My fierce and frigid lioness,
After a long hiatus, I've decided I can no longer neglect a response. I feel silly after so long and think it best to pretend I never remembered. Or rather, I’ll pick up as though there was no delay seeing as I have half-written portions of unsent letters from months ago. I have (read: used to have) trouble accepting something as finished enough, in most (read: all) aspects of life. I’m getting better with (read: over) that.
My responses have been lagging because I always give priority to something I can put off (read: academia) over people and my relationships have suffered because of it. To put my studies/future/self above all else... isn't such a bad thing, is it? In theory, no. Not especially. But I say "I NEED to work on ______" and it never really gets done. I'm just making excuses.
After it builds up for a while, I cave and confess. "I've been making excuses... but seriously now, I've got this new stuff to get done." Repeat cycle.
I’m starting to think there are more hidden, repressed portions of your self than I originally imagined. I was a little taken aback by your steamy intro early this year and the ease with which you took me in and broke me down.
Pictures of my younger selves fascinate me because they are, collectively, everything I once was and everything I had potential to become. I can see the pain & heartache that was to come as easily as all the love and awe in my little sparkling blue eyes, perhaps even more than my now greenish, hazel eyes will reveal. As we get older, it comes more natural for the expressions of our eyes to lie; to save face and keep other inquiring minds out of our one last true stronghold: the mind. As much as I know (deep down in the depths of my current self as expressed through my inner child) that my evaluations of baby pictures are based on what I now know and hold true about myself; there is still a part of me that wants to believe that even then, the white warrior was so steady and true on a sort of predetermined path; a trajectory leading ultimately to my current sense of self. It’s a nice thought that also reinforces my maxim that EVERYthing happens for a reason.
I feel as though with each passing day, I become more honest, more genuine and more accepting of myself and with the world. As my character becomes more polished & squeaky clean, in my own mind, I begin to more accurately assess the tarnished world and all the broken people it has been producing. It’s so isolating to think “if I can do it, what is wrong with the rest of those assholes...”
Oftentimes, I wonder what will become of all the portions of myself floating around on the World Wide Web after my physical body has died. I would reason that this thought consumes my worries more often than that of all my physical belongings.
It’s not as hard to imagine the common routine of distributing a dead person’s things to those who remain behind. I’ve done it a few times and anticipate a few more times. While it was nice to be able to sift through all my father’s things and decide what I wanted to keep and what I wanted to pass on, I experienced a strange kind of emotion not so unlike guilt when assembling my pile of dead-person things. I took things back from him that were once gifts I gave thinking “this will be mine when he’s gone.”
I think sometimes that perhaps I am too preoccupied with having an enduring legacy, which (I thought until recently) really just boils down to being published. I really hate my obsession with thoughts like these. It’s as if living on in the hearts and the minds of those who have been close enough to know me personally, is just not enough. So recently the thought of children at some point in the future seems especially appealing. Who else will love and care for you so unconditionally to keep your memory alive long after you’re gone?
In many ways, my life feels like it's leading me in endless new directions. But at the end of the day, it's exactly the same direction. I'm still navigating and refining my niche to integrate my laundry list of lives. It's a tedious, daunting task. Even the old ones are constantly being recycled and reshaped into something new and useful. I try not to throw anything away for fear that I'll need it one day.
It's ironic that you should talk about your state of mind, as I was just thinking along these lines. I was close to tossing it because I kept coming up dry for ways to explain it. At least ways that wouldn't sound like the usual metaphysical "the same ole mind of mine is currently occupying an almost unrecognizable body" rant. I think you might get what I'm thinking, but failing to say. I feel like the way I think in relation to the world hasn't changed much in the last decade or so. On the other hand, how I think and feel about myself, the world and other people has changed immeasurably.
I think you and this Clive fellow have got it figured out, in a sense. To live right now, in every new moment as it presents itself. Not only living in the exact current moment as it happens, but also experiencing the world in that precise occasion as a new beginning with unlimited potential.
I feel like I'm always waiting for the next break. Like I'm always waiting to cross into some other threshold of experience. What I don't often realize is that longing will never be fulfilled. The grass is always greener, I suppose, in the impossible pasture of the future.
Isn't that funny, how we always feel so much more confidently in control and "here" than our past selves that write those silly, jaded journal entries? We laugh at our former selves and feel better that things are different now. We've grown smart & quick enough to leave them behind. Having spent three weeks on the other side of the world, in a completely alien culture, I felt like I had returned transformed, both physically and mentally. Yet, I have still to pin-point the source of this change. I promised myself I would be less self-conscious than ever after having been scrutinized so closely and accurately read for white tourist filth. I realized I’m only a little less concerned with other people and I’ve decided that’s something being American (and living in the U.S.) just does to you.
I re-read a response to an old acquaintance I wrote recently. I honestly felt like the confident and comfortable voice projected into this casual correspondence is noticeably different from the voice I was using less than a year ago. I feel I’m closer to who I want to be (seen as). Whether I am him yet or not, is debatable.
Love always,
al⋅ways [awl-weyz] –adverb
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