Oct 25, 2005 02:00
I've calmed down a lot. I was pretty angry earlier, for a number of reasons I don't feel the need to go into (beyond the obvious). I considered deleting or privatising the last entry, but I think I'll let it stand - one final statement and the topic is put to bed.
Actually, I've been thinking a lot. Mostly about myself. Frankly, at this point the only thing I'm concerned with are my own feelings in the matter.
It occurrs to me that ever since about June of 2002, I've had a lot of questions about a lot of things. Looking back, that was really about when it started. At first I couldn't even articulate the questions to myself, so my fumbled attempts to find answers just made things worse. Everything I did just made me question myself more, and everything that happened around me made those questions hurt more to ask. The worst of it hit at the end of 2004, when everything seemed... pointless. Not nihilistic, but so impressionistic or existentialist that I found myself hating everything about it.
I've spent all of 2005 crawling my way out of that pit - trying to answer those questions. I've been blessed with help, for which I am thankful, but I'm also proud of myself. That's not to say I don't still fuck shit up from time to time. But I understand myself now - I don't feel like I'm kidding myself just by being me anymore, and that goes a long, long way.
I think up until tonight, I had one last question. This question was about me, more than anything else, but it gets all wrapped up in other people - that's part of the nature of being human. It hasn't been answered, in the strictest sense. But sometimes you don't need a direct answer to learn all you need to know. Sometimes the very fact that you don't get an answer tells you all you need to know. And I've learned something very important in the last couple hours.
So all that shit ends now.
I can't say I'm not sad. Nor can I say I'm not still a little angry, but I've decided it doesn't matter. As for the fallout:
To the first: You'll never read this. You'll never know about this. I think you might've known something I never did, but I'm not sure and it's too late to find out now. You'll be fine, I know it, and I'm glad. Thank you for starting me on this path. I'm sorry it hurt you to do so.
To the second: You'll probably never read this either, though you might get wind of it. I wish you'd stop kidding yourself - you could be and do so much if you did. Why do you make yourself prey? I don't know what it's like to be you, I don't know what happened to you to make you the way you are (though I feel something probably did). But what I do believe is that you're honest at heart, and you don't mean to hurt anyone. I think that's part of why I still love you, but that's something that's mine and mine alone now - it's a part of me and you can't touch it. You are not my lover, and if you ever TRULY were, it was only for the breifest of moments. You are not my friend, although you were once and that meant something to me. I've apologized for hurting you, because I am sorry, but I deserve an apology too, for a lot of things, that I never got. To say any less would be to sell myself short, and I'm not doing that for you or anyone. However, I'm not owed it. Until you know why I say that, I don't even want it. I am still angry at you - you have a lot to answer for - but that anger is tempered by the fact that I know you are answering for it, every day you walk out there as something you know you're not. People can see that about you, I hope you know. I wish you could see it. I had hoped that someday we could meet again, that we could talk. But now that I know what I've needed to know, I don't think I want that to ever happen. I wish you well, and I have hope for you, but fuck you.
To the third: You I only have pity for. I had hoped, albiet breifly, that someday you might figure it all out - that somehow you might learn from this as I have - but somehow I doubt it. Frankly, it makes me a little mad that you've experienced all you have and yet you know nothing about people, nothing about life. I'm sure that state of being is the hell you describe, but it's one of your own making. For what I have done (what I REALLY have done, not what you say I've done), I AM sorry. But only for that, not for how you think, feel or act. Everything that makes you miserable - why all your friends here deserted you, why what happened with the guy before me (no, I haven't forgotten about that) happened, EVERYTHING is under your control, to the extent that you choose how to see it and how to respond to it. Stop lying - not necessarily about me, you can say whatever you please about me, I don't care - but about everything. It'll do you a world of good. That's all the advice I've got, and I still think I'm wasting my breath. If life is improving, good. Let it improve and leave me the hell out of it.
and although it's not under the catergory of fallout:
To the fourth: Thank you. Thank you for your honesty, above all else. Thank you for being there and honestly listening when I needed you, instead of just lip service. Thank you for being an innocent, because you are, in ways you don't even know, and that's worth SO much. It's not that you don't know the way the world works - that's ignorance, not innocence - it's in how you understand it; it's in your truth, which is just as valid as any other truth. I know now that I can put the emotional blood and gore of my past behind me and not corrupt that, and that makes me feel good about ME. Thank you for knowing what I've been through and not fearing it. Thank you for being willing to be a part of my world instead of trying to drag me solely into yours - that alone makes me want to be a part of yours even more, and beyond that, to create one that's ours. I know you're not perfect (and I'm glad - perfection scares the hell out of me now because it's always a falsehood) but I know that you know yourself. More than you sometimes think you do. Except for the fact that you're not right here, right now, there's nothing I want to change about us. At least, no change that doesn't naturally happen as we grow. Thank you for being patient in my moments of weakness when I've worried you. I promise, though, that I will not hurt you. I know who I am and what I do now, and it will not happen. I can say I love you and know what it means now. And it's a different kind of love, because it's more than just a part of me. It's something we can share.
And that's that. I like my life. That's the strongest statement I can make. I am owed nothing, and I want nothing from anyone else.
Anyway, tonight's film was City of God. Calling it a tour de force seems cliche, but if any film I've seen recently deserves the title, it's this - it just kind of flies at you and hardly ever slows down to breathe. At the center of the film is Rocket, a would-be photographer who narrates the elliptical, cross-cut narratives that jump around in time to intersect and bring all the events of the film together. At it's heart, the film is about violence amidst poverty - gangsters, hoods and the drug trade. But more to the point, it's about the natures of the people caught up in that world, told through complex character portraits of a varied and interesting cast. I'd heard a lot of good things about this and I understand why. It's definitely going on the list.
movies