I’ve been drifting. Drawing shapes in the sand. Lying back on my couch and staring patterns into the curious texture of the popcorn ceiling.
I don’t know if it’s true, what I wrote. It’s a strange feeling, to tap into something and let it out, without knowing where it came from or what it means, exactly.
In some ways it was a pretty definitive answer to a question I’ve been idly toying with for a while. I knew I didn’t want to get back together with her, a bit over a year now when whatever little fling we were having collapsed.
I kept looking for a good reason, for a compelling enough reason to explain to myself why I wasn’t grabbing this adorable, intelligent girl and holding her close. And sure, there were unresolved emotions, pieces of memories and things that had passed between us, reasons not to like her or forgive her or whatever.
I do like her, though. And the past fades. She did some fucked up things, but I understand why she did them. I can’t make myself angry enough to avoid her, there’s not enough fuel to keep hating her enough to stay away.
Turns out none of that really matters, and it probably should have taken less effort to figure that out.
I just don’t want to be with her. We don’t work together. It’s easy to care about people, to see their value. It’s not even that much harder to see them deeply, to know them intimately, to feel powerful things about their personality, their life.
It’s just harder to live with them I guess. I’ve always been detached, always looked at people like paintings, judged them on their faithfulness to themselves, their truth, which as you know is beauty.
I suppose I always thought love would have something to do with that beauty.
Maybe the problem is I never get close enough, miss out something close, specific, personal.
You could probably replace my ex with a lot of people and get similar results. I didn’t trust her because I loved her, I trusted her because I think it’s worth taking a chance on people. I got hurt because I let myself and I didn’t care until it caught up with me and I had to figure out how to survive the despair.
I didn’t go all in because of her, I did it because there wasn’t a good reason not to. Looking back, despite the scars, I kinda think I was right. I rode it out.
…
See, the problem is, I never felt it.
I remember back when I was younger, when the other boys started liking the girls. I didn’t think they had cooties or anything, I never really thought girls were gross. But I didn’t really like any of them.
And as the years rolled by the fear crept in, that something was wrong with me, because I just didn’t feel anything. I wanted to play the boyfriend-girlfriend game, but I just didn’t feel anything special for any particular girl. They were all pretty much the same to me.
Eventually I just picked one, and later another one. A few others, little crushes which I’d play at like the game it was. Of course I didn’t want to win, which got me in trouble and unfortunately did some damage to someone who didn’t really deserve it when the ‘game’ went too far. Eventually I picked my ex, who only dragged me into a relationship by taking me completely by surprise. Didn’t really expect her to break up with her boyfriend and turn up expecting me to replace him.
I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I did. I remember the conversations in my head, picking out the girls. The weird mental gymnastics convincing myself that I felt some special spark.
But I never did.
…
And yet.
There has always been that craving for it. The certainty that there was something, the constant grasping of phantom senses for something. Something I had an idea about, something I was sure I’d know when I found, something that dragged me from bed in the mornings and kept me up way too late in the candle light. Like, hey, right now.
I write about how I’m not sure I ever even believed in love, never felt it, wouldn’t want it if I found it.
And yet.
I fall asleep every night imagining talking to a girl. Meeting her as a stranger, chatting as friends, fighting as boyfriend and girlfriend.
I’d say it made me feel lonely, but it’s not that. There’s always a distance to it. Something’s always just a little off from right. I don’t imagine happily ever afters or smiles.
Just someone. Someone interesting, and a little bit of something.
What is it, and why do I want it?
Who is she, and what’s something, and is any piece of it real?
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