frightening efficiency
28 July 2005 03:07![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amulOne of the great things about guests is that you can leverage them against yourself. "Someone's coming?! I'd best make my place look it's spiffiest."
I was supposed to shoot Unpaintable Canvas again tonight, but she was on the rag and didn't feel up to it. Instead, she helped me clean up my apartment in preparation for Roo's upcoming visit. We got a ton done, and now all I have left to do is:
Granted, a lot of that stuff doesn't HAVE to be done, but I want it done, I want her to see my place that much closer to the way I want it to eventually be.
Roo and I talked again last night. The initial awkwardness has well and truly passed. We joked, we giggled, we told strange truths and talked of things we rarely say. I told her about my first trip to my dad's temple, and there were tears in my eyes by the end of it.
Falling in love with her again would be like sitting down. All I need do is relax and let it happen. There's a hesitancy, though, aside from the one caused by the hundreds of miles physically separating us. This is my time to stand, dammit! I don't want to relax into anything, I want to fight.
Besides, it feels so much more comfortable and familiar, adoring Radiant Idol from the other end of the couch. I'm very used to aching for the unattainable. Having something within my reach, worrying if it is wise to take hold of it? That's foreign territory.
I didn't mean to write that. I meant to write, "Besides, she lives in Pittsburgh and I live here, now." Well, well whispers an echo of Achingly Defiant. Freud was right.
Another thing was shared during last night's conversation, and the knowledge of it throbs inside my head.
I waited a week before announcing that Christine and I were over, to give her time to come to terms with it before forcing her to face the honesty she and I always despised. Four days later, Roo received a bouquet of flowers at work, with a few lines of poetry that basically said, "I'm free from the obligations that kept me from saying something to you. Let me say it tonight." That night, that Tuesday night, I sat on her doorstep until she let me in, and I begged her to be with me again. She told me she didn't want it, that I shouldn't ask for it, she'd been through a divorce, knew where I was headed and she didn't want any part of it. She was stern and unyielding, but never cruel. Time and again, I pressed her, "be with me!" and each time she turned the conversation to what I'd been through, what I was going through, what I'd be experiencing soon. In my joyous insanity, I could very easily have dropped down to one knee, but for want of a ring. She made it clear that she was my friend now, nothing more.
Only, last night, she told me that it had been the hardest thing she'd had to do for many years, saying No so many times to something she wanted.
Wanted.
Wanted, it throbs inside my head like a bell tolling. Wanted, wanted, wanted. I hear another voice from long ago, telling me all those times you insisted I loved you as much as you loved me? I wanted you to know you were right. I did love you, but that moment has passed.
Would'a. Could'a. Should'a. Just another version of The What If Game. Another card to add to my deck, another shuffle, another round dealt out. What if....?
If I'd had the strength to leave Christine on my own, if I'd had the wisdom to call a done thing over and given myself time to heal before that strange night, buried deep inside every blanket and sleeping bag in the house....if. What if. What if?
(tangent: Obstinately Introspective and I are barreling down a brick-lined road in Shiva, Station Wagon of Destruction. "How'd I guess, Amul? I fucking sat there and watched you two hook up!" What? When? Oh. I guess it was then.)
Gods, I know it's pointless, but WHAT IF?
It'd be like falling into a chair, a warm inviting chair that I've sat in before, a chair I know is extremely comfortable. I was sprawled across the floor when she met me, all the fight gone out. She helped me sit up, and that's when I found the strength to stand.
She helped me realize I wanted to move to Chicago, for gods' sake.
She's coming to visit in two weekends. "No expectations," she said. I already have expectations! Expectations, and hopes, and terrible, terrible fears.
Gods, give me strength. I know, I know it's pointless, but What If?
We spent a good deal of time talking about Christine, too, how I feel that her refusal to even speak to me is an insult to the decade we spent together. "Of course she misses you," Roo said. "She hasn't said anything, and it's Christine, so I'll never see it, but I know she misses you. How could she not? I think she just feels like she can't talk to you, like she couldn't do it without being angry."
I told her it was cold comfort, and thought about all the women I've loved whom I'm no longer speaking to. Cheryl, Andrea, AD and all the other, lesser lovers. The only lover I've ever managed to keep in contact with, I only dated for a week.
While UC and I were cleaning, I found a box marked Amul's College Love Letters. I haven't opened it in over a decade. But I know that somewhere in there is a postcard, on which is scrawled, "When you care enough to send the very least, send a postcard."
I don't really know what that has to do with anything.
I was supposed to shoot Unpaintable Canvas again tonight, but she was on the rag and didn't feel up to it. Instead, she helped me clean up my apartment in preparation for Roo's upcoming visit. We got a ton done, and now all I have left to do is:
- clean oven
- clean bathroom
- mop floors
- install curtains
- install shelves and decorate them
- install superior music system, with Pure Earth's help
- stock fridge, plan meals, pre-cook "leftovers"
- keep up on laundry & dishes
Granted, a lot of that stuff doesn't HAVE to be done, but I want it done, I want her to see my place that much closer to the way I want it to eventually be.
Roo and I talked again last night. The initial awkwardness has well and truly passed. We joked, we giggled, we told strange truths and talked of things we rarely say. I told her about my first trip to my dad's temple, and there were tears in my eyes by the end of it.
Falling in love with her again would be like sitting down. All I need do is relax and let it happen. There's a hesitancy, though, aside from the one caused by the hundreds of miles physically separating us. This is my time to stand, dammit! I don't want to relax into anything, I want to fight.
Besides, it feels so much more comfortable and familiar, adoring Radiant Idol from the other end of the couch. I'm very used to aching for the unattainable. Having something within my reach, worrying if it is wise to take hold of it? That's foreign territory.
I didn't mean to write that. I meant to write, "Besides, she lives in Pittsburgh and I live here, now." Well, well whispers an echo of Achingly Defiant. Freud was right.
Another thing was shared during last night's conversation, and the knowledge of it throbs inside my head.
I waited a week before announcing that Christine and I were over, to give her time to come to terms with it before forcing her to face the honesty she and I always despised. Four days later, Roo received a bouquet of flowers at work, with a few lines of poetry that basically said, "I'm free from the obligations that kept me from saying something to you. Let me say it tonight." That night, that Tuesday night, I sat on her doorstep until she let me in, and I begged her to be with me again. She told me she didn't want it, that I shouldn't ask for it, she'd been through a divorce, knew where I was headed and she didn't want any part of it. She was stern and unyielding, but never cruel. Time and again, I pressed her, "be with me!" and each time she turned the conversation to what I'd been through, what I was going through, what I'd be experiencing soon. In my joyous insanity, I could very easily have dropped down to one knee, but for want of a ring. She made it clear that she was my friend now, nothing more.
Only, last night, she told me that it had been the hardest thing she'd had to do for many years, saying No so many times to something she wanted.
Wanted.
Wanted, it throbs inside my head like a bell tolling. Wanted, wanted, wanted. I hear another voice from long ago, telling me all those times you insisted I loved you as much as you loved me? I wanted you to know you were right. I did love you, but that moment has passed.
Would'a. Could'a. Should'a. Just another version of The What If Game. Another card to add to my deck, another shuffle, another round dealt out. What if....?
If I'd had the strength to leave Christine on my own, if I'd had the wisdom to call a done thing over and given myself time to heal before that strange night, buried deep inside every blanket and sleeping bag in the house....if. What if. What if?
(tangent: Obstinately Introspective and I are barreling down a brick-lined road in Shiva, Station Wagon of Destruction. "How'd I guess, Amul? I fucking sat there and watched you two hook up!" What? When? Oh. I guess it was then.)
Gods, I know it's pointless, but WHAT IF?
It'd be like falling into a chair, a warm inviting chair that I've sat in before, a chair I know is extremely comfortable. I was sprawled across the floor when she met me, all the fight gone out. She helped me sit up, and that's when I found the strength to stand.
She helped me realize I wanted to move to Chicago, for gods' sake.
She's coming to visit in two weekends. "No expectations," she said. I already have expectations! Expectations, and hopes, and terrible, terrible fears.
Gods, give me strength. I know, I know it's pointless, but What If?
We spent a good deal of time talking about Christine, too, how I feel that her refusal to even speak to me is an insult to the decade we spent together. "Of course she misses you," Roo said. "She hasn't said anything, and it's Christine, so I'll never see it, but I know she misses you. How could she not? I think she just feels like she can't talk to you, like she couldn't do it without being angry."
I told her it was cold comfort, and thought about all the women I've loved whom I'm no longer speaking to. Cheryl, Andrea, AD and all the other, lesser lovers. The only lover I've ever managed to keep in contact with, I only dated for a week.
While UC and I were cleaning, I found a box marked Amul's College Love Letters. I haven't opened it in over a decade. But I know that somewhere in there is a postcard, on which is scrawled, "When you care enough to send the very least, send a postcard."
I don't really know what that has to do with anything.
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no subject
Date: 28 Jul 2005 22:11 (UTC)I might see you there.