In the quiet moments at the end of the day, when so much fills your mind and emotions overload your heart, this is the space where I free those thoughts and let them take over
These are the thoughts of love and life, joys and frustrations, things I've learned, and my life's failures. In black and white.
I've been obsessing wondering a lot lately about what I am doing, where I am going, who I am. Am I having a midlife crisis? Am I just floundering in between jobs?
Dear God, what AM I doing?
I have a job. Is it my passion? I don't think so. Does it bring me personal happiness and satisfaction? Yes, it does. So what does that mean? Everybody is always telling me to follow my passion, but what if my passion is eating cake? How do I follow that? And don't suggest baker because I don't have the stamina for baking and decorating a cake.
I sat down this afternoon and read old love letters from high school, university and graduate school. All of this love and pondering and disappointment. People who have said they have learned, they have grown, they have loved and moved on. I was so different then, and I am so different now, and the one thing that I know is that I am still looking for purpose. I am still searching for the "mark" that I am supposed to be leaving on this earth.
Where is it? What is it supposed to be? For some people it is a financial goal. For others, it is family and children. But I guess I still don't know what it looks like for me.
A lover once sent me a drunken email almost 10 years ago and the words haunt me to this day,
"I can't promise that I'll grown those wings or keep this tarnished halo shined, but I'll never betray your trust, angel mine".
I feel like this myself. I cannot promise you, or you, or even you that I will always be the perfect creature you think I am, or the image I project out to the world. But if you stay with me, if you stick with this rough ride, I will never betray your trust. I will always try to become a better version of myself.
I sat watching a movie on tv this past Sunday. I won't tell you which one it was, but lets just say that it was one I was glad I was watching alone.
The female lead of the movie was wondering where the sparkle goes after you've been in a relationship for some time and how does it get replaced with...comfort? Dullness? Complacency?
The the male lead does something reminicent of the past. He calls her on the phone, tells her to get ready for dinner because he is taking her out and that if she looks out her window, he is waiting for her in his car.
For some psychotic strange reason, I start crying. The tears were streaming down my face from both eyes like a water fountain.
What was going on here? Why was I crying? He wasn't waiting outside my window to take me out, this was just a movie.
I came to realize that I was mourning a relationship of my past; one that was full of romance and "sparkle". He would show up in the middle of the night with surprise phone calls. We would wander the streets of various cities together and he would surprise me with lemonade, cookies and marriage proposals.
All of this emotion pouring out of me left me thinking, when does the emotion disappear? How long do you mourn past loves, past lives, past romance? Does it ever go away?
Every time I am in a car, I am reminded of all the trips we took together going nowhere. God, we loved just driving and driving, not really knowing where we were going to end up. I think we just loved the company, you know?
Tonight I was remembering the time we drove all the way to Whitby and back. Then I was thinking about the time we drove all over Oregon together for 3 days, watched a wedding and then just drove around. Remember that hideous snow storm all over Montreal? I think we drove in that for 3 hours! It was crazy. Of course my favourite was the one where we drove to St. Louis and back and we played the animal alphabet game. Yes I know, I resorted to el gato and I know that it was my sly little smile that let that one go, but I also remember fiercely debating over xenopus and consulting the computer when we got home. Remember driving around Carmel and laughing so hard when we realized that I had no film in the camera but we had spent hours and hours taking pictures??? What was that???
The most memorable ride? When we were driving home from Yosemite and you asked me to move with you, come home with you after you leave San Fran. Had the window been left open, I think I would have flown right out. I was in shock.
You have always left me in shock and pure pleasure.
I have always loved you with all that I have inside my heart. It has always been yours.
And now you're gone and I am left here with an empty car.
I realized that all of our road trips really came down to one thing. It was just in that moment we were together. Then somehow, after the ride was over....
Marriage was never in the greater picture for me. Sure I had relationships, but I wasn't ever sure if I really wanted to get married and it wasn't something that I put on my list of priorities.
I traveled the world extensively to some of the most beautiful places you could imagine. I had secret love affairs, I had not so secret love affairs. I had love and romance in ways that you would think were completely unreal, out of romance novels, just a dream. But despite everything that I had done, marriage was still not on the table, not for me.
As the years went by, I went to school, I finished my undergraduate degree, I finished my Masters degree, then I started a PhD and backed out when funding fell through. Obviously I needed to pick a different route for my life other than the one of academia I thought I would be living. I had had enough of poverty, kraft dinner, instant noodles and working 3 jobs simultaneously.
But even through the years of working, buying my house, buying a car, adopting my pets, never once did I think that I needed to seriously search for a husband. I didn't need one. I had my friends, I had my passionate affairs, I had all I wanted and needed.
Then it happened. I found somebody who made me think that it wouldn't be too bad to be with somebody...indefinitely. I don't really know how it happened or when it happened. Since the moment we started dating, I told him outright, if you want marriage and kids, I'm not your girl. He said that was fine. Lets see where this goes.
So what was it about him that made him so special? I don't know. Nothing. Everything. It wasn't this whirlwind romance where he swept me off to exotic locales and made me fall in love with letters and poetry and gifts. It wasn't something that was like love at first sight. It wasn't what the story books tell you to believe that it should be when you fall in love and find "the one". But it was definitely HIM. He was everything that I didn't know that I wanted and needed. He was everything that I didn't know I was looking for, but never found, at least in one package. No, he isn't perfect, nor does he pretend to be perfect, but he is perfect. He is perfect for my imperfect self.
When we were planning our wedding, there were some things right off the top that I knew HAD to be personal. Music was at the top of my list. For those of you who don't know me, every single moment of my life has a soundtrack, a score too, associated with it if it's a really good moment. Every single precious and important moment of my life has been punctuated by a song, and our wedding was going to be no different. Every single moment of that day, I had music playing through my head. Yes, I am that crazy.
There was one song that kept coming back to me over and over again that I just couldn't work into my wedding, but it strikes a chord in me every time I hear it. I think of myself, I think of my life and I think of him. (For those in the wonder, yes, our wedding day was FILLED with personally chosen songs including the one we all walked down the aisle to *Joshua Radin's song "TODAY" in a slower acoustic version, and *Sunny Days by Joe Raposo was the recessional song...yes, that is the theme song to Sesame Street).
So. Brandi Carlile, thank you for the song that I identify with so strongly. Thank you for the song that makes me think of me, my life and my new husband every time I hear it. New husband; wow, that's something I never thought I would say in a million years.
I am going to try something new. Something I have never done before. I am going to try a new career on for size. It's a bit scary since it's so new. It isn't anything that I thought I would do.
You come to me in the darkness of night
and creep into the stillness of my sleep
You start as a shadow, lingering in the corner
then the sparkle of your eyes start to illuminate
The familiarity of your smile warms the cold
and I am with you again
We walk through our special places
we do what we always do
Your laughter fills the space with light
and I wonder how I could have spent so much time in darkness
Then I realize it is not dark when I am with you
As slowly as you came to me you leave me
not that I realize you are gone at first
just as my bleery eyes adjust to morning light
And again you are gone
Like a haunting in the night
I am left with the sweetness of your skin
the taste of your lips
the smell of your breath
and the warmth of your smile
to haunt me for the rest of the day
