A Call To The Better Way
So tonight I've not made the mistake of either consuming clonazepam nor immersing myself in a suite of soulful music that, in short order, I shall likely forever associate with you. And also, tonight, I've less a troubled heart than a pensive mind—though I confess to twinges of the former, nonetheless. But as it's these precisely that I mean to write my about, and perhaps my way through, I suppose it's apropos.
I was so relieved to discover that you'd written me, last night, and twice no less. I spared a moment of accusatory frustration with whichever cellular tower or device failures denied me those messages, and the subsequent phone call that might have followed. And I don't care at all to imagine you inspecting your phone with the same embarrassing, needy frequency with which I surveil my own, waiting for my reply, finding none, unable to spare yourself speculation on what it might mean. I did the same, despite every effort not to, despite writing here to divest myself of the sharpest edges of those emotions. And I need you so much less than you must need someone, the privilege, for the moment, being that it was me. Yet I was relieved, because it takes only a moment to reconstruct the past in light of new information, to delete or dismiss all the explanations I couldn't help but draft for why you might... forget me, even for a few hours. Because I can't, not yet, not so soon after the bright heat of the infatuation we had such little time to truly enjoy before it was intruded upon by our the embarrassing realities of our humanity and subsequently the unavoidable conditions of your life.
And this brings me to the purpose and point of tonight's expulsion of all that builds in me through the day without the freedom to love and reach for you as I otherwise might. My phone sits beside me still; I assigned a unique indicators of for all manner of you—one LED that means you've texted or called, a unique sound for each of those, the volume on my phone set to it's loudest rather than simply off, as I'd hitherto kept it. But even in the dead of night when I quiet my phone, sharing my room as I do with so many others, it would vibrate in a distinct pattern for you as against any other—not a single, enduring vibration, but a pulsing one Samsung dubbed "heartbeat", which title I couldn't resist.
My phone sits there, so configured, because I daren't miss your presence. And while there's a certain romance to that, I've got to be honest with myself in noting the obsessive, needy quality as well. It's newly associated with you, but the behavior—smartphones notwithstanding—is old and familiar. I've come to this country to fix what lies broken in me, and I'd thought that would mean sitting quietly for days on end in contemplation and quiet. It's gone, I admit, rather another way; but this is no reason not to learn, no reason to abandon my cause. So tonight I'm working with this feeling of that desperate need I know so well, and being honest with myself about it.
It's fear, first and foremost. Fear of being forgotten, fear of the vulnerability that comes of wanting someone and being without the immediate and definite evidence of being wanted in return. And this wanting, in turn, is just a correlate for my not wanting to be left alone with the person whose company most dread—of course, my own.
But here the story brightens. Because for the sake of wanting badly enough, at last, happiness for myself, I'm finding in fits and staggers the strength to face this fear. There's no version of the future wherein you remain by my side, should you ever formerly and actually choose to stand beside it, if I leave to linger these insecurities. Over a long enough time line, any one lacking the self-love to be with themselves will eventually also refuse any love freely given, one way or another. For the sake of the relationship we don't yet have, I must begin, now, to face and transcend these destructive traditions because to procrastinate still further can only mean that I will repeat, again, in some novel way, the pattern of distrust begetting conflict begetting distrust which ultimately poisons and destroys my relationship with any lover who's ever been worthy of something enduring.
So I think. I check the damn phone—fine, baby steps—but I resist the urge to call, to write, to plead for attention. Because that–the pleading for attention, the urgency to be noticed—is not love but addiction, we both deserve better from me. The greater challenge, obviously, by far is acknowledging that I deserve it, too. But ironically, to ever have you, I have to face me; I have to believe that I am someone you should love if ever you are going in that enduring, sustaining way I want so terribly bad for myself. Good god woman, but I want to be your favorite, and moreover, I want to have earned the privilege. And I fear but must face the fact that this means I've got to be... I've got to become someone I believe in, that I can love. I'm gonna check the fucking phone again, and soon I'm going to text or call because it's getting late enough that... that I feel justified in doing so. And it won't in truth be any less overtly and inappropriately eager, but at the very least I looked inward today and made the right choice fifty, a hundred times, which is something, I think.
Basically, I want to be proud of how I've treated you. I've been ashamed of having been loved (or whatever it was I accepted as such) for too long. I'm too old for this shit; I'm fed up. If the hard way through of forgiving myself, loving myself, handling myself, is the only way, then fuck it, it's the way I'll choose. And not, strictly speaking, for you, because that's crazy. But because I don't want to die alone, and for the moment, I'm lucky enough to have caught the eye of someone worthy of travelling to the grave with, and I'm trying to make the most of the momentum.
I was so relieved to discover that you'd written me, last night, and twice no less. I spared a moment of accusatory frustration with whichever cellular tower or device failures denied me those messages, and the subsequent phone call that might have followed. And I don't care at all to imagine you inspecting your phone with the same embarrassing, needy frequency with which I surveil my own, waiting for my reply, finding none, unable to spare yourself speculation on what it might mean. I did the same, despite every effort not to, despite writing here to divest myself of the sharpest edges of those emotions. And I need you so much less than you must need someone, the privilege, for the moment, being that it was me. Yet I was relieved, because it takes only a moment to reconstruct the past in light of new information, to delete or dismiss all the explanations I couldn't help but draft for why you might... forget me, even for a few hours. Because I can't, not yet, not so soon after the bright heat of the infatuation we had such little time to truly enjoy before it was intruded upon by our the embarrassing realities of our humanity and subsequently the unavoidable conditions of your life.
And this brings me to the purpose and point of tonight's expulsion of all that builds in me through the day without the freedom to love and reach for you as I otherwise might. My phone sits beside me still; I assigned a unique indicators of for all manner of you—one LED that means you've texted or called, a unique sound for each of those, the volume on my phone set to it's loudest rather than simply off, as I'd hitherto kept it. But even in the dead of night when I quiet my phone, sharing my room as I do with so many others, it would vibrate in a distinct pattern for you as against any other—not a single, enduring vibration, but a pulsing one Samsung dubbed "heartbeat", which title I couldn't resist.
My phone sits there, so configured, because I daren't miss your presence. And while there's a certain romance to that, I've got to be honest with myself in noting the obsessive, needy quality as well. It's newly associated with you, but the behavior—smartphones notwithstanding—is old and familiar. I've come to this country to fix what lies broken in me, and I'd thought that would mean sitting quietly for days on end in contemplation and quiet. It's gone, I admit, rather another way; but this is no reason not to learn, no reason to abandon my cause. So tonight I'm working with this feeling of that desperate need I know so well, and being honest with myself about it.
It's fear, first and foremost. Fear of being forgotten, fear of the vulnerability that comes of wanting someone and being without the immediate and definite evidence of being wanted in return. And this wanting, in turn, is just a correlate for my not wanting to be left alone with the person whose company most dread—of course, my own.
But here the story brightens. Because for the sake of wanting badly enough, at last, happiness for myself, I'm finding in fits and staggers the strength to face this fear. There's no version of the future wherein you remain by my side, should you ever formerly and actually choose to stand beside it, if I leave to linger these insecurities. Over a long enough time line, any one lacking the self-love to be with themselves will eventually also refuse any love freely given, one way or another. For the sake of the relationship we don't yet have, I must begin, now, to face and transcend these destructive traditions because to procrastinate still further can only mean that I will repeat, again, in some novel way, the pattern of distrust begetting conflict begetting distrust which ultimately poisons and destroys my relationship with any lover who's ever been worthy of something enduring.
So I think. I check the damn phone—fine, baby steps—but I resist the urge to call, to write, to plead for attention. Because that–the pleading for attention, the urgency to be noticed—is not love but addiction, we both deserve better from me. The greater challenge, obviously, by far is acknowledging that I deserve it, too. But ironically, to ever have you, I have to face me; I have to believe that I am someone you should love if ever you are going in that enduring, sustaining way I want so terribly bad for myself. Good god woman, but I want to be your favorite, and moreover, I want to have earned the privilege. And I fear but must face the fact that this means I've got to be... I've got to become someone I believe in, that I can love. I'm gonna check the fucking phone again, and soon I'm going to text or call because it's getting late enough that... that I feel justified in doing so. And it won't in truth be any less overtly and inappropriately eager, but at the very least I looked inward today and made the right choice fifty, a hundred times, which is something, I think.
Basically, I want to be proud of how I've treated you. I've been ashamed of having been loved (or whatever it was I accepted as such) for too long. I'm too old for this shit; I'm fed up. If the hard way through of forgiving myself, loving myself, handling myself, is the only way, then fuck it, it's the way I'll choose. And not, strictly speaking, for you, because that's crazy. But because I don't want to die alone, and for the moment, I'm lucky enough to have caught the eye of someone worthy of travelling to the grave with, and I'm trying to make the most of the momentum.
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