I was still shocked by the cold air, stabbing at my lungs like a newborn's first gasping breath. Discouraged and down-trodden, I was rendered immobile both emotionally and physically for much of the Fall. Before I had time to react to the upward swing of the Winter, here we are, all a rush into another year.

***

2013 Arrived and I was almost ready for it. So far it has promised much rest, some snuggles, and a few friends. The proportions of which I'm a huge fan. Here's to adventures! Here's to new experiences! Here's to heartbreak and failure and every good feeling in between that gives meaning to these things!

In 2013, I will be an open wound sensitive to every sensation my brain wants to protect me from.

In 2013, I will face up to every ugly facet of myself and acknowledge them.

In 2013, I will set goals and never stop until I get there.

My head is cautious, my heart is content, my body is restless and my hands want to make things happen. Can you hear the starting pistols, rallying for action? Change is afoot, and I'll be ready for it this time.

White Rabbit Dreams

When you see a white rabbit, run. Go in the opposite direction, veer off track, turn incrementally away by only a few degrees if that's all you can do but no matter what, do not, DO NOT follow it down the hole. You know what happens down there?

Well, fantastic things. Adventure! Technicolour! What dreams are made of! But you don't want that. Dreams are what got you seeing white rabbits in the first place.

You stare down the hole he jumped into. Wisps of coloured smoke swirl, pop, and curl around your legs and before you know it, you've been pulled inside.

The air pricks your skin but it feels so good to breathe in. Not too thin or too thick, you can feel the oxygen feed your brain with every intake in a way that doesn't hurt or take effort. That hasn't happened in a while. The moment you feel ground under you, without even knowing why, you're running. Branches are snapping beneath your feet but you're rushing by so quickly you temporarily forget about all your ridiculous OCD idiosyncrasies having to do with intricate algorithms of sensations and placements and things you wish you could ignore when you're not running this fast. Soon you've lost track of how long or how far or how fast you're going and it occurs to you that you're incredibly lost but then you remember you didn't know where you started and you don't know where you're running to so then it's okay. You just run. Run. Run. The steps, the swing of your arms, the breath, all fall into a pattern, but the moment you think about it, you lose it. You try to keep it going through the internal rhythm you can still feel thumping, against your pores but, it's artificial now.

Still something propels you forward. There's a wall up ahead and you're about to hit it, but your legs keep going. Even in this forced rhythm of boom, boom, boom, boom, left, right, in, out. Just as your body is about to do this extremely stupid thing, your brain begins to panic. You see the crash before it happens, you see how at this exact rate your right hand would hit it first, followed closely by your left knee. Your head would probably be next, at which point your body would fall backwards, wholesale. You imagine the injuries, and try to gauge the level of pain you might feel in all these places. You're too preoccupied thinking about all of this when the crash actually happens. Entirely too soon, you're lying down on your back, experiencing the exact pains you thought you might.

Lying there, you try to open your eyes, only to find that they're already open, they just refuse to focus. In that split second, this technicolour world - everything you see and hear become this dull, dim haze.

Now you wish you knew where you started, so you can somehow find your way back. Not that you can move right now, but soon, you will be able to stand, and perhaps hobble. At that point, it would've been nice if you knew which direction to start hobbling towards.

What is most offensive, is the fact that you didn't want to go down there in the first place. Lying there, you register each point at which you questioned the decisions you were making. That small bubble of anger burps out of you. Not even regret, because there's nothing to regret. But that it was not really your choice, to still have that wall slam in your face, is particularly offensive.

***

When you see a rabbit, run.

Relentless, and how to be it.

I just took some sleeping medication that can make me go loopy. I intend on going to bed the moment I post this. If I start talking about carrot fingers, we'll know the culprit.

***

I found the common factor to pretty much every piece of music I've ever obsessed over. From Classical to Jazz, Swing to Pop, Rap to R'n'B, even goddamn kpop. Every song I've inexplicably had to hit pause and replay immediately has a relentless beat. I used to have this annoying habit of only being able to study to Bolero, not because Ravel was a particularly great composer; it's neither elegant nor complicated, but it has that something that keeps building and never lets up until the very last note when you can take a breath. I usually pause and repeat before that breath, so I can hold it in for longer. That one song I've listened to more times this Summer than every other song combined has the same quality of running uphill until there's nothing left to tread on.

Inertia, my all consuming fatal flaw. The only way I can get going is to keep going; the only way I can stop is if I collapse.

Reader, I have collapsed.

The post-graduation, post-summer, post-structure slum has finally caught up with me and I don't know how to get out of it. All my forced reboots have achieved nothing but accomplishing the day to day errands that ensure I'm still wearing clean clothes and have food in my stomach. How do you get a ball rolling when you can't even find the ball?

[paragraphs redacted due to despairing tone and my most loathed of all human qualities - self pity]

[paragraph describing how I feel much better now that all the poison has been spat out redacted due to the non-existence of previous redacted paragraphs]

It always helps to talk something through, or in this case, dumping it all into ones and zeros and just letting it sit there in the ether. Did you know that it's been 10 years since I first started blogging? That very first xanga site no longer exists so I don't know the exact date, but there it is. 10 years of vaguely oversharing, of seemingly baring it all but revealing next to nothing.

The hardest part of it all is not having my rally team behind me. The people I can text "steak?" at 3am and they will be at Chapelli's, waiting for me in half an hour. Nothing is more crippling than loneliness, and baby, I can write volumes on that subject.

The eternal optimist in me does possess that blind faith. If there is a way, I will find it. If I can see the pothole, I will side-step it. I am capable, goddammit. Give me a grain of sand, and I will turn it into that boulder which would impress you with its magnitude. Just give me the time I need to comb through this mess. I will find it.

Carrot fingers. It's time to shut this thing down.

Here's that song I've had on repeat for the past 4 months, served with a side of skateboarding.

Kilian Martin: Altered Route (a Skate Film) from mb! by Mercedes-Benz on Vimeo.

Seriously, someone buy me a camera already so I can just start filming things.

He said She said

When He said "today", She said "sooner".

Greed. The greed of always wanting more than what is on offer. Even when what is on offer was bestowed unrequested, without a caveat, only a short moment before; When what is on offer was the happy accident itself. Always. Wanting. More.

He gave her permission to create narratives She had no rights to, and when the movie ended, She stayed watching the writing crawl up the screen hoping for the hint of what She wrote. Standing in the doorway, She stared this pathetic version of herself repeating patterns of former behaviour, while He flickered in and out of frame, none the wiser.

He gave her that pretty dress to wear and told her She looked pretty in it, She wore that dress everyday that month. He looked at her face without a trace of makeup and told her She was beautiful, She broke down her guard and showed Him everything behind that mask. This composed woman you see in front of you, the one who can walk into any room like She owns it, is terrified of her beating heart.

Piles of cigarette ashes fall listlessly about the carnage that is her weary body. Spent, She whiles away her days waiting for signs of her former self to return. He will always come along, giving her something to grapple on to. Life kicks back in, that smile replasters itself back on her face. What comes next would always be better, but what comes after that, invariably worse. Each time She comes back from what feels like a battle, She loses yet more of herself. Each time that truckful of woo pulls up to her door, She is yet more susceptible, gullible, vulnerable. More ashes, longer battles, heavier armour.

What gets her out that door again, and again and again is that awful notion - hope. Her greed is fuelled by her hope. She floats on by this semblance of a life with this hope, this greed. As long as He says "Today", She will always say "Sooner".