be good (arrival)
Surprised to find that the older entries from my teens and early twenties no longer embarrass me; maybe because I no longer feel ashamed of them, I understand them better.*
I was genuinely blind and naïve, then, between 2002 and 2013. There were comments that still sting, but that I didn't fully comprehend, until now, how deeply and personally they were meant to cut. There were comments that were waving flags, kindly letting me know that my attention was wanted, or to share in friendly insights. At the time, I failed to even notice the signals. It was never intentional, my ignorance of the sentiments behind the words -- my oblivion and distance and confusion could not be more sincere, because they were all that I knew (thought I knew) to be true. I did not know that my life was unreasonably busy, a constant teetering on the fine line between barely manageable and permanent breakdown.
While my seemingly wilful ignorance must have frustrated the people who wished to speak to my heart; while it forged an accidentally (but unsuprisingly) lonely path through my early twenties toward my mid and late twenties: I don't regret the bubble. It isolated me and kept me alone, yes. And yes: It shielded me and allowed me to grow on my own terms, largely unaffected by the intentions and advice of others, unless they were already a part of who I was. (Proust would be proud.)
And yet. For whatever reason, I was loved. I was a pain in the ass, I was spoiled rotten, I was stupidly cruel, infuriatingly heedless -- here they still are. I did not know then (I do know now) that I was loved, deeply and carefully, really and well. Just like the comments that still sting (or perhaps, evidenced by the sting), the warmth of those heart beats are still sensible to me. All of them: Fossilized friendships I revisit via old, tucked-away correspondences, living friendships that require tenderness and attention even now. I miss and love and wonder at all of them, my strange Livejournal diaspora. I carry their hearts in my heart, and they carry mine in theirs, in bits and pieces, reluctantly or joyfully or indifferently, unaware.
When I go looking for them, searching for lost times, hunting for long-lost friends (old friends are almost always long-lost in some way), I am greeted by not only their friendship, but by myself also (how good it is to be friends, finally), until:
They take my breath away, these comments. I read them as if for the first time tonight (even the hurtful ones, even the ones made for the sake of whiling away boredom and tedium), and feel now the full force of how my friends and family saw me, heard me, and loved me the best way they knew how, having arrived at a vantage point where I am finally able to see who I was, and am.
My awe at this bottomless well of love and affection is matched only by my overwhelming sense of gratitude, because: I would not be, if not for them.
*Just spent 4.5 hours reading through all of the Livejournal comment notification emails in my Yahoo account. It was quite a trip, Googling Blake Lively/Leighton Meester ice cream pictures and translating Russian comments in between reflections on evolving friendships and relationships and philosophies about life and love.
~~
"The Beloved"
It is enough of honor for one lifetime
To have known you better than the rest have known,
The shadows and the colors of your voice,
Your will, immutable and still as stone.
The shy heart, so lonely and so gay,
The sad laughter and the pride of pride,
The tenderness, the depth of tenderness
Rich as the earth, and wide as heaven is wide.
(Sara Teasdale)
I was genuinely blind and naïve, then, between 2002 and 2013. There were comments that still sting, but that I didn't fully comprehend, until now, how deeply and personally they were meant to cut. There were comments that were waving flags, kindly letting me know that my attention was wanted, or to share in friendly insights. At the time, I failed to even notice the signals. It was never intentional, my ignorance of the sentiments behind the words -- my oblivion and distance and confusion could not be more sincere, because they were all that I knew (thought I knew) to be true. I did not know that my life was unreasonably busy, a constant teetering on the fine line between barely manageable and permanent breakdown.
While my seemingly wilful ignorance must have frustrated the people who wished to speak to my heart; while it forged an accidentally (but unsuprisingly) lonely path through my early twenties toward my mid and late twenties: I don't regret the bubble. It isolated me and kept me alone, yes. And yes: It shielded me and allowed me to grow on my own terms, largely unaffected by the intentions and advice of others, unless they were already a part of who I was. (Proust would be proud.)
And yet. For whatever reason, I was loved. I was a pain in the ass, I was spoiled rotten, I was stupidly cruel, infuriatingly heedless -- here they still are. I did not know then (I do know now) that I was loved, deeply and carefully, really and well. Just like the comments that still sting (or perhaps, evidenced by the sting), the warmth of those heart beats are still sensible to me. All of them: Fossilized friendships I revisit via old, tucked-away correspondences, living friendships that require tenderness and attention even now. I miss and love and wonder at all of them, my strange Livejournal diaspora. I carry their hearts in my heart, and they carry mine in theirs, in bits and pieces, reluctantly or joyfully or indifferently, unaware.
When I go looking for them, searching for lost times, hunting for long-lost friends (old friends are almost always long-lost in some way), I am greeted by not only their friendship, but by myself also (how good it is to be friends, finally), until:
They take my breath away, these comments. I read them as if for the first time tonight (even the hurtful ones, even the ones made for the sake of whiling away boredom and tedium), and feel now the full force of how my friends and family saw me, heard me, and loved me the best way they knew how, having arrived at a vantage point where I am finally able to see who I was, and am.
My awe at this bottomless well of love and affection is matched only by my overwhelming sense of gratitude, because: I would not be, if not for them.
*Just spent 4.5 hours reading through all of the Livejournal comment notification emails in my Yahoo account. It was quite a trip, Googling Blake Lively/Leighton Meester ice cream pictures and translating Russian comments in between reflections on evolving friendships and relationships and philosophies about life and love.
~~
"The Beloved"
It is enough of honor for one lifetime
To have known you better than the rest have known,
The shadows and the colors of your voice,
Your will, immutable and still as stone.
The shy heart, so lonely and so gay,
The sad laughter and the pride of pride,
The tenderness, the depth of tenderness
Rich as the earth, and wide as heaven is wide.
(Sara Teasdale)