a thought on which to end the week. (and to carry forward forever more).

 

i have come to learn (the hard way, always the hard way) that there comes a point in fledgling romantic endeavors in which i become just-attached-enough that i start. to lose. my mind.

fear takes hold and my deepest insecurities take root and a very small and very ugly version of myself emerges--a woman who acts out of fear and need.

and the sight is. not. a pretty one.

and what ends up happening is the very things the men were first attracted to get strewn about in the wake of my...terror.

there's a line from one of my very favorite Avett Brothers songs that i often think about:

If you're loved by someone you're never rejected. 

how satisfying it is to be adored by a person. how seductive. it is grounding. a lightening rod of sorts that harnesses the big and scary and unmanageable things and drags them down to earth. makes everything a bit more doable.

but in the absence of that adoration--in the absence of that person, we must be our own lightening rod.

and i suspect, even with another person, we must constantly remember that on our own, alone, we have the ability to ground ourselves.

i came across this earlier in the week and wanted to share. it is a father's letter to his little girl (about her future husband):

i can't get this out of my head (nor do i want to): your only task is to know deeply in your soul--in that unshakeable place that isn't rattled by rejection and loss and ego--that you are worthy of interest...If you can trust your worth in this way, you will be attractive in the most important sense of the word. 

what powerful (dare i say, holy words). easier said than done, of course. but man do i want to strive to be that person.

read the full letter here.

i cannot tell a lie

i think now about how you asked me if i did it on my own. alone. or if i surrounded myself. warm bodies as protection, distraction.

and i must have half-smiled. taken a deep breath. tilted my head to the ground. looked away, even as we walked together, the same direction compelling us forward.

i knew if i was honest it'd be years before we'd meet again.

but i cannot tell a lie. and even if i could, i figured it was a lie that would bury us in that illusory thing that is borrowed time.

so i gave you the single greatest truth i now hold:

i did it on my own. 

and another before-and-after erupted before us. an uncrossable, impassable, impossible line.

and now i watch from a distance, and only upon occasion, as you thrust and flail and do it exactly as i did not, but in the only way you know how--for now. because time moves differently for each of us.

and i must forgive you for this.

for seeking comfort in familiar cutouts that bear no resemblance to my own.

now i wonder if you'll ever come back. and mostly fear you will.

and that when you do i will know too much and have seen too much and my answer will be the saddest and deepest and bluest bruise of a no.

daydreaming on the train

i thought you sat down on the train next to me today.

for a moment, i thought you sat down next to me.

{and i couldn't breathe.}

there was something about how the man shifted in his seat and held his hands and tugged at his sweater that made me think he might be you.

and i looked up at his reflection in the subway window across the way and right away i could see it wasn't you.

{and a little bit of air escaped between my lips.}

but damn if the way in which he tilted his head didn't feel like you.

and so i nearly didn't believe it--couldn't believe it. so much did i both want and need and fear he might be you that i made liars of my eyes.

and sitting there, next to a total stranger, i nearly reached for his knee, nearly pressed my shoulder into his, half-expected him to take my hand.

because if all i could get was a shadow of you, a ghost of you, an i'll-just-close-my-eyes-and-pretend-version-of-you i'd take it.

if i couldn't have you, i'd take someone who felt like you--even, and if only, for a moment.

i'd take ten minutes, on the train, next to a total stranger, and a sliver of a daydream.

things i wish someone had told me a really long while ago

1. on that moment someone says to you it'll come when you least expect it:

(or, another favorite, when you stop looking).

these expressions are the equivalent of someone saying it'll be in the last place you look, when you've lost something.

which is to say, correct. but also asinine.

of course it's the last place you look. which might also be the first, and how can both those things be true? it might also be the second place you look or the four-hundred-and-sixty-third place. there's no telling.

2. when someone asks why you didn't like a particular man who had great affection for you, your response need be nothing more than a simple because.  

because. period.

one word.

that response is wholly enough. affection given freely (which is the only way it can be given) does not mean you must reward it or reciprocate it. hell, you don't even have to be flattered by it.

but if that word alone does not suffice, how about this: because i didn't. 

because because.

because i didn't like his laugh and i didn't like his smell. because at the end of our third date my only thought was please don't let this man kiss me, please don't let him touch me.  the body knows. it always knows. and it'll tell you. but you have to listen.

a man's affection (or rather, any romantic partner's affection) is a starting point. a fork in the road. the absolute minimum of what must be expected. and if you choose to walk in the other direction, so be it. a man's affection is not a life raft, nor is it a fainting couch on which to collapse. to accept or not is your choice. and you need not explain that to anyone.

3. sometimes you just need someone to pass the lonely with.

and that is okay.

affection can be real and true and good and going absolutely nowhere.

some men will highlight your loneliness. draw attention to it, make it worse. their hand on your knee a distancing thing. and some men will raze that loneliness with a single glance. these are the men who will reveal themselves as home in the span of a night--in the length of time it takes to drink a glass of wine. these are the men who you will move mountains for--they are rare and remarkable and between the two of you a sort of alchemy takes flight.

and then there are the men who you want to kiss--the men you want to adore, but will never fall in love with. so kiss them. and go to breakfast with them. let them buy you dinner. take them to the movies and ruin summers with them.

people speak in directives about love. love entirely or not at all. take the whole of it or none of it. nothing in between.

but the thing is, sometimes the in-between is really good. it  is something-else-entirely and sometimes something-else-entirely is entirely right. for a time, it is entirely right. rich and fertile practice ground. a meaningful passing of the time.

sometimes something-else is the comfort of a man’s arm wrapped around you—the immediacy of its warmth and touch, but nothing else. it is not home and it is not the promise of home. but it is nonetheless healing and restorative. and it is your choice.

and that's okay.

man, i wish someone had told me it was okay a good long while ago.

you do not have to live your life according to the prevailing opinions about love and making a life. you have only to be ruthlessly honest with yourself about what it is you want and what it is you'll accept one-day-at-a-time.

photo by the divinely talented(and dear friend) emma hartvig

the truest thing i've ever written

when i was nineteen years old and home on christmas break i awoke from a dream, and upon doing so, scribbled down the following words:

"because sometimes i like being friends with you so much--i can't breathe"

it remains the truest thing i've ever written.

ironic because friends was entirely the wrong word.

i still have that slip of paper, despite having long since moved on from the man.

but not the notion, i certainly hope i'll never move on from the notion.