POV

"It's the cliches that cause the trouble."
The chanted phrase like my fears haunting
Winterson's "Written on the Body"
Eliciting cringes from my own.
"Plenty of fish in the sea."
"Time heals all wounds."
"It's meant to be." "It wasn't meant to be."

Fuck it, I want to say some days,
Who are you to tell me it'll get better?
Who are you to act like you know how I feel?
Some days I even fool myself
But more often than not
If I'm being honest
"I think it's all going to stay the same."

This dialogue? It only holds true on my weakest days.
The days when all I can do is view myself through your eyes.
But the truth is, more often than not I'm strong.
My weak days are just so draining and all consuming and crippling that I pay them more mind.
Maybe the problem with cliches is... they're someone else's words.
Sometimes... sometimes we need to speak for ourselves.
Develop a new language.
See things through our own eyes.

Because in the end, all you ever have is you.
You've got to love yourself before you can love someone else.

One Good Stretch Before Our Hibernation

"898 miles to destination" chanted the GPS, mocking me in it's monotoned British accent.
It was nice to have him sleeping beside me once again, even if we were separated by the center console.

"898 miles to destination" chanted the GPS. I loathed the voice that had been so welcome 7 days ago. Not for all the usual reasons, but because this time it meant the end. Perhaps not final, but uncertain.

"It's difficult with old friends; difficult because it's so easy. You know one another as well as lovers do and you have had less to pretend about." I asked him all my questions. All of them. No holds barred. Closer now than we were then. Isn't that strange.

Even so, we're just a shell. "People collect shells, don't they?" You did. You gave me one before we were we, I treasured it and kept it safe, just as I do now.

"And from the ballroom floor we are in celebration, one good stretch before our hibernation. Our dreams assured, and we all will sleep well... sleep well."

He held me.                             There's a litte life left in us yet

"If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years, how man would marvel and stare." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

For a long time, it seemed like I could only create an identity for myself by classifying my traits into what I didn't want to be.

I didn't want to be left out.
I didn't want to be ugly.
I didn't want to be shy.
I didn't want to be a cookie-cutter version of someone else.
I didn't want to be a "Jewish-American Princess."
I didn't want to be vulnerable.
I didn't want to be alone.

Some traits were eliminated to please society. Others, for my family, my friends. Others... (those most essential)... to protect myself from getting hurt again.

But it's like trying to identify constellations by comparing dots on a chart to a sky-full of uncharted stars so that seeing the constellations, mentally connecting the dots the chart said to connect, was more of a matter of not seeing than seeing-- of ignoring patterns that the makers of star charts said were not there in order to see the ones they claimed were.

So now I choose build my identity on who I do want to be.

I want to be strong.
I want to be balanced.
I want to be passionate.
I want to be adventurous.
I want to be flexible.
I want to be open.
I want to be ambitious.
I want to be witty.
I want to be self-confident.
I want to be alive.

Time to make my own patterns. And, when I'm strong enough, stop looking for patterns entirely and allow the night sky to simply be what it is. That's harder than you'd think... learning to let things be only what they are.

http://www.nightskyphotography.com/

I finally feel like I'm beginning to find myself.

Just so you know, I felt all of that... the week at the lake house. Every positive identifier.

I felt more alive than I ever have before.

You are my sunshine

Phototropism: "directional growth in which the direction of growth is determined by the direction of the light source."

Plainly stated, plants grow toward sunlight.
That glowing orb Apollo comprises their whole world, their meaning for living, their life source.

They grow toward it day by day, reaching for a sun they will never hold
Yet they grow unabated, free.

"We should be so lucky."

How can you bear, little dandelion, to know you will never be united with that blooming sphere of fusion?
How can you stand the thought that it could some day disappear?
What do you grow towards then?

This is the thought that breaks me.
This is the thought that takes me away from rational thought into a wilderness where I am cursed to wander.
This... this is the thought that keeps my eyes from straying.

I cannot deny you have helped me grow.
You have nurtured me from the time I was a youth.
You showed me the world, you taught me to think for myself.

No matter what wrong you do me
No matter how badly you break me
No matter how much pain you cause me
I know deep down I could never stop growing towards you.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.



(Citation: Photo from http://weheartit.com/entry/27986578)

The Journey

Place and time are not inextricably interwoven.

In every moment, we carry with us the culmination of each and every past self.

In every interaction, we must relate with another individual, who likewise carries the burden of their past with them.

To further complicate matters (as if it was not already daunting enough), we are placed in a situation in which both histories are combined, like a lengthy formula, without knowledge of the other person’s variables.

Were that not enough… we additionally seem incapable of accurately relating to another those things which make up our past (and thus ourselves).

(Emotion)

(Memory)

(Cognitive process)

=Incommunicable.

It is impossible to convey the life sensation of any given epoch of one’s existence.

Perhaps it is even impossible to convey one’s existence at all.

      x!         ×         y!          = z
(person 1)       (person 2)

At any given time, there are two unknown variables, rendering any "answer" nothing more than conjecture.

In that week, I was so many versions of myself.

Usually, that would create conflict. But… for some unknown, magical reason, this time it didn’t.

This time was different.

There was something about that place…

Something that changed me.

Something that unwound me and awakened me.

“Lover’s Lane” read the street sign on that cool August night.

For the first time that week, I felt the twinge.

2AM. We stand in the driveway for a moment

Too soon he beckons toward the door.

Just another minute, I reply.

.

.

.

Silence.

He counts binary in his head

As I count stars.

(Citations: Quote by Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness)