This is a snapshot of my life 7 years ago and the story still holds it's own......
Today in the Life of Sean 4 Nov 97
This is not a letter, ya know? Not really. This is more like..well, I don't know this is. It's already gone through a hundred incarnations in my head and I still have no idea how I'm gonna pull it off.
This is not a letter? This is an overflow. For everyone. And for you , my dear. Why do I feel like it's been just too damn long? Theoretically speaking, I shouldn't miss you any more now than I did before you went to work. Oh well, before meeting you I felt silly for missing you so I just didn't think about it or voice to much.
I miss you now. Too much has happened and every time I look around me I see something else that I need to tell you. The pile of things left unsaid just grows. No fresh veins to open or anything.
What's strange is that even as I sat and talked to you, I kept picking off little memories to share with you later, images here and there. A slideshow, if you will, for you to connect the dots between, a story, several maybe, one inside the other in so place, others side by side, others still completely unrelated
Some are interesting,
Some are not
All are significant in some way, some more than others. All of them, taken together are significant because they define something. And like I said, they've been piling up. So. Dim the lights. Get comfortable. Watch closely.
It's five o'clock and I go home from work. I know what it looks like outside before I open the door, but it still gets me. It's dark. Nighttime-dark, at five o'clock. I have a severe problem with Daylight Savings Time you see. Something about my internal clock just doesn't handle it well. Something about not being able to see daylight at the end of the work day, something about feeling as if the day is over at a much too early time. It induces hibernation patterns and severe depression for me. It gets me right in the gut and doesn't let go until April, and it takes a lot for me to fight it.
I've got these projects, see. I don't even know where to start with them, I have all of these dreams in my head, rolling around at a million miles an hour, trying to find their way into the real world that you live in. the first is almost done, but requires some more attention., which I will give tomorrow, it might have something to do with your birthday and mine. The second is about halfway finished but then so are the next hundred. Why won't they bear fruit? Some of these dreams have fell apart so badly at the seams that I'm second guessing my judgement and feeling very confused. How could I let it get so far out of hand? Any one of the above three could make me or break me and I keep putting them off and I can't seem to finish any of them by then. I'm pretty sure it's not physically impossible. If I'm wrong, I definitely can't finish enough of them in time to keep from going insane. Oh, and have I mentioned? I'll probably have more stuff on the list tomorrow, will I ever get ahead? Go figure.
I feel damaged. I keep repeating this to people, like a mantra or something. I feel damaged. I feel damaged. I keep hoping that I'll get some satisfactory answer or reaction or something to that statement, but of course there is none. I know, logically, that I should just stop saying it because it obviously isn't a pleasant thing for people to hear, nor is it something that they can come up with some sort of answer or anything. And you know what I'm expecting, but somewhere along the way I learned that if I get out and shout something from the rooftops, shouting if makes me feel better. It gets it out there where I can see it and feel it with my hands, poke at it objectively and deal with it. I've done it before, after all. So why isn't it working this time?
Should I try it again? Oh, here,
My tissues are rotting! Isn't that great? I hate having a cold. See? That doesn't help. I keep whining about it to my self, too, which just annoys the hell out of me. I hate it when I whine, it's so unbecoming. I mean, I'm really getting pathetic here, stuff like "why the hell couldn't it have been a toe or a piece of my shoulder or something?"
Sometimes, a certain touch from a certain person gets through to me. It's not always the same touch, it's not always the same person. It's a crapshoot, really, figuring out what my reaction to any kind of touch will be. Sometimes I shrink away. Sometimes I don't feel anything at all. The more I think about it, the more I realize even as I write this, that it's about intention. It's about knowing that it's more about intentions. It's about knowing that once given, the touch won't be taken away. It's about looking someone in the eye and asking, "do you know what you're doing? And are you sure? And would you still be doing this if things were different? And is this something I can come to rely on, is this something I can count on? Or will you leave too?"
Which is something that's not in my nature to do, and that I don't do. And which is something I don't know if I even could do, right now, to everyone I know I know I have,
just today,
quite suddenly,
quit trusting,
Everyone
Take that, and superimpose this. I seem to have just figured out what I need and it's surprising the hell out of me. It's something I never thought I'd hear myself say and I keep thinking. I am thinking this way for one of two reasons, either it's true and I've suddenly acquired some sort of wisdom, or it's just another phase. God know's I've ad enough of them. The thing I need is this; I need someone. Get the distinction? I need someone, here, now, with me. Someone I don't need to travel away to, across the country, or across cultural differences, or across anything that makes me think as if I have to put away some parts of me in order to be with them. Someone of my own kind. Someone good, someone kind, someone who can watch me fly and whom I can admire. Someone I won't get defensive with, because getting defensive is a sign of unbalance for me. Someone I can invite into my home, into my life, and who will fit in here, not someone I feel I have to leave myself behind for. Someone I just be with, but also be attracted to, mind, body and spirit. Not the one, mind you, just one with the potential and no reservations. Someone to be a friend.
Just someone. A touchstone. To keep me form being alone.
And having realized that recently (like, oh, in the past hour or so). I can suddenly accept nothing less. Because I don't just need it. I want it, too. And that doesn't happen to me often.
The awful truth, and the one that's hardest to say and perhaps doesn't even need to be said because it will surely hurt someone, is that I haven't found that someone yet. Oh, sure I've had, I've had a series of really intense things, happening that come pretty damn close. But they're real when they happen (love is pretty blinding), but just haven't lasted, because they'll go and I know it and I'll be alone.
I seem to have reached my limits. Go figure. Mark this day in your calendar. This is the best I can do. This is the farthest I can go. This is the most I can take. This is the best I can give. I can wish for the more strength, more poise, more confidence, more time, more wisdom, more intelligence, more wit, more, more, more, Wishing doesn't make it so. Doing makes it so, but I can't handle it all, not anymore, I can not.
I've just decided I'm tired of kicking things back into shape. It's like that old TV you have in your house that sometimes loses it's picture, so you slap it on the side and there's this "bzzz" and suddenly things are clear again. Sure, it's a cute thing to do, it might get laughs from passers by, and it might work for awhile. Eventually, thought, you're either gonna hit it too hard, or it might just decide, on its own, that's it's really tired of getting smacked and flip you the proverbial finger.
This particular machine that is me has just broken. I have to figure out how to fix it now. It doesn't look good. The thing that really gets me is just how many gears and screws and pins and axles this machine has. It's very complicated, you know, and you can't really fix one thing and expect everything else to suddenly start working again. It's not that simple. The whole thing needs a major overhaul.
This thing really was going to read differently when I first started. The snapshots haven't changed, it's just I've gotten a little bit older maybe a little more wise to the world, I hadn't planned on the trip taking this particular path down life. Who knew? You know the way all things go, this little speed bump I have ran into will end up just getting smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror as time goes by till it is not even a memory...
