When you go to sleep at night your mind replays the events of your day. its how you dream. or so they say. Lingering thoughts. Lingering neurons and weird passages of electrons. its replaying emotions and thoughts; connecting half form thoughts that are stuck partially formed in some remote area of the brain.
Last night i couldn't sleep. it was around 3 am when i admitted what was going on. when i stopped drinking and stopped telling myself foolish fantasies and stopped pretending i was stressed about a job i hate. it was 3 am, four hours after i had turned of the lights, said goodnight to everyone i love, and pulled the blankets up over my head when i let the memory play. i tried all the tricks i've learned, i tried imagine swimming in a clear lake, floating in the pure water-i knew something was in the depths that would harm me. i tried flying, i imagined feathers and feeling the wind rush beneath me and the contact of the rain pushing on my hollow bones-something grabbed me from the shadows. i tried to sunbathe on the beach in the warm glow of the sun-someone was there every time i closed my eyes. but i watched as the castle i built was swept away in the wave i ran from. i watched as the wind kicked up the only home i ever knew. and i watched as the water covered everything i ever held dear and took away the only light i ever could see. all of the fantasies and stories and stresses, they all faded into that single memory.
i was replaying the same awful night. i was watching again and again and again and again. over and over and over. that day. the day i drove to Canada. the day i drove to see evan. i showed up at his place and he invited me in, hesitantly. and the day he looked at me and told me he had met someone. and i knew last night that no matter how long i would live i would still have that day. it would still be a part of who i am. i could never erase it. i get to keep that. i get to hold on to that. to watch it when everyone else is asleep in someone's arms... i get to remember falling on my knees on his cold floor and having him sit there and watch me. no matter how long i live i will always carry that sadness, that awful memory, that horrible moment. it doesn't get erased, it is fixed in my life. and i'm not so sure how that is supposed to be ok.
and for the first time, in a long time, i feel out of people i can talk to.
what good is it to be someone better than you are if no one sees you anyway. build these temples and these shrines to the person you want to be, to the person you are inspired to be and you watch all around as the idols of everyone else false and you turn, and you see, you never got around to believing. and after that, its hard to know what's left.
i told nick the other night that i could never imagine doing again what i tried. it seemed so far. i seemed so dimensional. but in the end, i am defined, better or worse, by that point. i carry that with me. who was it who said you can never reach your destination because with every step you are only ever less than half way?
at the renaissance fair they would carve your name on a grain of rice, remember? and the girls would wear them, along with the long pleated braids, forever. that conversations is around my neck at nights. his voice swallows my soul. the cold of the morning steals my hope. but if i can stay away, if i can fend off the shadows and the depths and the wind, then i can walk that thin wire between honesty and salvation.
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