Darling Dismissed,

I feel nostalgic and full of wonder as I reread our last official correspondence. Nearly nothing has changed from the content of it, being nearly a year ago though it was. 2011 also passed quite feverishly and abruptly, without any serious loss of life or limb. Hence my wonderful state of curiosity - is it that for you everything has changed or also not a thing? I know you've loved and unloved and loved again... but what of that love now? I hope it has changed for the best.

I'm on the brink of renewing my lease at the lofts so it's going to be another super-safe year in a maximum security state-of-the-art art loft warehouse with no direct sunlight in the interior units - chances of getting a unit with windows being less than favorable. I miss the sunlight. The skylight has great diffused sunlight... but certainly the lack of direct UV does something to your home life & your demeanor. Similarly, I miss the sunlight of your face and spirit to warm my eyes and experience.

My distance from you has grown ever wider as the days drift on in a slow, but steady and mechanical current. My days are routine enough and I have plenty to fill the time, avoid the worry and maintain a strong and steady pace. But I get lonely more than anyone knows and that makes it even more lonely.

I often long to speak to you, just to hear your voice and be able to say whatever it is I need to say. Occasionally I have called you, just right when I needed to so I could say those things. It was the random call from a 504 number you didn't recognize and of course I wouldn't leave a message without knowing for certain it was still your number. I feel so much farther from you than ever before as well. I often feel lost without your loyal and understanding listening ear. There is truly no one else like you in my life. The time and distance bring a sincerity to our words and a fondness to our hearts. I can't help but think your involvement or lack thereof may have a lot to do with your emotional ties to a mister So & So.

More and more recently, it feels like intimate relationships are taking the most important people in my life away from me. It's only natural that being in a relationship requires a bigger emotional and time commitments. As a result friendships are given less focus -- this is understandable. But something about them ....

I fear I have become completely cynical of relationships. I've seen the way they consume lives and change individuals. I don't trust them. They are bad news either in their crippling or undermining of the individual impetus and personality.

Am I just bitter and sad about my lack of a successful hunt? You said so yourself, love makes you a fool. While being foolish and in love you can rise to new levels and go beyond what you could be on your own, it also (further) distorts your perceptions and blinds you to your own infinite and inexhaustible potential. It is unstable as you have noted. Once you felt fear of it and now you want it more than ever. Albeit with someone else entirely, it is still what you eluded and then found yourself longing for.

I'm watching everyone around me cling to someone else for their own individual reasons, but I feel far too many are for all the wrong reasons. This prevents people from learning how to fend for themselves and "rough" it, so to speak. These people come to depend on being in relationships for their well-being. I often see these individuals at a disadvantage; they are weak and lost without their counterpart.

I often don't approve and it becomes a struggle between life or love. Being aligned with the former - as a part of friends' lives - I find myself left standing alone in a hypothetical bar full of happy, weak, self-deluded couples. Coupled with my own experience of being in relationships - generally being some sort of awkward trouble to sort out, in the long run... tears and life plans reconsideration - it seems an awful sordid mess with what it has become. I fear it is the dark energy that's driving everyone apart.

We should not go so long without words. It affects me most terribly.

Next time you should answer the phone.

Lonely & Bitter

Wreath Wraith,

I feel far from you. More so than I ever have, perhaps. I’m not sure what’s perpetuating the distance. It’s me, and it’s you, of course—but there’s something just beyond us, too. There’s dark energy driving us apart.

Can you believe we’re here again: ignoring ads for the holiday season? 2010 has come and gone quickly and quietly, though not uneventfully. It has passed like a flu, feverishly.

You have moved, more than once, since this year was born. You have met people, and left people. You have hurt and been hurt, I feel. You have made a number of resolute plans, and broken them. You have eschewed. Whom? What? I wish I knew.

I have loved, and unloved. And I find myself on the brink of giving and asking for a type of commitment that I haven’t entertained in over 3 years (as if that’s some sort of feat). I find myself longing for a life that I once killed (metaphorically) to escape from. And for some reason, no dissonance accompanies that pining. My identity feels intact. And most profound and unfamiliar, I do not feel panicked, manic, irrational, immature, naïve, or fretful. I feel as though I’ve earned the right to long for and plan for this life, this path. I feel as though I have things that I can exchange for a place in the life of my lover—for instance, a place in my life for him.

Does that make me a traitor? This new found confidence? These conventional desires and goals? I feel as though you won’t approve. I feel as though you’d evade this topic if we were speaking to each other with our voices right now… We’d end up in more abstract terrain, the kind with imaginary mushrooms rather than edible ones.

I wish to hear from you.

I long to see you.

I love you.

--MistleMiss

Darling Doodlepuss,

So much time has passed since my last correspondence. So much has happened in this time and yet.... nothing really stands out. Everything's the same except the cast, plot & setting. I'm still moving, slowly but surely, out of the same small University town that thrust us both into the so called "real world." Although, I suspect we'd agree that mine is more "real" than your extended stay in the inclusive realm of illusory allusion we know as academia.

I hate to be the bad news bearer, but the silence that has been keeping you warm all this time was nothing more than an misleading outlier. Your assumptions could have been accurate, but I like to think you have higher expectations for my life than what's actually been happening. While I still have high standards for this new life, it hasn't yet yielded anything more glamourous or ground-breaking than I had hoped.

Surprisingly, I don't have any more time now than I did in school... not that I ever really hit the books like I should have. I've been struggling through a book of E. White's short stories here lately. And by struggling, I mean between moving/working and cultivating a new love interest, I've been stuck on the second story for weeks now because there's always something more appealing winking at me from across the bar. On the side, I'm working my way through a book of Ginsberg's poems.

I don't feel much more grown-up than I did mooching off the government to get through school, but at least now it feels less like I'm running from something and a bit more like I'm running towards something. Something like a new identity as a part of the working class. The more time I spend around my fellow clerks, I realize how vastly different our paths have been yet there is remarkable similarity in where we are now. I find comfort in knowing I don't have nor am I a "baby mama," unlike most of my coworkers. (Note that "baby mamas" are a distinct category to wives & spouses, as there is often some combination of these.) More than anything, I enjoy the fleeting banter with the regulars who come in for beer, gas, and/or cigarettes. Some real characters come in and I rather like imagining what their lives have been like and are. It always makes them more interesting than I'm sure they would be, actually.

I just worked the graveyard shift for the first time, 10pm - 6am. It wasn't as bad as I'd suspected and I got a lot done. Surely in the next week of 10-6's I'll get better at it and love it right before I hate it and wish for a normal cycle again. It was interesting though to be getting off work as the sun was coming up, then getting home to have a beer and play catch-up. Fortunately, there's no one in the world I'd rather be catching up with over a cold brewsky than yourself. Luckily, we keep this 24-hour-emergency-blog up and running so that access to one another is as possible and necessary as the internet itself.

Despite all the flux in the content of my life, I'm glad you're still a constant confidant to keep me grounded by reflecting back to me who I have been/who I am with a keen eye on who I could be. He's closer than ever and I'm looking forward to meeting him, finally.

Sincerely,

Your Biggest Fan, Lex Luther

Dearest:

Sometimes, I think that
silences keep us warm, clothe
us in assumptions.


I'm okay with that.

--Doomed

Shoeless Shawty,

"Once you can drink legally, you won't want to do it anymore."

Well, that's not true. And if you were thinking of telling me that once I actually can hang out with professors in social contexts that I won't want to do that either, you're once again wrong. Even as a freshman, part of my drive to get through the undergraduate step and press on to graduate school was the hope that someday, the professors would accept me as one of their own and invite me to poker night, and to play pool at dive bars. The former hasn't happened, but the latter has. I don't think it's the kind of thing to make a habit of, but it certainly inspires warmth. As I bought everyone their second round of beers, I felt so warm: my veins were twinkling strands of Christmas lights.

Now, of course, it's different. It's an occasional and welcome treat, rather than a pressing need. I no longer spend hours on the internet, plumbing its depths for clues to the identities of rock-stars-turned-neuroscientists, or IM-harass professors who dine on entrees of infant. Nor, interestingly, do I watch reruns of my favorite television shows over, and over, and over, and over... You think there's a connection between those two dwindling interests?

I do. I think it's partially because I miss you, Shawty. I'm realizing that there is something to this whole human interaction thing...

We cycle, you and I. For months, it's all calls and emails and mutual creativity. And then for months more, most of my updates come courtesy of your cryptic status updates on the Great Allah of Social Networking. When I read them, I wonder: what could you possibly be referring to when you mention forks and prostitution? Surely it's something big. Surely, huge things are happening in your life. I'd like to know what they are, lover.

I envy your fores to India, to tropical isles, to bustling Canadian cities... You've said before that your impulse to travel to such places feels like you're running, but surely you've gained some unique insights into the state of the world through those endeavors, even if they were only incidental to your goal to get out of this place or that one... At this point, I think that if I ever experience such places, it'll only be incidental to my goal of following this person or that one out of this wicked little town.

See you soon.

I hope your holiday is full of twinkling lights and eggnog.

--Old Saint Nomad

My Hungry Ghost,

"Need and struggle are what excite and inspire us: it's our hour of triumph that brings the void." --W. James

That's objectively true, right? Isn't it times like the one you're describing that bring out the best in us? The times when you feel like you might stop breathing at any moment? The times when academia, friends, family, lovers, pull you apart in so many directions that it just doesn't feel like enough molecules comprise your body? The times when you feel like simultaneous implosion and explosion is imminent? Of course--it's only "the best" in retrospect. I think James probably knew that when he penned that particular quote. I don't think he was so naive as to think that "need and struggle" are actually enjoyable--but they are the times that we reflect on with pride and fondness in some strange, masochistic way.

trans⋅par⋅en⋅cy
–noun, plural -cies.

1. the quality or state of being transparent.
2. something transparent, esp. a picture, design, or the like on glass or some translucent substance, made visible by light shining through from behind.
3. Photography.
a. the proportion of the light that is passed through the emulsion on an area of a photographic image.
b. a photographic print on a clear base for viewing by transmitted light.

I feel like that sometimes--only sometimes, and with some people. Like a photographic print on a clear base, constructed specifically to be viewed by transmitted light. Like I have to be held at the correct angle with respect to the sun in order to be seen correctly and fully. Like not many people know what angle that is. Like I'm glad that they don't. Like I think maybe you do, and I can think of maybe two others (maybe. barely.). Like I think I'm glad that it's only a few that can see through these awkward mannerisms, and inappropriate facial expressions and beyond to what's creating them.

I think I have a new (or at least new to me) metaphor for you, and I think it's a little more accurate, a little more precise than the others: LOVE IS DESTRUCTION, which can translate to LOVE IS FALLING, LOVE IS INFECTION, LOVE IS INSANITY. I especially like thinking in terms of infection... Love/infatuation as an illness that needs to be cured. Like you have some infection that's making you incredibly feverish and irrational, and you just want to shake it so that you can start to see life and people through a clearer lens? Through the lens you used to use? Objectivity is such a need for me. To have my objective skills bound like this is intolerable. My pro/con lists feel useless. Everything feels like it's happening outside of me and my experience. This thing, this infection, has taken a life of its own, and I'm not sure what it's doing, where it's heading, what organs it's shut down, which tissues it's planning to invade next. I'm not sure how close I am to death.

(Have I taken the metaphor too far yet?)

It's not just "social" infatuation that does this either, I'm including "parasocial" infatuation as a possible catalyst too. It too can blind you, distort your priorities, change your self-concept in ways that are disproportionate. House made me forget that sociality is important to people for a reason. Rube (Dead Like Me) made me forget that I'm alive. Paul (In Treatment) made me forget that I rejected Freud long ago, and that I don't blame my parents for every neurosis that plagues me. Each infatuation infected me severely (I think that you, unlike some others, will not judge me for talking about television in these terms--I think you understand), and I'll never be the same because of them.

I miss you, lover. I'd like to talk soon. I'd like to take turns holding each other up to the light.

--M. Curie.

My perfect complimentary self,
Life often seems to sneak up on me when I feel I’m most prepared to divide and conquer its ranks of deadlines and demands. Before I know it, I’m up to my eyeballs in a stagnating stew of uncertainty and doubt. The days seem to be getting shorter & shorter all the while and there just aren’t enough hours in the day anymore.
Then there are the occasional breaks of deep contemplative insight or the like. I catch a glimpse of what I’m grasping for in the darkness. I remember how beautiful it can be when the goal is in sight. The unadulterated bliss of motivation fuels my will to endure; implicit motivation, of course. I’m struggling to find that. I’m just reaching a point in the semester when there appears to be a fine focusing of relevance/revelation. Graduation is now a more attainable goal. I put a lot on my plate and tend to juggle so many little things; I lose sight of the longer-term goals.

Also, lately I’m realizing that I have such an abundance of love letters to ex’s. Or, more specifically “dear john” letters. The kind you write to get it all out in hopes that you’ll feel better after; In hopes that you’ll feel some kind of solid closure. Except, in most cases, the “other man” I’d found was myself. Most of them never leave my computer after their initial drafts. I wouldn’t really consider many of them “done” or ready for sending. I typically only write enough to feel I’ve purged the unrequited feelings adequately.

To merge those two unrelated ideas with another seemingly random segue way, nothing is so encouraging or motivating as a letter from you, my love. They are, in many ways the opposite of these letters I seem to collect. I feel understood and acknowledged. You’ve got a knack for soothing my fears and reassuring (or at least entertaining) my hopes. I only hope I can do the same for you.

Infatuation is quite a funny beast.

I have a couple of Steven Pinker books I keep meaning to mine.
I remember hearing once a couple of years ago (and perhaps I’ve told you this already) that we developed our humanness from the particular proteins of cooked meat. The details and source of this theory have become increasingly fuzzy over the years; So much so that I’m not sure if I dreamed it up in a National Geographic special. The basic idea though, is that fire changed the composition of meat in a way that (over some time) changed the way our brain was structured and functioned. It has stuck with me for quite a while and I’m content that there’s at least some connection there. We are, after all, the only animals that cook our meat; or decide to become vegetarians, decide to eat only kosher, decide not to eat at all from sunrise to sunset or decide that a cow is too holy to even consider eating. We are the only creatures that really seem to decide anything, because we do what we want. This includes thinking abstractly/in metaphors, just generally being anomalies and becoming infatuated.

I wonder what Pinker would have to say about the origin of our gods. That would certainly seem to be the biggest metaphor of all. A mirror of ourselves, reflecting back all of our imperfections and inadequacies. Our ultimate collective critic.

More specifically than just being easily infatuated, I’m more concerned with my collection (again with the collecting) of parasocial relationships. Although, I guess most of them wouldn’t actually be parasocial; I mean, most of them know about me. I have quite a few “friends” on a certain networking site. There are many who I’ve never met in person, but many more who I only know in passing, having met only once or twice. It isn’t the actual person I’m having a relationship with, however, but the person who is presented in the “about me” and “interests” and “movies” and so on. In this way, we get along quite nicely in the memories I make up for us in my head. They are the most perfect friends because my assumptions of them are always correct & they always live up to my expectations. I promise it really isn’t as bad/pathetic as it sounds. All this happens without me putting too much thought into it. I haven’t had any imaginary (or real) tea parties with these hypothetical friends. Yet.

I really rather like this idea that Pinker presents, though. How could we live in a world composed of anything less than metaphors? When I really think about it, I can see the association with love and falling. Metaphorically, of course. If you think about literally falling, you are usually quite vulnerable after a fall. You’re on the ground, possibly hurt or disoriented, cursing whatever it was that made you fall. In that sense, you are not so much yourself. Your “self” being the enduring qualities you think of as uniquely “yours.” You are operating on more adrenaline and more raw human chemicals. So, I guess in that sense, you’re a lot more human even though not so much the unique human you’ve been conditioned to recognize. I’ve always liked the analogy of love with being on a merry go round (the kind you spin around on in parks) for the same reasons. It makes you dizzy/disoriented, you can fall off and hurt yourself, but it feels really good if you do it right or at least while it lasts. In this case, falling WOULD be the heartbreak.

--Vertigo