3 posts tagged “love”

"Please, not again!"

Been a while.  I don't want to hear it.  I should be sleeping.  Meh.

January 23, 2008

I became a problem solver... for him.

Four years--maybe more--I spent, studying logiv, strategy, critical thinking.  I evaluated thought processes, learned to speak four languages, became a hacker, and made my way up to a brown belt in tai-kwan-do.

Somewhere alone the way, he faded into the background.  Still there, he lurked, waiting for me.

Or perhaps not.

Love is weird like that.  I loved him, most assuredly.  And he loved me, or claimed that he did.

It was all so long ago.

Ten years passed and I made a critical error.  Thousands of people died.  Greg died.  A part of me died.

And then there's the guilt, coated on my skin like so many layers of clothing in the winter, but it never keeps me warm.

I sought him out.  The Great Eraser.  My first love--or, the first who'd survived.

Strange.  It felt strange in Ireland.  With him.  With my former lover.

He hadn't changed.  Well, perhaps a little.  Broken up.  One of those things that would pass.

And I loved him, from the second he walked into that pub, in a shirt that had probably sat in a heap on the floor for three days.  The mad Irishman who drank with me and gave me a job.

Months later, I sit, and I file, and I sort.

And months later, he comes to drink with me and talk.  Strawberry tea.  Pints.  Whiskey.

And I'll go home alone, never having even flirted with any others.  Perhaps I should.  Perhaps his love has evolved.  Perhaps he's given up.

Whatever the reason, I will go home.  I will go to bed.  And I will be celebate, even from myself. 

He makes me happy.  When I'm with him, I can't stop smiling. 

Love is telling jokes in a pub with the undead.

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January 24, 2008

"This might not be the best way to choose a career, Ziv," his brother said.

"I have to choose a major.  This seems like as good a way as any."

Ziv blindfolded himself, darts in hand.  "Okay, Zeke, spin me around."

Zeke shook his head, but started spinning his brother in their room, stopping him and aiming him towards a wall that had a dozen sheets of paper tacked to it with different majors written on each.

Ziv started throwing his darts.  Two of the first five ended up on the floor.

Zeke watched as the darts found their way to the papers and stepped closer to the wall when Ziv was done.  "You got four on Philosophy, four on french, and one on accounting and one on art history."

"Where were the other two going to hit?"

"Physics on the one and computer science on the other."

"Which ones didn't get hit at all?"

"The other six.  How are you picking which one you're taking?"

"Oh, I'm taking English.  I just wanted to throw the darts and see what would happen," Ziv said, moving the blindfold down around his neck.

"You little snot!  And here I thought you'd actually lost your mind!"

"Disappointed?"

"A little."

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January 17, 2008

"Did you ever read one of those stories where love manages to surpass death, and then, rather than feeling happy for the main character, you feel miserable for yourself, because you'll never have that?"

"In one of those mood, huh?"

"No, seriously.  Look at this.  The one lover dies, gives his soulmate a challenge, then, eighty years later, the living one returns, dies, and they pick up laughing and loving like they're teenagers again."

"There's a reason it's called fiction, you know."

"You don't get it."

"No, I do.  You're lonely.  You've just ended another relationship--badly--and you're wondering if there are any decent human beings left.  Fearing that there aren't, you turn back to your books, where you just get even more depressed because books are 'feel good' stories where heroes always save the day, get the girl, and live happily ever after.  But you and I both know that life isn't like that."

"....I want it to be."

"The closest you're going to get to love surviving death is me."

"I think I got gypped.  Stuck with my brother for eternity."

"You love me and don't know what you'd do without me, just admit it."

"You know you've ruined my perfectly good moping mood, don't you?"

"Yes, well, that is why I'm here."

"No it's not."

"No, it's not.  But it is one of the perks."

For those that drop by and have no idea what's going on.  The first one is Tyler talking.  The last one--they've been featured in a few other dribblies, but I haven't named them yet, and the middle one was just something random to take my mind off of some issues I'm having with my own college woes. 

To whom it may concern,

     There comes a point in everyone's life where we realize that we are nothing but a product of our upbringing.  And that's where things get messy.

     I don't know you, mom.  I don't know about your childhood or the way your family did things.  All I know is how you did things with us.  And in that regard lies the issues at hand.

     In the past year, I have made a conscious effort to distance myself from you.  Repeatedly over the years, I requested simple things of you: look me in the eye, don't belittle me or my dreams--at least to my face, and treat me as though I was not a mistake.  I will only allow someone to tear me down for so long.  Mistake or not, I am your child.  I deserved love, patience, and understanding.  Having found you incapable of such things, I have severed our relationship indefinitely.

     As you may have realized by now, then, this letter is not for you and you will most likely never lay eyes upon it.  This letter is for me.  You hurt me and have left scars that may never heal.  This letter is to help me move past those hurts and become the person that I want to be--because of and despite you.

     I lived with you for eighteen long years.  During that time, I was made out to be an outcast among my siblings, a burden to my mother, a caretaker/maid to the household, and a shame upon my family.  I watched you fight with and drive away the only decent man you've known and the only family member who treated me as blood and not a street urchin.  You sent my father--a man I love and respect--away and replaced him with a string of losers and one-night-stands that fluttered into a home that he bought and destroyed what little family we had left.  You drove me again and again to the brink of suicide--leaving me a sobbing, bleeding mess on my bedroom floor, and not once did you pull me away from that ledge.  Not once did I look at you and discern even the slightest care of whether I lived or died.

     Mom, you spent years of both of our lives setting me up and readying me for failure.  Two decades you spent, filling my head with self-doubt, self-loathing, and a neverending need to prove to you that my life is worth something.

     I've realized some things during my hiatus from you.  Things that should have been obvious to me from the beginning, but I was a stupid kid--so desperate for love and affection that I blinded myself to the truth.

     1.  For reasons unknown to me, I am not the child you wanted or expected.

     2.  No matter how hard I work or what I work at, I will never please you.

     3.  My life is worth living because I make it that way--you have no say.

     4.  I will live my life in a way that makes me happy, not you.  You had your childhood and life--this one is mine.

     5.  I am who I am, and I will be this way tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.  I am neither ashamed of this        

          or unhappy with this.  I am proud of who I am and the choices I have made.

     While you stood laughing, mother, I was beaten, abused, molested, and ridiculed.  And you knew.  You should have helped me.  Whether you believe it or not, you were supposed to protect me.  I should have felt safe coming to you; not afraid.

     I guess the worst part about this is that I don't hate you.  The worst part is that sometimes, when I drive by the house I grew up in--the place you live--I feel the urge to stop.  To give you one more chance.

     But I don't.  And I won't.

     I've gotten better without you.  Everyday I find more things to smile about, and everyday my past seems more and more like someone else's.  I've come a long way since our paths parted, and even though I've got a long way to go, with every step I feel better, more confident, and happier.

     I hope that one day you'll be able to be happy for me--that I found happiness and success.

                                                                                           Sincerely,

                                                                                                      Le petit souris.