musings on being "in love"

1. All the relationship-related joy, pain, and desires poured out in 97% of songs in existence -- are these really how people feel?  To take over our thoughts that widely and to encompass that much intensity, being in love must really be one of the strongest human emotions.  I guess I just haven't been there yet.
2. Is being in love somehow different than loving someone?  I can without hesitation say "I love you" to close friends and family, yet the idea of saying it with the intended meaning of "I'm in love with you" seems incredibly more daunting, weighty, significant, serious.  Yet I imagine that there is a lot of overlap: joy in being in the other's presence, ease of conversation, mutual care, ...
3. How do you know that you're in love?  One friend laughed when I posed this question and responded that if you have any question in your mind, then the answer is that you're not.  I am indecisive about many elements of life, from those that don't really matter to the major turning points.  Do I need to cut back on the analysis here and revert to a simpler level, tuning in to my natural feelings, to understand where I am?

find love

I think maybe I'm ready to find love.

Maybe I'm being a girl because I just watched a romantic comedy and now I'm having this thought.  Maybe I'm being unrealistic to be inspired by a movie, because maybe we make the stories in movies just a little better than they would happen in real life.

Half of me is extremely sure what love is, and the other half is pretty damn sure I haven't a clue how to begin.  See, in one sense, I experience love every single day.  My friend Stephan at work is so hilarious that I've got my hands over my mouth, trying not to laugh out loud.  I can exchange three lines via online chat with my dear friend David from Penn, and find myself saying "man, I love you, you know that?"  I receive texts from my mom, asking how setting up my new apartment is coming along.  I bond over really good beer, delicious blues dancing, and the way lindy hop is just that much better after a rum and coke.

But otherwise, I have given up for a long time now.  I relegated the couples I have been around as mysteries; I had spent so much mental effort some years back to define and understand love for myself, but to no real conclusions, and I do not have the energy to try anymore.  The discovery, the journey, the maintenance, the work through the downs for the sake of the ups -- these I see but from the outside, an observer trapped at the most surface level understanding.

It seems in my life that whenever "something" starts to happen with someone, it is unexpected: a string of occurrences that happened to weave together to bring that person into my life.  If that holds, then, I ask myself, what need do I have to learn to seek?  That means I have to wait, and hope.  But the few times in the recent past that I have hoped a bit, always something has held things back.  And so I haven't had the chance to see what might become.

My life is very filled right now.  Friends, family, and activities are all there for me and wonderful.  I'm living where I want to be, and I've got people who miss me in other cities.  And yet, it might be nice to have someone to think about at the end of the day, knowing he will be doing likewise.  It might be nice to hold hands and steal kisses.  To send pointless text messages.  To laugh so hard, and then have a deep conversation.  To share beer, and dinner, and ice cream.  To watch dumb TV and not care that it's dumb because it's extra cuddle time.  To while the hours of a Saturday, doing our own thing, taking simple peace and comfort in another's company. To miss, be missed; need, be needed.

To love, without wondering.

But you know, I'm just making this all up.  Because this is a little bit of how I like to imagine it would be.

"so you"

Last night, a friend and wonderful person reminded me of a thought I had while coming home on the bus the other day.

If I consider my good friends, one overarching reason why I like them is just the way their personalities come through in casual communicating - be it in a brief chat or a long talk.  Knowing and enjoying someone's unique mannerisms in interaction is something I really value.

So I was thinking about text communications between friends.  I talk online and send text messages with friends all the time.  To what degree each person is "genuine" (speaks online as they would face to face) might be difficult to measure, but I realized one thing: one of my favorite moments in talking online or via text message is when a friend says something that just totally sounds like them.  I can hear it in their voice and see how their facial expression would look.  It's the closest feeling to being with them in person when communicating by text, I think.  Truly makes me smile inside.

we just relate as people

you know what is funny in the dance world?
age seems to melt away (mostly).
and most of us are in a similar range but.
i just don't even think about it
like suddenly i passed this line
left college
and people aren't confined to ages by their year in college
people are just people
like, i have adult friends now and we just relate as people.

(--chat conversation with David)

Sometimes I express things best when I'm not trying to write about them.

Breaking the narrow-mindedness

It's been awhile, from my perspective, since I was in a relationship - two years or so now.  Though I still think plenty about interpersonal relationships, and most likely worry too much about how my actions come across to others, I have for quite some time now written off trying to understand relationships.  Not being in the midst of the work of maintaining one myself, I've been feeling for some time that whatever knowledge I thought I had collected has been slowly draining out of me.  Whilst my few theories on the subject continue to be chipped away over time, I grow to feel more clueless about how to "meet someone", transition into a relationship, and maintain one.  Without possibilities presenting themselves on my horizon, I've been relegating myself to wondering at how friends around me make relationships work.  As for myself, I mostly continue to rather passively hope that things will eventually fall into place with someone by way of beautiful happenstance.

One theory of mine in particular, developed early on in my forays into thinking about relationships, grew mainly from an experience of my own which I still hold as very special.  I decided that the most logical and successful way a relationship could happen was to transition from best friends.  It made all the sense in the world to me: you are already perfectly comfortable communicating, you get along well, you enjoy each other's company and seek out spending time together.  I guess I figured that all you needed was a spark of attraction to push things past the platonic realm, and then you were all set because the rest of it was already in place.

I held pretty steadfastly to this theory for a number of years.  It received its major crack in the same way I first came up with it - through my own experience.  Though I no longer believe in it like a guarantee, I still think it's possible.  I simply learned that it also might totally not work at all.  And I am glad to have the experience and luckily came out of it for the better.

Another theory: I have long assumed that getting into a relationship only makes sense if you have taken a pretty good deal of time to familiarize with each other.  This one is based partially on precaution: my fear is not taking enough time to discover a person's major characteristics, and then stumbling onto something serious enough to potentially drive a new relationship apart.  It also has to do with my being terribly indecisive, and being afraid to start something because I'm still not sure if I like the person enough yet.  (At least, that's typically what I'd argue to myself which leads me to stall for more time to decide.)

In the past couple of days, I have begun to think about some of these ideas differently.  Perhaps things can develop between people outside of these scenarios I've had outlined in my head for so long, and still be real.  Maybe I don't have to know someone long enough to think I've figured them all out before deciding I like them.  Perhaps a great deal of the joy of a relationship is learning the pieces of someone's personality over many interactions and experiences.

So I think, now, I am closer to letting go of my indecisiveness and being more willing to try letting things happen with someone without knowing ahead of time that everything "should" work out.

Marriage

So um, I stumbled on an album of photos on Facebook tonight, and eventually figured out that they are wedding photos.  This particular Facebook friend is actually more than someone I met just once (got a number of those on there, though); we knew each other by way of a common activity, but it only lasted a couple months.

The part that gets me is, he's 19.  If he's followed the normal educational trajectory since I met him, he has just finished his freshman year of college.

Now, I haven't seen or communicated with him in years, and I am sure this was not a decision made lightly.  And I hope the best for them.

I guess what's more pertinent is that this has served as a reminder for me.  It's been awhile since I was in a relationship that was any sort of time-hardy, and about the same amount of time since I've tried to understand love and relationships.  Along the way I've had one or two theories of mine broken, and now I've fallen into something of a stagnant mind-fog about it all.  I look around at couples and wonder, what makes people mutually attracted to being in a relationship?  What makes them stick together over a long[er] period of time?  What the heck is love after all?  (Maybe I should do some research on my friends who might apparently have some knowledge on this.)

I am doing okay without them, but still, I'm starting to miss the things of a relationship; having the go-to person for sharing mundane bits of life, for comfort, for laughter, for cuddling, and so on.  Perhaps a bigger fear is my feeling rather powerless to find someone.  One of my theories that I think is still standing is that it works best if "love" (if I dare use the strong word) comes upon you without your effort (and without your realization for awhile).  I know you can't force things, because I've tried.  And I always have a mental hesitation about actively searching for someone because it feels kind of fake, like you're going to make the person like you and yourself to like them, which just falls back to the category of forcing things.  So this leaves me waiting for it to just happen to me.  And I still have time, but... it can make me nervous.  I don't want to entertain the possibility of living alone for the rest of my entire life.

But I cannot forget, refuse to regret

I walk home slowly.  It's nice, since 99 percent of the time I'm speed walking to my next commitment and will probably be late anyway.  Since I remembered finally to charge my iPod, I select the songs for the walk: Human Nature, by Michael Jackson, and She Says, by Howie Day.  I need something soothing for my thoughts.

Or maybe they're just ridiculous.  I take the elevator up and I know I'm dead tired, but I don't want to change into pajamas (which are way more comfortable) nor smear off the makeup yet.  I'd rather entertain in my imagination that the night's continuing.  I'm laughing, then lifting my eyes to meet those of that person I want to be hanging out with.

But... I'm not even sure all the time who that person is.

Much as I do like to ignore it, I think I'm sensing the reality of the pointless situation moreso now.  Maybe that means I'm dealing with it a little bit.

I think I'm looking for distractions too, though.  I try to spend my time with various friends, and enjoying that time keeps me from dealing with my thoughts when I'm alone.  And as I run around to all sorts of fun things, I look for whom upon to place my "that person" attention.  So give me the superficial, the new random crushes, the boy of the night with whom I know nothing will happen anyhow.  Am I just giddy, high on this shallow feeling and the taste of the game played by two?

At the end of the night, no matter how late I've stayed out, I'm coming home to cuddle with my pillow as I lie there and run the day's situations through my head.  Fun is great, really.  I am appreciating it.  But what I'm missing, I think, is something more real and more fundamental.  It's got the meaning to make it last through time.  Or so I suppose, or assume, or whatever.  I don't really know if I even understand.  But I'm feeling the lack of something like this, and so I'm hoping for the twists of life paths that will bring it into mine.  Sometime soon, perhaps.

(title: "The Sun" - Maroon 5)

A piece of clarity

friend: hrm
friend: i mean if you can't step forward
friend: you can stay where you are or move back
friend: no matter what in 3 months it's gone

me: that's a nice simple analysis... i like it

Foosball is for lovers [1]

Foosball seems a little obscure to me. Or at least, it's a thing of (un)finished basements that host mix-of-family-and-friends birthday gatherings. But I have a couple of personal connections with the game.

Maybe love is obscure these days. I'm not having an easy time of finding it. It's all over books and movies, but as much fun as it is to think so, those aren't real life.

One goes back to...well, I'm not sure if it would be middle or elementary school. My brother and I were the ages when we would play with toys together - Matchbox cars, "farm and construction", Legos/K'Nex, and maybe the horse barn sometimes... Yeah, I was kind of a boy. Oh well.

Playing games, telling stories, making things up. Things you might do when you're talking, smiling, laughing with someone - time to forget the world for the sake of two.

We acquired the foosball table from a family friend - she used to babysit for us, actually. I looked through pages and pages of Google image search results, but could not find any that looked remotely like that secondhand table. It was completely unsturdy on four kind-of-thin metal-tube legs, and the "table" part was a thin board that sagged towards one end. (The sagging probably made it the games a bit unfair, but I don't recall being bothered by that.) The goals were white plastic little crate-like things that stuck out from the ends with a red slider for the score, and oddly enough, the provided plastic ball (a la ping pong ball, but with yellow and red soccer-ball patterning) did not fit through the holes into the goals. We often substituted a "bouncy ball" (whatever happened to those things? 90s fad or something?). Dude I totally remember these two-colored ones! The color pairs were usually kind of ugly...

The beginning. He wasn't there. Funny that would be the case. I got really into it, though I wasn't very good. And then I had to go.

The plastic players were actually little figures - there was the red team and the yellow team, and I was usually yellow, my brother red. Some of the players were cracked across the stomach where the rod went through, and some slid along the rod so you could yank the rod way out from the side of the table. p.s.: The [one] goalie was not able to spin a 360-degree rotation - he hit the end of the table and got stuck. We didn't bother to use him much. :)

Before I left (and before he'd gone for a bit), we were together often. Days, walks, sun. Laughter, and sometimes, a moment.

My brother and I played the craziest games with that foosball table. In a one-on-one game you gotta manage 4 rods of players by yourself, so there's a lot of switching around hands and the ball movement was rather all over the place. (Only now do I see people playing with strategy in two-on-two games.) Since there wasn't much to the table, we'd be jerking it all around. If the ball got stuck in the caved-in corner, we merely gave the table a jump. We spun players like crazy except the goalies who got stuck. Before dropping the ball in after someone scored, we'd take a minute to realign the players who'd gotten inadvertently rotated on their rods during playtime. Oh and we assigned names to the players, but not people's names. We actually named them after names we had given our Matchbox/Hot Wheels cars. My yellow defenders were London (a black London taxi) and Tel. 4 (a yellow cherry picker labeled as belonging to Telephone Company No. 4, I imagine). I think the offense were a few of the race car "gang".

Things really used to drive me crazy, like my shyness, and watching him. Going up to the roof deck, and oh, those touches, because maybe they were nothing, but I liked to think they meant everything. I wondered all the time. I feared we were stuck and the reason was, well, out of our hands. How many times did I imagine?

I think we trashed or gave away that table years ago. We have a new, nice one now. I have hardly touched it for all the years since the games with the old table. All of life was going on for all the years that I didn't really play.

He didn't keep in touch much. I tried more than he did. I figured it was the way he is and mostly let it be that way. All of life was going on, anyway.

home/going

On Facebook, a friend just asked me what's up. I wrote back: "i'm half moved-out of my room, coming home in a couple of days, in love with dance, and pensive."

There are empty places in my room now where things like framed photos, a rack of wire cubes holding various books and other things, and a big round green chair used to be. Several large boxes (and a bunch of bubble wrap) now reside in a corner of the room; upon one box is a pile of clothes displaced from its prior location on top of the wire cubes. Yeah I've gotten messier in college, but I like that.

The boxes are an obvious reminder of the transition I will complete on Tuesday morning: going back home. Home is great, I've realized. People will say they couldn't wait to get out of their hometowns, or away from their parents or siblings, or what have you. I think my brother can't wait to go off to college this coming fall. But the longer I'm at college, the more I appreciate home. As things are right now, this is the last summer that I will be there with my family for sure. I want to hug everyone; play Guitar Hero; watch chick flicks and go out to brunch and go shopping and chill in Barnes and Noble/Starbucks with my mom; talk and laugh through the unique course of dinner conversation; eat good meals prepared by Mom (man I am so excited for food at home after a year of Wawa and dining-dollar-bought sameness and such); play a game with Dad; play ping pong; claim a mug's worth of hot water when my dad decides to make some tea; wake up and be around the goings-on of a family.

And hell, I have to take this moment. I miss Jersey. Seems like some people don't like New Jersey, and maybe that's only a few people so I don't really know anything about what people think, but I don't care. It's where I was born and raised and before Philly and Penn, before my first time living in a city - which is great by the way - I lived nowhere but Colts Neck. I'm surrounded by neighborhoods of mansions that used to be farms some day a long time ago, high school kids who drive a Lexus to school, a cute and little but nice library where I used to work, the Colts Neck Shopping Center, Delicious Orchards, and driving everywhere you want to go. I miss my mall in the next town over (not that I did ever go there much, and I still don't now), and the movie theater I go to, and strip malls and car dealerships along all the highways. And OH my gosh I can't wait for the beach. Half an hour's drive to the grid of streets, a parallel parking job that I still haven't really learned to do, and a flash of the season badge (um, need to get one) to step onto the hot sand and see the beautiful waves. There is nothing like the physical pleasure of slowly pulling off the top, stepping out of the shorts, and exposing so much skin to the heat of the sun mixed with an occasional airy touch of light wind. Delve into warm laziness.

If I may, permit me to have a summer fantasy for a moment? There's something about the beach - I think it has to do with the hazy warmth contrasted with the cold, the excitement, and the potential for fear that the water imposes. And the nighttime beach has its own magic. The air is still warm enough for shorts, the sand is cool, soft, and expansive, the dark waves are fringed with white and teasingly reach for and pull back from the sand. It's quiet, and dark. In day or night on the beach, my imagination so often includes being with a guy. I want him to hold me against the cold, dive with me through the waves, walk dripping back onto the sand, and lie down side by side under the sun. And the cool night scene is beautifully made for two alone. To pull my mind back to reality, there is an important piece that I lack. I don't know who I would want to be with me there. And so that perfect scene is left a tad unfinished, and I wonder if this summer I might get a try at it.

~

The other half of summer is imminent too. Staying here an extra week has let me push it under a mental rug somewhat, but it's there. Summer is scatter time. We go off to research abroad, jobs in California, family and vacation and work. And all the times with friends over the year coalesce into a surge of meaning, and gratitude, and sadness, in these last few days. I can't appreciate these times enough, and I have a silly little want to go back and relive them, just to make sure I enjoy them as much as I can. Thinking over these memories right now, I am so incredibly happy and thankful for friends. The talks, the laughter, the closeness: I am tempted, at moments like this, to hold those things as more important than anything. And so the beginning of summer is sad because I won't have these people in my life for a (little?) while. I will, probably, find a few friends back home at some point or other, and hope to make a few visit trips, but home friends have also scattered and are living new lives. So I'm holding onto everything that I've loved this year, and being pretty damn glad I've still got senior year left. As one friend pointed out, we're apart for four months - it's not really that bad.

bits & pieces

the other night:
allegro's at 1am
blueberry beer
fmylife.com
music sharing via youtube (and some figure skating, for the old days' sake)
comfiest blanket ever??
ignoring responsible life crap that matters

and another night before that one:
indian foooood...is really good
tea
that same blanket
relationship stories and later just really talking about them
(there was prolly some youtube in there too)
...this is what makes college really meaningful to me.

different night:
salsa.salsa.salsa
i really can't balance when i spin (usually)
everyone is sooo nice...yay
friend&guys
i think i love bachata
must go social dancing [a lot] more
i'm kind of a sucker for when guys dress nicely...
steaks on south//i can't contribute to conversational topics about the world??

totally different:
i love climbing, and i don't exactly know why
seems like everyone there is nice (helpful) as well
good place to be female? O:-)
conquering top-rope routes is .. awesome
argh need to get belay-certified

i'm a geek:
cuz i'm excited to set up a mysql database ahaha
and want to swallow php whole


wanna:
go dress shopping
go shopping for clothes in general ...(ok, so i'm such a girl sometimes)
be good at dance
go social dancing...hopefully to more of a variety than mainly salsa music
go climbing like all the time hah
be with friends; i'm running out of college time

i wish i had joined PLBD in freshman year. largely so i'd be kinda good at dance by now, but also cuz i'm starting to really see how these groups bond. i don't have that - not in band, not in dance (at this point anyway, but i don't think it'll change that much), not where i live nor where i lived, not amongst my major. this doesn't mean i don't have friends; i do and i love and appreciate them. what i wish i'd experienced is group friendship (mine are all scattered from various "sources").


(2:12:50 AM) Tory: i just thought of something
(2:12:56 AM) Tory: maybe cuz of the impracticality of it all
(2:13:01 AM) Tory: it wouldn't relaly hurt to tell him
(2:13:02 AM) Tory: heh

what's sensible? no clear idea.

[1] He sees me and I walk towards him. He gives me the same look, the same gesture as usual. It's something like "what gives?", which doesn't make much sense, because I don't think I've ever done anything that would deserve a "what gives?". I try to explain to him how I'm kind of dead from the week of midterms resulting in barely sleeping.

[2] Why am I having a resurgence of thoughts about him? Not much has been different recently. We have talked only a couple of times. One felt like the familiar back and forth, but the second seemed to slightly lack that warmth I was expecting.

[3] I've been worrying that I have said something wrong. Well, actually I think I did, and at exactly the wrong time. Without thinking, I plunged ahead along the lines of what had been going well, but forgot to consider the subject matter before choosing it. Then I got stuck.... He said it's okay, don't worry about it. He might just be saying that to be nice.

[1] I'm not as shy anymore, or at least not with him. I head for him to be my partner for this round of waltz. He's not so shy anymore either (unless he has always been like this and I never paid attention to these details before). He holds me in a strong frame, which I like. And he holds me closer.

[2] I'm thinking back more often than I have for awhile. Maybe the cold now makes me long for a sun that warms and for walking outside in a short-sleeved top, but I know it isn't just that. It's the heels too - especially in the grass. And the laughter, and the little craziness too, kind of.

[3] I've tried to patch it up, but now I may be on the unsure side. (Scratch that, I am on it.) Suddenly I wonder if I'm saying too much. Has anything I may have implied altered his perceptions? Because only now that I'm worrying do I feel more sure that I want to see if things might go somewhere.

[1] I feel this familiarity with him, although I'm not really sure how it's developing. We joke a bit. I have to back-lead him through the right turns, and my expression intends to poke a little fun at him, though I really do mean to help. For some reason, I might kind of like being close to him.

[2] I can't help running that time through my mind: the different parts, the little details I remember. It worked so naturally, so easily, even though I really didn't know how I was doing it. Maybe he made it easy. It was deviously, deliciously enjoyable. As we stood there, I knew what was going to happen. It did. Kind of ironic.

[3] Very coincidentally I happened to see him. We had a nice little exchange, or at least I really tried to make it that way. As we were nearing the end of the short conversation, all I wanted was some indication of a plan to see each other again. I was close to putting forth the idea, but I really was hoping he would suggest it... so I didn't. I fear being too forward, making assumptions. I hope he hasn't given up.

Today I read my horoscope, because it happened to be up on a screen in the cafe-ish place where I was. It said: "Problems in your romantic life don't have to ruin your day. Distractions abound." Well, sort of. I'm certainly distracted by all these situations. And I didn't even write about [4], [5], [6], the like.. who, once every now and again, attract my attention and thoughts.

All the guys in my mind/life

My mind keeps going back to this. There are too many situations to think about. And as I try to manage the thoughts, I find myself sorting these guys into groups.

There are some with whom I am good friends. I am comfortable with them and our interactions are fun and easygoing. And from my point of view, we are particularly close if we share our guy/girl stories with each other, which is an exchange I find enjoyable and interesting. I value these friendships a lot.

There are some who I only know a little, but who are so so friendly to me, such truly nice human beings, that the usually short interactions I happen to have with them here and there in my life just brighten up my days so much. They make me happy, just being with them for a bit - I want to say, "I just LOVE him!" I feel so glad to have come across them in my life, even if I never end up having more of a friendship with them (though I'm sure I'd like to).

There are some who I know, and who know me, and maybe we talk sometimes but not too often, and I'm at least somewhat comfortable around them. I want to talk with them and get to know them more, but I'm a little too shy, or I'm not sure they have enough reciprocal interest, or I sense that maybe I wouldn't quite fit into their lives. I guess I might also include here a few with whom I've lost a previous connection which I think I would like to rebuild. There are occasional little steps forward, but usually they are just little steps that probably fade anyway in the big picture. (And I mean all of this in a friendship sense, mainly.)

And then there are a few who I have a sense might have some level of interest in me. Maybe I should think a little more about what I'm doing in the various situations I'm in with these guys, because usually I play it by ear and try to be my friendly (I hope) self. I have genuinely had fun times with them though. But to be most fair to them, I should work out what I think I feel, and make sure to act accordingly and honestly. The problem is how ridiculously indecisive I usually am.

On the flip side, there's the crush(es?)...I can only think of one right now whom I've labeled in my mind as a crush. I've been thinking a little about crushes, and realized I don't really know what to do about them. Usually it's a "like from afar" situation; you don't really talk to them much, just kind of glance over at them when you happen to be in the same room for awhile and try to not be awkward when you do happen to interact. If they contact you, or pay you a few moments' attention, you react similarly to "i am filled with ridiculous giddy excitement. hahahha" (quoting myself to a friend). The thing is, it's all kind of meaningless. This attraction has to be mostly superficial, because you don't know the person well enough for it to be more deeply based, anyway. Maybe you can get to know them more, but then it's almost like picking someone randomly, because a crush-level attraction is no guarantee for an attraction on the personality level (which is extremely important, I believe). Once I got this far in my thinking, I felt kind of sad that it's probably pointless to hold onto this crush (or any, basically)...yet, I don't want to give up, because those silly moments of excitement do come along with it all, and I have something to hold onto, no matter how much it might not really matter. If it could turn out to matter, I would probably be ridiculously happy.

Finally, the category which no guy is filling for me right now - one who I really like, with whom I feel comfortable and compatible; we laugh easily and I want to talk with and spend time around him, and I want something more intense than friendship with him. Such is most elusive though, it seems.

text message 1

sent: jan 26, 4:41pm
from: me

"Lol i tend to separate liking someone from acting on it. Not that i really act anyway. I respect relationships but could still like a taken guy."

feeling that didn't make sense

Driving at night and listening to the radio usually gets me into a ponderous mood. Tonight as I came to the end of my (short) drive home, I started getting this feeling. It was kind of like anxiously excited, anticipating something that I was nervous about but wanted. I can probably blame the music for being in my mind at the moment, but this feeling was tinted with the thought of being close with a guy. Not really one guy in particular though... There were probably about three in my mind, each in some way. I know I wasn't going to be with any of them (being close, I mean), not tonight and more than likely not soon, and maybe never. A part of it, I figure, was an infusion of missing someone, and somehow being excited as if I was looking forward to being with him. It's like the night inspired this excitement, but there was nothing actually for which to be excited, and so... I stayed in the car, in the driveway, finishing up listening to that song. Then I was left with the feeling, letting it be whatever it was, because that's all there could be to it.

--

When your only friends are hotel rooms
Hands are distant lullabies
If I could turn around I would tonight

These roads never seemed so long
Since your paper heart stopped beating leaving me suddenly alone
Will daybreak ever come?

Who's gonna call on Sunday morning?
Who's gonna drive you home?
I just want one more chance
To put my arms in fragile hands

I thought you said forever
Over and over
A sleepless night becomes bitter oblivion

These thoughts run through my head
Over and over
Complaints of violins become my only friends

August evenings
Bring solemn warnings
To remember to kiss the ones you love goodnight

You never know what temporal days may bring
Laugh, love, live free and sing
When life is in discord
Praise ye the lord

Who's gonna call on Sunday morning?
Who's gonna drive you home?
I just want one more chance
To put my arms in fragile hands

I thought you said forever
Over and over
The sleepless night becomes bitter oblivion

These thoughts run through my head
Over and over
Complaints of violins become my only friends

I thought you said forever
over and over
The sleepless night becomes bitter oblivion

These thoughts run through my head
over and over
Complaints of violins become my only friends

I thought you said forever
over and over
These thoughts run through my head


(http://www.plyrics.com/lyrics/anberlin/paperthinhymn.html)

what it's like, missing him

walked through my lobby, and saw two girls sitting on one of the couches, talking.

walked by the philly diner.

looked through those pictures, from that night, and still thought they were funny.

laughed over a few dirty jokes with a friend, and felt that twinge of sadness.

listened to a song i came to really like because of him; tried to make the lyrics mean something different in my head.

saw a facebook friend's profile picture in which she was kissing a guy.

read another facebook friend's status: "[so and so] loves him."

imagined myself going to that starbucks sometime, by myself, up to the second floor, sitting down at a table...

amidst a stack of papers on my desk, saw a couple of programs from the night we went to two shows together, and remembered how he tried to make me keep his ticket stub too, "to remember him by".

listened to a song i like which has repeating lyrics that say "baby you're, in my arms" and knew that wasn't gonna happen anymore.

asked my roommate if she minded if a guy friend of mine came over for a bit, kinda late at night, the way i used to ask when he was going to come.. but this time it wasn't him.

walked over to wawa and bought coffee and a pretzel, around 11:30pm, by myself...

talked with him online a little and felt a bit strained, if not a little scared... even got brave enough to mention a normal topic, and he said something funny, and i laughed but it hurt because that's the kind of enjoyment i'm now missing.

remembered that time when i ran into him unexpectedly in my lobby and how good it felt to see him and be with him for just those five minutes.

listened to his voice on the phone, listened to the way he talked, and wanted to cry because i probably wouldn't be having those good conversations with him much anymore, if at all.

a daft punk song came on to remind me that all they played at the alley was daft punk remixes, that time we went bowling together.

thought of all the things i had wanted to do with him.

remembered how when he met him, my good friend said he seemed like a really good guy.

thought of when he wanted me to go out of my way, walking with him through the cold, so he could spend more time with me. i felt special and wanted.

curled up in bed at night, put my face into my round fuzzy squishy pillow that he liked, and inhaled, but it only faintly smelled like him. (and maybe i was wishing that faint scent into existence.)

went to the place that used to be called bucks county coffee with a friend, and remembered paying for his coffee the time we went there.

saw someone signing in a friend at the desk, and thought about how the guest logs suddenly won't have his name in it all the time anymore.

...

the interesting thing is this. i am able to think of other things, and not about him. and then, it doesn't hurt (obviously). this is a good thing, cuz i have so much work and it does require thinking and concentration. but... i want to hurt for him. i want to think about him and miss him and yeah sometimes, i want to cry for not being able to be with him anymore. it's bittersweet... and i think that's the reason why i want the hurt.

where might this train of thought lead?

i walked out from the lobby of the other high rise, passing a couple fellow dmders along the way, and stepped out into the night where people, who were probably heading to or from parties, were out minimally populating the walkways. the night was chilly and he was on my mind cuz i'd been in touch with him, just a little bit, in the past couple of hours. and i'd gained a flickering hope of something to look forward to, maybe some little way i could help... if not that, maybe i could at least continue to understand him better.

but my mind as always pushes onward with imagination and paths faster than i can restrain it with reality. i miss him, i want to see him... i want to take a walk with him out in the beauty of the night, when the weather is clear and feels so good, and i want to talk with him, seriously.. and even though i'm almost sure it can't happen, if that little sliver could appear which might be the only time i could dive in for that chance, although it would be fairly awful of me to do so, for his sake, ... i want to kiss him.

it's a bit weird the way that thought keeps coming to mind, at fairly random times, these days. i know where it came from though, the point that possibly reawakened something i've been ignoring for so long that it's become so routinely embedded; i'm not even aware i'm doing it. that night i found out three things within probably just two minutes of time. with that, it began, though i'm not sure if i fully realized the impact yet. the night went on just fine, and came to an end with a very enjoyable time. i got back, and sat down, and suddenly it hit me like.. i don't even know what. but i froze, as this realization hit me and monopolized my mind. thoughts flew around and it was like all these little things came together and made sense. i couldn't do anything else; i spent time delving into memories and putting more things in place. yet, even as all of this was coming together, i was scared. i didn't want to be sure of this. would it make everything different? and then i started wondering if it would even last till morning. was this all something crazy that was happening as a product of one night on which these things happened? if i was so good at not thinking about it, such that i never even considered bringing it to mind, maybe that procedure would be automatically invoked and i would go back to normal, and this would be a fleeting story.

it happened, somewhat. i woke up and i wasn't frozen. my mind was freed from the hold by the thoughts that had come the night before. i've gone on and lived each day and things are normal. i bet i am as good as i think, about not thinking about it. i don't even have to try, really.

except for now and then, it'll come back. maybe it's a moment, but i always recognize it. sometimes i think of it at night, and it seems like all this pain, because i am almost trapped, i can't take action without so much risk and the possibility of inflicting hurt or stress and the chance of loss. and i have respect for him, and care for him, and i don't want to make it more difficult than it already is. even so, i reason to myself, there are some fundamental things that could cause problems. usually that argument fails to deter me though; it doesn't stop how much the laughter, the comfort, the experiences, and the glimpses of who he is that i've been so lucky to see all mean to me.

as much time and mental energy as i've put into trying to understand love, and formulate a personal concept of it that is right as far as i can determine, this situation probably confuses me more than anything else. sometimes i think i am going to lose what might be something that makes more sense to me than many other possibilities or situations i've come across; but i don't even have a real chance, so is it my fault if i don't ever attempt a humble and respectful try? but what about how it only hits me at times...and for the rest of the time i can leave it in some deep recess of my mind (heart?) and just be as i've been for so long? right now, that starts to look like i'm trying to push away something that i know is true, but... fine, i know i'm indecisive. probably the bigger cause here though is that i'm scared. i don't want to break things and i don't want to cause hurt. i'll sacrifice myself, because hey, i am good at it; i have accumulated so much practice in it that it's become basically okay by now. i still have what i do have, and whatever happens, anything at all, i know i do not want to lose that.

[something about this night just feels so good]

so i was walking a bit outside tonight, just over to beijing and then to starbucks and then back to rodin... and the air felt so amazing. i was wearing shorts and a t-shirt, and it was probably around 75 degrees out. the air felt clean and clear, just playing along the border of chilly - enough to be thoroughly refreshing. i felt open and comfortable just letting this perfect night air soak into my skin.

then i got up to my room, and.. most of my view is just the radian, but even so, it looks better at night, and to the right is more of the city. the large windows let the beautiful night expand into the space of my room and i just lay on my bed looking out on it all. i couldn't even turn on lights for awhile; i didn't want to lose the special feeling.


but whenever i have these moments of night rapture, they also bring up a little longing. the way it all feels, it just seems like i should have somebody special with me. someone to walk with, lay down with, and gaze with. to share the feeling with. the strange part is this: i can't seem to figure out who exactly i want that person to be. my thoughts jump around, somewhat at random, from one somebody to another, but never landing on one that feels completely right. so i avoid the pain of specific loneliness, yet feel the frustration of not being able to focus energy.

just listened to a hed kandi song, from the summer 2008 mix album, called "be with you"...
kinda feels right.


this post is labeled with the time i had these thoughts, though written hours later.

I am going to explode

It has been 7 hours since I last ate something but I've already been home for an hour and haven't eaten anything. That's about how much this is consuming my mind. And when I say "this", I mean "he".

It's a complicated situation, really; before I got into it, I imagined that if I got into it, it would be difficult. Of course in the first place there is me to deal with. How many times have I been right next to him, our time together going on, supposedly what I look forward to so much, but I get so tied up with all my worry and fear that it all just strangles me? Thinking about it now, outside the moment, I can't even understand what I'm so afraid of. Maybe this is one reason it might be a stupid endeavor. I just want to be comfortable. I just want to be me, because if I want him to like me and like being around me, I don't want to be holding things back.

Sometimes, sometimes, it works. I'm telling him some story and I know he's listening cuz he has that look, interested and right in the moment with me. Or some little thing or other happens, and I make a little joke about it, which starts us laughing, and then one of us makes another joke off of that, and we just laugh even harder on top of it all. Then I relax a little because we shared something fun, something that feels good.

I think there's only been one time we've stepped past the line of little jokes and related funny stories to have a little bit more of a serious conversation. I think it took me slightly by surprise when he started it with a question, but it felt good... And I love laughing, I really really do, but I want this so much too. I want to just talk about what we think... But it seems so hard. I don't know a whole lot, but my life and his (and he and I) are so different. My knowledge, my experiences must encompass only a small fraction of his. I feel restricted and he looks free to me. How can my life be of interest to talk about? How can I be of interest? Well if I can't talk about things I do, I'd like to talk about things I think about... I want to try to give who I am, since I guess that's all I really have.

And then... there are these most dangerous little moments: we touch. It's happenstance. I'm laughing, we're going up the stairs, and he doesn't want me to fall, and he kind of has his arm there in case, and it brushes mine a few times. He reaches across my arm to get to the keyboard. My earring falls out and he puts it back in for me. His puts his hand on my knee, for a second.
...
Then my mind takes over, turns life into a movie. I trip over my shoes and the fall lands me halfway into his arms, and I get to stay there a little longer... Or our hands touch, and catch, and stay together. Or we're laughing really hard, then while we're recovering, I lean over and just kiss him. Okay yeah, basically every scenario leads to kissing, because somehow I can't stop them from coming to mind. I say "movie" because these things would be much more likely to happen in a movie than in my real life.

And just to make it all 10 times worse, the situation that I'm in draws its no-cross line exactly at the line whose crossing would indicate an interest between us... So I go on every day, wondering if he might want to cross that line, if the situation were different. Wishing I was free to cross it, if I could ever get the courage. Trying, if the chances arise, to step just a little closer, and see what happens, how he reacts. Attempting to discern if possibly he's on the other side of this barrier wanting the same thing, not that I could really think well enough of myself to assume it.

The worst thing is... I'm not sure why I want it all so much. Is it just this enticing game, something with which I can try to push the limits, this little bit of excitement I can hold onto and let it make me crazy? In the beginning, it seemed that we could talk easily, but now there are plenty of times it seems neither of us can think of anything to say. That's always awkward for me. Conversing easily and eventually meaningfully is one of the things I value most in a relationship with somebody (I mean any kind of relationship, friends as well); for sure, I want that with him, but it's not exactly happening naturally. Still, it bothers me every time I feel like I've regressed. But to get back to the point, if talking doesn't really flow with him, then why do I still "want" him so much? (..whatever "want" entails.) Is it a combination of just wanting to kiss someone and being attracted to him? ..I don't like thinking I'm caught up in such a shallow level of feelings, but I suppose I am human which makes it totally possible.

Okay...where have I gotten with all of this? I want and don't really know why but can't have anyway. Things happen every day, my mood soars or dives accordingly. I analyze and worry and wonder and regret and hope and act giddy and basically, go crazy. And I don't exactly want to rush my summer past, but I want so badly to know what might happen in a certain future moment that could be my only chance to find out some answers to all this wondering..