A season of storms

[amul]

Apple Martini asked me via IM today about (f)AD's live journal and my own. She wondered what it must feel like when we read each other's words, our feelings and attitudes about each other spelled out in pixels, there for all to see.

I think that part of this concern might be from the idea that the things I write would be surprising to her, or that her words might be a shock to me. It is not the case, there is no silence between us, no secrets we keep until we post them for all the world to see.

I think there are a lot of misconceptions about my LJ like this. When I first started this account, my plan was to use it as a simpler method of telling people who cared where I was, or what I was up to. I later realized that it had more power, more potential than this. At that time in my life, I avoided all serious discussions of emotions, and as I came out of that place, I realized that there were a great many people in my life who had wanted to be let in, wanted to know more about me than I had been comfortable showing, hurt creature that I was. I had slammed the door shut in all their faces, and I resolved to change that.

I opened myself up on LJ, offered as much insight into my heart and mind as anyone might ever want. Here, I write of all the things I never spoke of in my twenties. It is meant to be a feeble sort of amends for the rejections I had so often given. These people had known me for years, yet understood me not at all, so now I offer up all the understanding they could possibly ask for.

But as I continued to break free of my self-imposed isolation, I found myself out in the world, meeting strange and interesting people. A lot of these people I met only briefly, or see only at occasions where it is difficult to talk. They know me only through livejournal, and that must be a strange thing. I wonder if it is uncomfortable for them to have such access to a total stranger. I wonder how it must color their impression of who I am.

Still, I like it. I like that even My Ex could read of my life, my thoughts and fears, should she want to. I like that (f)AD can read my retelling of a conversation between us and let me know if she feels she was misunderstood. I do not understand how anyone can dislike me, as a few have chosen to do, because I see no reason to obfuscate my darker emotions. Sometimes, I'll ask (f)AD a question that has arisen during my introspection here, and she will laugh and say, "It must be true! You wrote on Live Journal!"

We are not so silly as to think that these words mean anything more than the things we felt at the time we write them. They are pixels, after all, not granite edicts from off a mountain. If she feels a thought misplaced, if I think a concept capable of refinement, we understand that there is still time. Humans are fluid creatures, after all, no matter how hard we try to encapsulate and define ourselves through policies, procedures and manifestos.

Just in this way, I feel there should be no shame, no sense of dread when I say that I enjoyed the drive to and from Pittsburgh more than I enjoyed the city itself. Truth be told, I was more interested in visiting the city than any particular friend there. I'd heard through the grapevine that My Ex no longer worked at the museum, and so I went to see it again, this building that was practically an extension of our home, so much time did we spend there. I hadn't realized how much I had missed Turrell's Danae, or the Yayoi Kusama rooms. Mme Turtle and I wandered around for about an hour before the place closed.

It would have felt like avoidance to do otherwise, so I drove past the house, the brick and wood edifice which had once held so much promise to me. When I first moved into my apartment, if people would compliment it, I would tell them, Well, yeah, I mean, it's not the dream home I spent six months picking with the woman I'd planned to spend the rest of my life with, but it's okay. This weekend, it was nothing but bricks to me.

I wandered through the Strip District, past storefronts deaf to my pleas of I'm only here for the day!, down through campus and into the park, and from there slowly, cautiously back to Brownsville Rd, where so much of my life happened in two short years.

The next day, (f)AD and I packed up the last of her stuff from her parent's home, dreadfully numb place that it is, and we visited mycatsellsclues and her new son. I stood in the corner as they talked, feeling myself a respectful observer of things men are rarely included in. I held the tiny boy for a bit, feeling the whole world narrow down to the eight pounds of precious life in my hands.

We got into the car and headed back to Chicago, and I was near tears. "Babies do that," comforted the girl who was once my muse, my joy, my inspiration. I ached, deep inside me in a way so literal that I could not comprehend how casually I had once described such pains as metaphor, I ached for a sense of community, for something permanent which I could rely on.

Everything is changing in my life, I'm not even friends with the people I'd known last year. The few friends I've made since then all plan to leave by the end of summer, except for those who I'm convinced will no longer be dating the Significant Others they are now. Roo and (f)AD and My Ex, such temporary things in my life. I don't even read the same kinds of books I once did.

I reached out and squeezed (f)AD's hand. I know you are meant for other places, I mewled. But it would be nice to always be able to reach out to you as easily as this.

"It cannot be," she said. "But I agree, it would be nice."

Then, just as when I picked her up last month, a storm broke out over top of us, and I could do nothing but concentrate on my need to move forward.

Comments

[mothburning.livejournal.com]

Well, this is a pretty post.

[amul.livejournal.com]

I'm beginning to feel like you're getting the raw end of the deal. You've been so cathartic for me, and I feel like all I've given you is a place to crash.