A woman I know lost her mother, and she longs for her on Christmas,
I only know because for some reason she vented to me,
Probably because I had shared my own piece of life a few days before,
But that’s not right, is it?
She shared nothing with me but a sense of unease.
I know what I know from other sources.
I didn’t know what to do for her.
I called a friend of hers and asked them to cheer her up.
I’m not sure, but I think that friend took offense, as she longed for her father.
And Ginsberg is in my ear yelling about the minds of his generation,
And I can’t relate to either of them.
The child I lost was unknown to me.
He only had gender because I assumed it.
He only had a name because we had playfully assigned it.
What I lost was never anything more than a part of me,
And thus, is not lost when I am ready to look for it.
And the next day I told her that I know things are going to be okay because the world is constantly repeating itself.
The Latin phrase printed on packs of Pall Mall cigarettes is the same phrase, albeit with different syntax, as the state motto of Kansas, where I did most of my growing up.
I, all of this is more complicated than it ever seems.
I watch television dramas centered on relationships because I want to know what it is that I am missing,
And I sympathize with that old flame that shows up out of nowhere; I am the man watching his love slide away; I am the man who comes home to find her with another; I am the cheater; I am the one she cheats with.
It’s more complicated than that. Those are roles we take, points of view we assume to avoid what may well be the truth.
We are people, and we are mostly water. With so much fluid in our nature, it’s a wonder we’re as stable as we are. Hydrogen is explosive.
This woman with the longing is fast becoming a good friend of mine, and this is strange because she is married, though that seems to be at its end, and was before she and I began to really talk, and there is nothing romantic exactly between us. She jokes that we are in a committed, though non-sexual, relationship. I am committed to another man’s wife, whether it is jest or not, it is a strange thing.
Before she finally gave up on me, realized she really did have to choose, she called me, pestered me, constantly. Emailed. That is not to say that I didn’t do the same to her, but it was different. I never left her, she most certainly left me. That is to say, replaced me. Suspiciously quickly for her best friend. She was dating him when we kissed in the rain after that long walk and talk. She was dating him when we had sex that last time. She was dating him as I sent her email after email pleading and loving her, sending my fingers through the text to caress her and slap her into my will. She stood fast, and pulled me along. We were terribly unfair to each other. I am glad that she stopped checking her email. I was her best friend while she dated the boy before me, though I waited a month after she had left him. But I was never great with comforting people.
I didn’t know what to do to help, so I called your friend, and your friend seemed upset at me. I didn’t understand, and maybe it’s the drugs, but I didn’t understand, and she won’t talk to me, and she won’t talk to me, and we were doing so well.
I’ve been the unrequited lover. My heart breaks for her when she’s honest with me, and I will never understand why, but I do understand the what. A life is not a debt one forgives, nor is it something one can dictate payment of. I have quickly fading hopes, as time wears on, and we both grow scarred. Perhaps projection, I don’t know anymore. It’s all so much more complicated than it seems.
I’ve watched my sister fighting a tumor for almost ten years now, almost half my life, and more than half hers. I have seen her as nothing but bones, and I have seen her with far too much weight, drugged out, doped up, sickly, dying, without control, without hope, and I have never once been able to do anything about it.
So much more complicated than it seems.
I’m taking anti-depressants now. It’s possible that they are not working; I’m not sure how one objectively tells. This haze seems to encompass everything sometimes.
So much more complicated than it seems.
I’ve told a young woman that I loved her when I knew that I did not. I was manipulating her in order to keep her affection, perhaps enhance it. She had never been loved before. I felt sorry that I had lied, and rather than correct it, I attempted to make it true. She did love me. And I only felt the absence when I thought of her. Perhaps I thought it was what I was worthy of. Perhaps I thought it was the only way I would have something close to healthy. Perhaps those are defenses. I don’t see myself as much of a father with 2.5 and a dog, anymore. Suburbs make me itch for highways, anymore.
So much more complicated than it seems.
This woman told me that the first few days are the worst, anytime you take a new medicine, but she warned me that mine would make me a zombie. That her mother hated it.
So much more complicated than it seems.
For the last two years, I have gone to bed more or less alone. Those who have shared it with me, have not shared me. My mother cries when I do talk to her, and what son wants to make his mother cry? My father and I have already had very different lives, and I don’t know how he feels, but I find it hard to relate to him anymore. I missed the deadline to end up just like him. I am watching one of my best friends fighting against her own mind, and I am scared that more and more she is losing. What comfort she could once offer me is lost in her own needs. My other friends relate to core issues as well as my father does, though we get along much better, and drink together far more. My family is five hours, by plane, away now. Extended family is five, by car. The house my Grandmother died in isn’t in the family anymore. The house I lost my child in is lived in by someone else. The woman I almost proposed to isn’t speaking to me. I haven’t met my newest niece, and I think she is more than six months old. My professors look at me with pity, disappointment, or something of both. All of this is to say that I am not being dramatic when I say that I have been alone in this for some time. In some very important ways, this is the objective truth, as much as some offer themselves to make it otherwise.
All of this is so much more complicated than it seems.
I really don’t know what else to say.
V - Scroll - V
