Time will tell, but from my experience time is a very reluctant communicator. And I’m impatient. By the time it takes time to divulge something to me, I’ve already racked the overthinking-rationalizing part of my brain for some embryonic answer (usually wrong), consulted some sort of oracle (I Ching book, TikTok lives of tarot card readings, fortune teller machine at a bar, my mom sending me my horoscope in Russian which I plug into Google Translate), or tried so hopelessly to rely on how I “feel” that when I do find out what I’m hoping to find out, somehow retrospect convinces me that I had that feeling all along, which I mean I’m sure I didn’t, but who can remember your feelings? Unless you write them down.

How else are you supposed to know where to step if not by trusting the mass of guts in your stomach? At least you can’t blame yourself if you tell yourself you were following your heart, even if your heart leads you somewhere not great. There’s nothing to blame. Now, if you were to go against the feeling in your gut and everything turned out fine, you’d still feel uncertain about it. 

It’s not that easy to peel yourself away from somebody. Some people never do it, because it would take some of your skin away with it. Especially the longer it’s there. Sometimes I wish my mom was stronger. 

And if I sit here twiddling my thumbs until July, maybe I will meet somebody. But of course I can’t know.

I’ve been relistening to Pinkerton and how it affects me and just never gets old, and I think about how the lyrics are the right amount of tongue-in-cheek and humorous and self aware, kind of holding itself at a distant even as it’s extremely melodramatic. It’s kind of like when you step out of a serious moment of your life and you just kind of stare at it, thinking it’s funny, and defining, and just kind of performing this metacognitive task where you’re like, well this is kind of serious. And you’re not in the moment or whatever, but perhaps by being “out of it” you’re more in it. Because where else could you be? I’m listening to Edith Piaf right now, for my personal edification. I wonder if this French violin operalike music will grow on me, or if I’ll just swing on it as something to be knowledgeable about and mention to people to seem worldly or something without actually feeling anything deeply on its behalf. Just coasting on it. A tool to wield.

I think about museums that way, too. Maybe I’m just not perceptive enough to stare at a painting, whatever painting, and feel something. So I stare at it longer. But you can’t eek out meaning like that. Maybe I need to be on drugs. Is that a cheat code for life? I think about that sometimes. Writing on drugs is fun and sometimes things just make sense, but I feel like I’m cheating. Maybe I need to redefine my relationship with drugs.

I am about halfway through reading Patti Smith’s Just Kids, which I think is one of the books I’ve enjoyed most in the process of reading. I read Norwegian Wood a couple of weeks ago while I was sick and it was kind of depressing and drawn on, and the only character I thought was redeemable was Midori. But Just Kids is good. Like, life-altering path-defining resolution-solidifying good. There’s a part where this guy quotes this other guy and says poems are never finished, just abandoned. So I’m abandoning this long sleeve of writing. Till next time.

Eventually, I’ll run out of hypothetical things to say. Phrases lobbed at a wall.

Eventually, happened. I’ve reached the point of discomfort. Where I feel like I can’t speak freely. Call it emotional tension. Or something. I’m just not comfortable anymore. I spend all these days (true story) imagining telling these individuals about the things that are happening in my life. They become my mental confidantes, the people I tell stories to in my head. And then when I meet them in person, I can’t say any of that. They wouldn’t understand. There’s a barrier between the hypothetical version I created of them in my head and the real one. And the real one, honestly, doesn’t reach the level of my mental confidante. That’s the difference that temporal and emotional distance create. And then I feel disconnected. Even alone. When I’ve spent too much time growing on my own. That also means growing apart. And then you either rebuild over that distance or you give up–because the comfort isn’t the same. That’s how I know I’ve changed as a person, as we all do over time. Maybe I’ve changed too much. I don’t know what to call this. When you grow in the interim when you’re not talking to somebody. I’m not the same person I was. And then you’re in a different skin–a skin unfamiliar with that person’s skin. New friends, new feelings. Grieving slowly over time. And now I don’t really want to tell them anything. The mental picture of them does not match the reality.

I realize I’m getting in the clouds at the moment because nothing I write is grounded in a reality that the reader can understand. Here’s the rundown: 

If you go back and read that post “This time baby, promise I have learned my lesson,” imagine that, in a round two variety. I don’t want to get in to the specifics of the moment. I was Side Chick again, one year going, and this guy would always let me down. Provided he was nicer (but not really), but constantly let me down. Maybe I’ll get into the specifics at another point in my life. This time, I was in love. Like the real kind–and by real I mean reciprocated, albeit in a fucked up way. Because the guy is fucked up. Good qualities, of course, but like with anybody, qualities I don’t love. But ideal people don’t exist, do they?