Reaching your true definition in surrender to a will for change
I can relax now.
I believe that I believe that I believe the next great change in my life will come to pass, and I have five thousand words of unraveled skepticism to prove it. Maybe the time’s come to lay it out where I can see how far I’ve come along the shadow side of my greatest possessions.
I can finally shut the facebook down and sleep when I need to sleep (or compose a thousand words), because the person we’ve waited for is definitely on the way. That is, she’s always been on the way since she said so…and she’s always been welcome…and after a snowbound week that derailed our holiday rendezvous, the lurking, compressed worries that take seed in one’s blues, that we may be too much trouble for each other or ask too much, were all answered by our willingness to simply be there for each other and know without a doubt we can count on each other, not just when times are sweet, but when they are hectic, inconvenient, and utterly unfair---but not so unfair as to unseat the resilient young faith we have in what we are now, or as we like to refer to in our nicknames, “Ba-Dooms.”
When she last faced her greatest times of danger, she thought of us, and what she learned from us is worth telling. But this time, what I learned from having her in my life has brought me over the edge; from an impossibly light witness self nearby, I’ve observed in fullness now the “us” of whom I speak…an “us” upon whom you can rely…but an “us” whose identity as we’ve known it’s truly drawn to a close. It’s with reverence for what has been, and the security to know such reverence will not hamper the welcome of the person to come, and while I wonder with delight what sorts of ideas encouraged her to come to a couple’s love and take the place offered as an equal, it’s the way we all three face fear together, individually and in each configuration together, that truly defines us here at our new beginning. What has come to an end for her, as an individual, is a topic familiar to every free person that marries, and the self she leaves behind is really just her Mama’s little baby, to stay there in her heart forever.
Her last night out’s another story, a rough-and-tumble affair on a Saturday night my Grandfather Disharoon would love, and it ties up the end, really, of the one I want to tell about the identity of a couple, and how they’ve been transformed by finding the one they dared to love, the one daring enough for them. Actually, where her trauma ended, with their comforting words, is where their story ends, or rather, begins to end, as the fear they fought together from the start---that anything should ever come between them, and their absolute faith in each other, side by side against the world if need be---is laid to rest, on a walkway dedicated to a man of peace, in a labyrinth wherein they left those fears behind, and emerged new from its center. Since I know without a doubt the story ends happily, I can share this first thing of all I’ve learned, with what I feared to learn now accepted and defined without assumptions, and no unclaimed freight rocking off the tracks in the sleepy middle of the night.
I see it’s the one thing I had to learn in order to set forth for myself and the world the changed viewpoint that will make this a new book, about a Whole New Ba-Doom. It’s all about inspiration, the way life becomes real life in the quickening of a pulse. I want to share first of all about my great inspirations, and some of what I’ve learned from my own mistakes, now that I am not so afraid at all of those mistakes, and now that I understand their causal linkage and by what agency they are mistakes, and by what agency they were critical decisions to the creation of what has survived.
But I can only do it, because now, I know what I know that I know I believe: it’s going to end up happily ever after, and it’s not going to end someday because I am an idiot.
I’m not waiting on anything to be proved. The last two things that could’ve stopped it from happening were not snow storms in the air, but in the self: one, in the more obvious form of cold feet for our Third, and the other, in the more insidious form of the dark side of the happiest couple I ever knew.
The surrender of their familiarity and security as they knew it had to be recognized, and the ego that formed from their united front, the identity and limited self that built between them from years of true love, is my subject today. Perhaps a celebration of all they together were, and a declaration of its success before this change, is necessary to gratify that ego’s existence, before the definition of its identity becomes complete. So enveloped, it may be made a gift, addressed to the loved one who’s coming to generate a new definition, and a new way of life that will guide me in writing this book.
Well, in a way, the last day of their story was a fairly miserable one, but I see the hallmarks of all that is good, that will live on, there to hold the conversation together…there to hold the two of them together as it had thousands of times, against a darkness without which, with each other as a certainty, they had never again known. How could they not conspire, even in some half-hearted way, to continue the test in their minds…to preserve some way out, for them to not lose their love of a life time, if they have guessed with delusion that they’ve become love of a life time to a third person they choose to love?
Now…without guarding against this new person they want to trust with 100 percent of their individual beings…with the choice of faith rather than reserved skepticism…how would they choose to face this, their last great test together? Because in the end, if they succeed, the very identity they sought to define will, by definition, end…and the happy couple they were, will be no more.
It’s a good story to tell, tomorrow… ;-D
Things did not work out this way.
Tomorrow now is a month and a half down the line, and all that’s left is a dream without the romance.
I dreamed about Damon from The Vampire Diaries, but while there was action in my dream, and I was IN the dream, none of the other characters you know and love were there. He helped a guy leave town, to escape another problem…the guy gets to a cabin of sorts, where two girls live, two in their twenties, the typical TV sorts of actresses, one black one white, listening to music on the porch…there’s something about another monster, a terrible fight featuring Damon, and then a grisly discovery of previous deaths and carnage beneath a small house. At the end, some discovered items are divvied up, and Gloria from Angela’s job is there to get one of the items they thought my character would be interested in. But no compelling characters, no romance…no intensity. The television was left on during one of the waiting periods, during which Damon was employed at digging for something---just an unglamorous spot of action where there’s tension for those who wait, but no real TV worthy dialogue, save for perhaps whatever’s going on between two older people who suddenly appear without obvious relation to the narrative, talking in the corner. I couldn’t help but feel it was a shame no one simply turned the television off and started playing the piano. But why promote music and doing something with your life…it’s a television program we’re in, and promoting television watching made sense in the depiction of this mundane waiting period.
If the program described above seems lame, as dreams go, it was also a strange encapsulation of the feeling that changed…the affair described above this dream required complete faith in someone who never showed. In fact, her sporadic inattention became chilling, and the extended promise of her arrival led to more strain of credibility. Without the romance, and character interaction, there’s precious little…so says the dream. My mind raced back to our Facebook tags on a nice promotional picture of the entire TVD cast, a Oct. 9th cover photo by our former darling. We were her two friends who cared about the program with her, without ever having watched it, and we found it quite fun once we watched, even a weekly treat. In the fall, we would talk about the plots, and how much we longed to be curled up with popcorn watching together. But the mid-season finale passed…the mid-season premiere came…and here we are, with the cure leading to Cylas’ resting place in the woods, and it’s the two of us snuggled up watching, and Honey Kat…somewhere.
The couple who fought so hard to keep their identity knew something subconsciously that they wished to deny in conversation. To become three, they had to stop fighting over the girl who left them in the dark so often and let the memory of who they had been become the past, so they could let a Third come in, equally. Equality cannot be conferred, however; it must be opened as a possibility, and then it must be earned. The couple knew something was up on some instinctual level, and when their prospective third didn’t arrive a second time, the pain of holding out for her grew downright painful! As if there was not already enough pain from that first missed flight; the second time, there’s no itinerary, and while some details emerge from another Embassy trip, the possibility that the entire thing was a fantasy began to dawn.
Requests for sunlight on the success of the process drew anger, because, after all, along with continuing neglect of communications after one last sign of success, the time to know something about a real trip came, and the couple hears about a supposed job---a sign no one’s coming, but staying---delivered as a brush-off to further chatting. The degree of callousness is heightened by days of non-communication from the unnecessarily secretive girl, and all the while, messages about falling out of love sit unread, beside ill-advised offerings of explanations about the reason for asking again about the trip…and how it’s become necessary it be enacted shortly, as the long distance phase has become impossible, really, without passion. The unfortunately detailed explainer violates the needs of the one falling out of love, her desire to let it fade. His stubborn insistence that it couldn’t be, then might not be, a lie, leads to a retaliatory block on Facebook to the girl, who doesn’t notice it for three days.
From promise of arrival to sarcastic e-mail thanking them for FB deletion, his denial leads to one last conciliatory message, and her demands lead to one addressing the girl’s ridiculous secrecy, and the doubts about her arising from the sneaky way she went from erotic story inspiration and fan to accepted friend. A lot of happiness and even the promise to be family came along in between, but as you can see by this relationship autopsy, like all cut flowers, this one came to fade, to dry, to wither…and to treat such a thing as a thriving bush was to waste moisture and attentiveness. Only an illusion of anything alive remained, and the resources going towards keeping such a plant were precious ones that led to speculation and cost truth. Truth is the one thing, in sentiment, that must empower a writer, for even with the debate of subjectivity, without the feeling of belief, writing’s just a chore.
The amount of power necessary to hypnotize one’s self into faith in a lost cause is draining to someone who relies on the truth and sustenance. Perpetuating a fraud without reward becomes too self-destructive; when the fraud requires emotional investment, the capital must come from somewhere else in life. Lack of interest in one’s dreams and ambitions is a sign of decline and depression, and what could be more depressing than to invest utterly in a possibility that, because of its innate falsehood on some fundamental level, draws monomaniacal attention to its empowerment?
It’s a sure sign you are not really in true love, however true to the love you may be, when you lose interest in all else, with all commitment dedicated to keeping the love alive in absence of truth. True love empowers you to soar to the heights, as well as dig deep within one’s faithfulness. The problem with keeping a vampire alive, as with all parasites, is that the blood must come from the living, who must replenish it in conventional ways. But the vampire’s not really alive. In the womb, a parasitic twin can become the death of its functioning mate; in romance, only a still birth is possible without the continued heartbeats. No amount of nourishment will keep alive something without the will to live as that thing it’s made to be!
Once, this romance---entered with trepidation because of the great distance, after an extended friendship---came to life, because of the promise it would become realized by day-to-day life, a situation in which passion and idealism and continued care and thoughtfulness might give an unconventional love a real shot. Belief was quite nearly absolute, and certainly, all-consuming. Every emotional preparation to share was made, from the substance of a real love. The real love was the attractive force, admired and mimicked for a season. Having cultivated plants a bit, we’ve known the desire to keep giving a plant a chance, even after signs of development had passed on. It was good spiritual preparation for the pot that I only emptied completely a couple of weeks after its stagnation was apparent; the dream of the flourishing plant was just not enough without the growth.
I suppose the rarity of a couple in love with the same person made me protective of any possibility it might live on, but the stress when belief became reduced to one stubborn third took a terrible toll of good will, supplanted by the necessity for what had, all along, thrived: the bold love of the couple beneath. The wife’s sheer courage in offering to share---with the requirement of emotional nurturing and honesty from all parties---paired with the husband’s giving, inventiveness, and all-around romantic flair.
Revealed in the storm was the durability of the elements and all that was meant to stand. The results, for quite some time, were increased facility in skills that were considered useful mating adaptations: songs became more colorful, pictures became incredibly romantic, the true love and dedication and happiness of a deep love opened for a Third, opened, vicariously, for the world to see, bearing creative fruits, all offered to the Muse. But the essence and inspiration and the goals were born from something true that existed between the couple, the partners in this artistic perpetuation, who sensed their love was being loved, and their offer of belonging thrived by its sincerity. When rose bushes lose their blooms, there’s a winter, and stems sometimes wither and break away before the flourish returns. The beauty remains inherent, not only in the blossom that the world enjoys fragrantly, signaling the thriving sexual life of the plant, but in its less glamorous, basic self, which includes the dirt beneath that attracts so little admiration, the roots that draw its nourishment, the rains that pass through with their inconvenience to idle admiration, and of course, the thorns that protect it from predators, capable even of stabbing the caretaker who nurtures it for flower lovers everywhere.
Perhaps creativity, as I have long surmised before my own sex life really came to be, is the procreative urge subliminated, the need to add fantasy from the child within us all in order for procreating to remain worthwhile to our passions, as so much trouble and trial goes into raising even the most beloved children. It could be that the desire for a baby empowered the use of creativity here, to attract a new possible mate. But creating a kid and raising one require a famous amount of difference! The urge was there for companionship, for exploring the fullness of one’s sexual character, and without the organic additions necessary, these desires here were thwarted by a lack of participation. What’s left is an illusion, one that eventually became apparent. It’s okay: the person is young, the attraction to true love and belonging is common, but perhaps, not necessary enough to bring her thousands of miles away, physically or in form of continued devotion.
When it lost sincerity, one could speculate, but the occasionally painful wait for the magical date of 12/12/12 led to an abandoned itinerary and snow storms…which I came to see did not stop all such flights from leaving the Zagreb airport, a thought I shared and chose blithely to ignore in favor of the icy conditions that seemed threatening enough to justify grounding. Soaring hormonal heights, humor, and the togetherness and inspiration had an undeniable place, around the fringes of her life and business, and restricting and restructuring the center of our own. An entire book of attractive sexual stories was forged beginning in our unusual friendship, completed as a present for the blessed day, and another book, albeit in rushed form, was compiled from our messages to have another gift at hand, so we might continue through our years together to look back on it and remember the promises we made, the discovery of each other…an artifact of falling in love…a process intended to happen in person, really, a process that so often must happen away from any recording, though in this day and age, one’s own phone usually has the means of preserving far more of a romance than many people really want in the end.
The video Skypes, all too rare (there wasn’t enough to say, really, when face to face), the snow storm black outs, the tests of endurance and swallowed suspicions of sincerity, and hundreds of pages of writing back and forth, along with apparently sincere efforts merged with some advantage taken of the benefit of the doubt, I imagine, all left us with a paper trail…not to nothing, but ourselves. The videos made in the meanwhile, the numerous drawings (sent a dozen at a time to Croatia, twice, along with hand-written letters, a cd of our own performances and rehearsals), a magazine spotlighting the new TVD season courtesy of Comic Con, and my favorite, the arrival of a rose, twice, thanks to my sincere and thoughtful efforts to contact the florist, who at first forgot and then, for free, delivered, in person, something beautiful and ephemeral to “the happiest girl in the world!”---all a testament to sincerity and love.
The sacrifice on the true love end outweighed the contribution on the end of promises never meant to be, and even an inspired young person can admit when they are in over their head. To her credit, not once was money requested, though it was offered from her end. But that was not our desire: no, when times became tight, as we transitioned to my part-time work and her renunciation of an unfulfilling job, itself based on false hopes and promises, with a schedule that was more than the psyche allowed…when asked, was there anything she could do? “You already did the important thing, by making sure you come!” I assured her. We made the mutual request: attention. Just support us with your love and company, your contact, and we will make it through this tough time. It’s telling how off-handed the contact became in the next week; the request was not respected. What became apparent was the wisdom in picking up the pieces on our own, as always. The emotional investment, when the couple was ignored, became far too expensive. All remaining resources were meant to be preserved for in-house operations, to put it unromantically.
Perhaps the brush with the difficult reality of the couple preparing for transition without the promised aid and participation set off a bit of conscience, but the courage to say “I’m falling out of love” after whatever date that happened was just not there…and without it, the sustenance of the words, all along, becomes suspect. All the faith parlayed into the romance could not preserve its inherent unreality. Perhaps the realization she was lying to herself only sank in after we were nearly evicted, and this seemed too cruel a blow to deliver. We are artists. We expected no more than a hand-to-mouth existence until our commercial break through, as the resources to gamble on wider advertisement remained out of reach. When the confluence of truly complete products and their recognition happens---and now, you must admit, we have a true story worth telling, along with the music we’ve cultivated, as you’ll see---perhaps all our sacrifices will finally lead to a changed life. But we’ve been in love with the task for the task’s sake along the way, and the support from other dreamers along the way has meant so much to us! It’s possible, when no one’s support really began to matter like hers, the decline in appreciation may have been a warning sign.
That’s love. Enjoy it, but without sacrifice, it’s just a cut flower, and not a fertile bush. Some people prefer one cut flower after another…the result is quite romantic, but the need continues, and so long as one can pay the price for another flower, perhaps gardening is neither attractive nor necessary to those who only want the blossoms. They’re pretty…enjoy them in the moment…take a photograph, if you need to savor their appreciation…but the time comes when the romantic must prepare for their disposal, as well as the cold pragmatist. For some, it’s just garbage. For others of us, only a moving body of water in a lovely setting like a bridge or park will do, for commemorating the growth, the color, the decay, and acceptance of death, without which we would live in too much fear and remorse to recognize the moment, somehow rejoicing in its union with us.
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