over and over there's a thought that stays with me ...
what if everyone else got it wrong? what if 'the way it's supposed to be' isn't the way it's supposed to be at all? what if it is just this easy and we're the only ones in on the joke?
wouldn't that be funny?
this is my favorite song. watching this might just make it yours, too. (i dare you not to dance along.)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ie1Qsh6AnS4
after running circle after circle, i am standing somewhere i've never stood before ... right on the edge of everything i want.
over my shoulder is the long road i took to get here ... winding and rocky and paved with the best of intentions. and up ahead is a grove and a voice whispering in my ear and for the first time, my excitement is greater than my fear.
tomorrow is the day i take the first step forward ... out of my head and on with my life.
what am i gonna wear?
the first time you fall in love, it changes you forever.
i know.
his name was e. he was tall and funny and i loved him more that winter than i've loved anyone since ... strong and true and completely without fear or guile ... the way i hope to love again someday.
when he ended things, it was over the phone. it was vague. and i was undone. i never knew the reason for the split and it was there, i think, that my imagination began its marathon ... running far and fast ahead of me, dodging logic and running circles 'round reason. i assumed he'd found someone more beautiful, more intelligent, closer to home ... more of everything and less of me. i figured - no, i knew - i wasn't enough.
i wasn't entirely wrong.
i saw him one last time, in a hallway. he was standing with his back to me and she was leaning into him. it was she who saw me first and when he turned, he seemed embarrassed. sad, too. he shrugged, a meager attempt at an apology, i imagined, as the girl revealed herself and my world skipped a beat.
her name was k. and she was my arch nemesis. (when you're sixteen - all elbows and lip gloss and drama, it's okay to have an arch nemesis. it's expected, even.)
she was tall and blonde and beautiful ... cool, in that effortless way the wealthy seem born with. she was the opposite of me in every way. we knew each other, though not well, through competition; always finishing first and second, always wanting to best the other.
she smiled, then, slyly and looked down at me, heavy lidded and pleased with herself ... smug and victorious ... and held him, tightly - the way she'd hold any other trophy.
i didn't know what to do, so i did what it turns out i now always do when i hear my heart start to break ... i smiled, as warmly as i could, took a few steps backwards and walked away. and i never looked back.
i almost never look back.
that cut was deep and the scar remains ... thick, though softer now with age, and fading slightly. it manifests itself in my overdeveloped fear of rejection. unwarranted, some say, but still, i am who i am and i do what i do. and in the beginnings of things, or in the middle (when i'm happy and my guard is down), i am certain that it's waiting around the next corner, at the end of the hallway, leaning against a wall.
it goes away. it does. it burns off, with heat and light, like the fog outside my window and i like to think it keeps me humble, grateful, present. but mostly, i think it means i miss the simple joy of things ... of a compliment, of a conversation, of a meal ... and i don't want to do that. i think it means i push when i don't mean to and race ahead when i really would be content to walk ... and i don't want to do that. i don't want to make it easy for people to walk right in and out of my life. not anymore. i've had enough.
i want to give myself a chance to feel in this moment - as this moment - and not with any eye to yesterday or tomorrow. i want to just be ... for myself ... right now. there is time. there is always time.
i know.
because e. and i found each other again and are friends, now. the best kind. (the kind who keeps the connection to the person i used to be - that earliest version of myself, when the whole wide world was open to me and all i had to do was choose a direction, pick my path. the kind who represents potential and possibility in their purest forms - before heartbreak. or doubt. or envy. or vanity. before responsibility. and obligation. and compromise. before. the kind who knows my history and keeps my secrets and who understands the power of gravity.)
and last night, he told me the story of the hallway. from his side. and how he's never been more at odds with himself than he was in that moment - one girl wrapped around him; the other deep inside him. and how, when he needed them most, his words failed him. how, in that moment, and in the days and weeks before, he was the one who wasn't 'enough.' it was never about me at all. not everything is about me.
and suddenly, everything looks a little different. and the fog is burning off. and so is the fear.
yeah. the first time i fell in love, it changed me forever.
it's changing me again.
sometimes, i am so obtuse. or as my friend, mylinh, says, 'oblong.'
i am so oblong.
i've let my imagination get the best of me ... racing forward as if life were one giant mad-lib - hurriedly filling in the blanks all by myself, when they might best be left open for awhile ... or given patiently, graciously to another to fulfill.
i, in all my oblongitude, pretend i have all the answers when i don't, really. really, i don't.
as hard as i try, i can't conjure them, can't tidy them up - they will arrive when they wish and they will be fragile and messy and they will be misspelled. they will be perfect in their imperfection.
and i will welcome them when they come ... when they tiptoe in behind me, slide in close and quiet as i sleep, crash into me full stop ... whether by text or by tongue.
the discovery, after all, the 'not knowing'... that is the real adventure - and the remedy itself ... to heal us all and make us wise before the fall.
someone bless us fools.
there was an unusual man who wandered into my store on occasion. to use the restroom, to sit in a comfortable chair and listen to the conversations going on around him, to drain the last drops from the abandoned starbucks cups customers leave on tables and counters. he was always polite and friendly. his smile - warm and porous. and when he laughed, which was often, his tongue stuck out and between his teeth. in those moments, i think he defined 'joy.'
he made people nervous. but he almost never spoke to anyone and he never stayed long. and he always cleaned up the bathroom a little and pushed in his chair when he was finished. and he always took his empty paper cup with him. (which was more than i can say for anyone else who ventured in.)
despite protests from staff and customers, i never asked him to leave. in fact, i was likely to hover nearby and help him keep his peace. (sometimes, i'd slip him a bottle of water or sneak him a doughnut from the kitchen. it was the least i could do, he was quite generous with a smile.) we never spoke, until one day last year, just before i moved away.
as i passed by him, he reached out to me. his touch tender, despite the roughness of his hand. and when i turned to him, he looked directly into my eyes, like he was looking for something in me ... i'm not sure what, but i could hear my heart slow as he did. and when he'd found whatever that was, his hand squeezed my hand and he said, 'you used to be ... and people still mistake you for ... a comet. but really, you are a volcano. and your eruption will be powerful. and beautiful. and true.'
and then he was gone.
and i couldn't quite move. i felt suddenly undone. i couldn't, in that moment, completely grasp what it meant, but i knew that it was important, for a million different reasons, not the least of which was that he took the time to look at me ... look inside me and through me and to connect. to give me this little gift of his insight. unexpected and curious.
it's been with me for awhile now. i turn it over and around in my head as i move into my new life, wondering what he meant and when i'll feel what he felt in me. i've been waiting. and a whisper in my mouth, in the deepest, darkest part of the night finally convinced me he was right. i was a comet ...
a small body, something out of ice and stars (cold and painful), orbiting the sun. my layers melting and evaporating; my tail of dust illuminated by someone else's light. i would appear out of nowhere in the sky and gradually vanish out of sight.
and now, maybe i am a volcano ...
an opening in the surface of the earth where the plates, like thoughts, have shifted. coming together, pulling apart in an erratic dance of history and mystery and magic. a head in gold tipped clouds. steamy pillars rising into blue skies. smoking green lakes. the wild play of colours on the walls inside, once dormant, now showing signs of unrest. heat rising, steam seeping, turning, rolling, spitting, grinding, laying bare my insides. the molten marrow, undiscovered deep below, breaking free into the boundless sky and landing softly on new ground bourne of fire.
unimagined, unspoiled beauty. unbound power. perchance, and weather permitting, the sole true power you want to surrender to.
and i'll never let anyone tell me differently.
