Whimsical

Rereading my last entry, I noticed something; in decades of writing here, that was the first time I instinctively wrote a poem from someone else’s perspective. My imagination of what she might say, of course, but still. This place has always been built to leverage hyperbole for my own suffering. I only caught that shift once I read it back as a reader, not as the person who wrote it.

And I did what I do, I sat with it and I thought about it. And what struck me was how much of a stretch it was, imagining how she actually feels. Maybe she’s upbeat, carefree, and I’m just another name on a long list of people in her life. To be fair, she’s built that way, social, disciplined about staying in touch with people. I’m the opposite. A rock sitting in a corner, perfectly content gathering moss and centipedes underneath.

Which raised a question I hadn’t really let myself ask: why do I have to be the adult in every “situation-ship”? I do have the freedom to be whimsical, erratic, unreliable, selfish, childish, if I want. So why am I overthinking this so hard? It’s honestly a little condescending of me, assuming people can’t get a handle on their own life and move on in a few months from a relatonship that we had. Given my running list of issues, I’d bet she’s somewhere thinking, phew, bullet dodged.

Okay, back to here and now. A confession, hard as it is to put down in writing: sometimes I just want to feel wanted. A person with free will, still yearning for me. I want to be held, to be loved, but without guilt. Without compromising my own morality. Without deceit. And without putting the fragile structure of the relationships around me at risk. Some days I feel this so intensely that I think it almost wouldn’t matter who the person was, as long as they could hold me and I could feel love pass through me again. And then I turn my head, and there she is; someone I promised, years ago, to build my whole life around. Why is it so hard to find that same feeling with her?

The last few months have made one thing clear, the way I show love in that relationship has mirrored how it has been shown to me. A functional, devoted arrangement. No touch. No words spoken out loud to say how either of us feels. Just attachment demonstrated through the rituals of labor.

If I don’t do something, this is it. This becomes the entire shape of my life. The barrier standing in the way of change feels as tall as Everest. And yet I also don’t want to be frivilous with relationships and commitment. My daughter is at a delicate juncture right now, I can see it plainly. My son is craving the construct of a happy family, or maybe I’m just imagining that. But when he says, “I want it with both of you,” what else is that supposed to mean?

The cost of doing nothing gets paid a decade from now, when it’s too late to matter and pointless to fix. And this lump sitting in my throat right now, will it become a permanent part of who I am, or will it eventually melt away?

These are the questions I keep asking myself on repeat, and never quite feel like answering. I’ve been here before, walked this exact road. So instead, I’m going to fix my knee and go for a run. Hopefully that fixes everything else too.

There’s no reason it won’t. Right?