the long post where i tell you everything... (part 1)
-- everything i've been meaning to write about here, anyway...
i've begun to suspect that the peaks and valleys of my intention to close this blog coincides with my menstrual cycle. (how's that for a start?) i was told around mid-thirties, women's menstrual symptoms tend to magnify -- cramps, mood swings, ... everything gets worse. this has been true for me i've noticed. i started writing this post after crying myself awake one morning during my last period. i had meant it to be the last one, but of course, a week later, i've changed my mind again.
still, i am feeling compelled to write this long post -- perhaps it will be my last blog post here, perhaps not, but i'm almost certain it will be the longest... the problem is it's going to take a long time to write, and a long time for people to read when it comes out in one piece, if i ever finish it. so i thought i'd just publish it in parts as i write.
9-6-09
we are each made of people who've touched our hearts one way or another. like a tree is made of the winds, sun rays, raindrops, squirrel traces and bird poops that it lets pass or stay. people touch our hearts with their love, and with ours that they bring out, sometimes mixed with happiness and hope, sometimes with sadness, resentment, longing, and despair. who do you choose to let stay?
i've recently been called a "go-getter." by someone who doesn't really know me though, so this person's words carry little validity to contradict my long-established self identity as a giving, unselfish, sometimes overly accommodating person. but i still find myself bothered, because the word carries such negative connotation, especially when the "go-getter" behavior refers to a woman getting a man she desires, a man who, for this and that reasons in the eyes and logic of normal people, perhaps shouldn't be hers. but i'm not here to talk about gendered norms of intimate relationships (i'll save that for my class), nor do i really feel the need to clear my name; i am here to talk about love, to friends who are surprised or puzzled by me from time to time, and to strangers who are curious enough to read this.
ex is getting married in a month. i am happy for him. he was too shy to talk about her when i last called, but a mutual friend showed me some pictures of her -- she looked cute and sweet and there was brightness and presence in her smile. it is not my place to approve of her or not; my poignancy stems not from jealousy, but from a sense of relief that the abandonment was not fatal, that he is finally well, and this new woman, perfectly adorable, is proof.
no loved one is ours to keep. not friends, not our children, not our legally wedded spouses for fifty years, not the one who calls you the love of their life, nor the one who begs and finds a way to stay. they are not ours to keep because we are made of all of them. we are made of that pale green hawaiian shirt he used to wear for happy outings every time, that rare moment of tenderness when he stroked your hair instead of yelling at you for missing a left-turn light, the curly lock of hair on his forehead that he himself wasn't fond of, the way he'd scratch his cheek with the back of his thumb, the blossoming of his smile as you caught sight of each other, that self-reproaching tut he let out in front of everyone when you slipped on grass and he thought he had made you fall, the weight of his sweat drops on your skin, how he once came to your dreams through the ceiling...
[to be continued]
