Waiting.
Having just passed May 24th... my birthday and Clare's. I'm going to just go ahead and skate over the part of this that involves the fact that Clare is a fictional character. I have a small crush on Clare... not in a weird way, but in a very "I want to be that woman" way.
The Time Traveler's Wife is my comfort book. It is the book I pick up, and crawl into bed with. On happy nights, on comfortable nights, on rainy and cold nights. When I can't sleep, when I am heartbroken and wounded, when I am feeling strong and confident and settled. It really depends on my mood what book I will take comfort in. When I need to be lost in a world that is not my own, and would never exist, but is still as familiar as my own reflection, I would probably go with Harry Potter. To Hogwarts, or to Forks, with my favorite vampire. But... Henry and Clare... they settle me the way peppermint settles my nerves and the way coffee eases my ragged edges.
I can open the book up to any place, it doesn't even matter where. Well, I avoid the beginning. Although it is so important to the entire story, I don't really enjoy the parts when Henry first begins to travel... in his younger days. I also don't really go to Clare's younger days. I will read them, and when Clare reaches her mid-teens I am sucked in. I avoid the ending. The ending makes me cry. Every single time I know what is coming. I've known since I first picked up the book how it would end. The book is... so me. It is simple, and the descriptions are not over the top. I love what I can picture, but I loathe when writers go over the top (case in point: White Oleander... a very good book, but with language that just overwhelms me and feels so forced.)
I think the reason it comforts me is that it is real. It's simple, and usual, and nothing necessarily epic or extraordinary. And all of those traits make it beautiful and rare. I don't know what it is about it. Maybe it's exactly how I wish my life was. Well, with the exception of the time traveling husband. Maybe it's the fact that it really is a love story... with all the imperfections and flaws. With all of the mistakes and the choices and the humanity. With all the pain...
Ah love. Love stories. Romance. I have a hard time knowing what to believe when it comes to that. It's interesting. I have a lot of people in my life struggling through their own love stories... not necessarily believing in love stories anymore. I don't know what I believe, but it's not the stuff of fairy tales, or childish romances anymore. The things that remind me of romance aren't the usual things. It is not chick flicks, and stupid TV shows. It is seeing couples together getting ice cream. Or hearing about their random disagreements. Or seeing them unloading groceries from their cars. Right? So that is not the stuff of great epic romantic love... but it's enough for me... because then the romance, even small, is touching.
I'm doing good... it's pretty easy to be single. I'm very good at it. I've got some experience with it. But every so often I am reminded of the fact that single means just that. It means there isn't someone to go to bed with at night. There is this space... that I fill with mileage, and cooking, and cleaning, and parenting, and evolving. But it is still there. Sometimes, I put it in a box. Sometimes, I store it in drawers, in different places in my apartment. Sometimes I fold it up and slide it under the bed. But it is always there... the 'I love you' that I never hear. Someone looking at me and telling me I am beautiful. Someone hugging me, holding me. Someone next to me on the couch while I'm reading, doing their own thing.
I know how easy it is to find someone to fill the holes and the voids... but when it doesn't fit, it might as well be empty anyway. I've made the wrong choices and chosen the wrong fit, and I suffered through the ripples of those choices before.
I came out of the end of those months the same way I came out of those years, before. I came out wondering how to be myself. Wondering who I was, when everything I believed in, when all the things I was defined as were burned up and washed away and I have a chance to be myself again. Sometimes what is remaindered after damage and destruction is the most beautiful, only nobody notices, because raw beauty is hardly as obvious as... well... obvious beauty. Blatant beauty. Fake beauty.
So here I am, and I want something that isn't complicated. I want the occasional love letter, even if it's written on a post it note, or it comes to the inbox on my cell phone. I want someone to feel a little nervous around me... I want someone who wants to be with me, spend time with me and who will.
It makes me wonder what is wrong with me that once it reaches a certain point of knowing me-people get bored. They lose interest. Am I so... uninteresting? That might be what I struggle with before. Whatever it is that causes people to be so interested at first, and so intrigued. It never goes away... I'm still me, the same girl I was on day one... but somehow it's just not interesting anymore. Maybe that part sucks a little bit. It's seemed to happen frequently over the last year or so. Okay, not extremely often, but enough that it makes me wonder about myself. What causes that transition?
Next time I start writing, it better be sunny outside. I am having an absolute craving for a big cup of coffee and my computer, writing at my little patio table. Okay, does that sound much more elegant than it really will be? Probably. I won't be all cute and writer-like, but probably all scrubbed out in boxers and slightly dirty hair. Oh well, to each her own, and I'll suffer for the art, even if it means suffering in general scrubbiness. :-)
The Time Traveler's Wife is my comfort book. It is the book I pick up, and crawl into bed with. On happy nights, on comfortable nights, on rainy and cold nights. When I can't sleep, when I am heartbroken and wounded, when I am feeling strong and confident and settled. It really depends on my mood what book I will take comfort in. When I need to be lost in a world that is not my own, and would never exist, but is still as familiar as my own reflection, I would probably go with Harry Potter. To Hogwarts, or to Forks, with my favorite vampire. But... Henry and Clare... they settle me the way peppermint settles my nerves and the way coffee eases my ragged edges.
I can open the book up to any place, it doesn't even matter where. Well, I avoid the beginning. Although it is so important to the entire story, I don't really enjoy the parts when Henry first begins to travel... in his younger days. I also don't really go to Clare's younger days. I will read them, and when Clare reaches her mid-teens I am sucked in. I avoid the ending. The ending makes me cry. Every single time I know what is coming. I've known since I first picked up the book how it would end. The book is... so me. It is simple, and the descriptions are not over the top. I love what I can picture, but I loathe when writers go over the top (case in point: White Oleander... a very good book, but with language that just overwhelms me and feels so forced.)
I think the reason it comforts me is that it is real. It's simple, and usual, and nothing necessarily epic or extraordinary. And all of those traits make it beautiful and rare. I don't know what it is about it. Maybe it's exactly how I wish my life was. Well, with the exception of the time traveling husband. Maybe it's the fact that it really is a love story... with all the imperfections and flaws. With all of the mistakes and the choices and the humanity. With all the pain...
Ah love. Love stories. Romance. I have a hard time knowing what to believe when it comes to that. It's interesting. I have a lot of people in my life struggling through their own love stories... not necessarily believing in love stories anymore. I don't know what I believe, but it's not the stuff of fairy tales, or childish romances anymore. The things that remind me of romance aren't the usual things. It is not chick flicks, and stupid TV shows. It is seeing couples together getting ice cream. Or hearing about their random disagreements. Or seeing them unloading groceries from their cars. Right? So that is not the stuff of great epic romantic love... but it's enough for me... because then the romance, even small, is touching.
I'm doing good... it's pretty easy to be single. I'm very good at it. I've got some experience with it. But every so often I am reminded of the fact that single means just that. It means there isn't someone to go to bed with at night. There is this space... that I fill with mileage, and cooking, and cleaning, and parenting, and evolving. But it is still there. Sometimes, I put it in a box. Sometimes, I store it in drawers, in different places in my apartment. Sometimes I fold it up and slide it under the bed. But it is always there... the 'I love you' that I never hear. Someone looking at me and telling me I am beautiful. Someone hugging me, holding me. Someone next to me on the couch while I'm reading, doing their own thing.
I know how easy it is to find someone to fill the holes and the voids... but when it doesn't fit, it might as well be empty anyway. I've made the wrong choices and chosen the wrong fit, and I suffered through the ripples of those choices before.
I came out of the end of those months the same way I came out of those years, before. I came out wondering how to be myself. Wondering who I was, when everything I believed in, when all the things I was defined as were burned up and washed away and I have a chance to be myself again. Sometimes what is remaindered after damage and destruction is the most beautiful, only nobody notices, because raw beauty is hardly as obvious as... well... obvious beauty. Blatant beauty. Fake beauty.
So here I am, and I want something that isn't complicated. I want the occasional love letter, even if it's written on a post it note, or it comes to the inbox on my cell phone. I want someone to feel a little nervous around me... I want someone who wants to be with me, spend time with me and who will.
It makes me wonder what is wrong with me that once it reaches a certain point of knowing me-people get bored. They lose interest. Am I so... uninteresting? That might be what I struggle with before. Whatever it is that causes people to be so interested at first, and so intrigued. It never goes away... I'm still me, the same girl I was on day one... but somehow it's just not interesting anymore. Maybe that part sucks a little bit. It's seemed to happen frequently over the last year or so. Okay, not extremely often, but enough that it makes me wonder about myself. What causes that transition?
Next time I start writing, it better be sunny outside. I am having an absolute craving for a big cup of coffee and my computer, writing at my little patio table. Okay, does that sound much more elegant than it really will be? Probably. I won't be all cute and writer-like, but probably all scrubbed out in boxers and slightly dirty hair. Oh well, to each her own, and I'll suffer for the art, even if it means suffering in general scrubbiness. :-)