Ryler.
I have never felt so complicated in my life. I never percieved the depth and range of emotions I would feel this weekend with Ryler. I knew it would be different, and backwards, to meet the person who has seen my soul naked in very intense ways for four years in written form but never seen my flesh before.
but. I didn't realize what a reckoning that would bring with my own self-concept and identity.
When the phone rang my legs started to shake. Standing outside, trying to act calm, I saw him walking down the steps in front of me, wild mane blowing in the cold wind, and a smile creeped across his lips. I instantly started beaming.
Yes. This was RYLER. The recipient of 4 years worth of correspondence, mailer of postcards, and my soulful aspiration.
"Well. Hello." He grinned and we hugged intensely, rocking back and forth, my fingers threading through his hair. "Hello. It's you. It's really you." I said. I couldn't catch my breath. I wanted to cry and kiss him and in the intensity of the moment I almost did.
We walked up to my room and started talking, and watching each other intensely. How we walked, how we talked, the expressions and gestures and eye movements. Everything was suddenly deeply meaningful. Everything was powerful and real and new. And it came to the point where I almost questioned who I was myself. Suddenly I didn't know anymore. He knew the things of me that few others knew. What then, with that knowledge, does the rest mean? Besides it's been a year and a half since we had real correspondence. So much has changed.
We went out for dinner, then drove around cornell in the pouring rain. My heart was filled with an emotion that I cannot describe. A mixture of love and fear and a sudden realization of my limits as a human being. The limits of this life, and how we expose our humanity.
We chose to stay in the quiet confines of my room, talking, catching up, and learning the basics of each other. I was intensely drawn to him but I didn't know how or what format. I knew suddenly I wanted to do anything for him. I realized he had already done so much for me.
The next day was very much the same. I couldn't sleep for the excitement that ryler was there on the floor next to my bed and that he was composed of flesh and carbon and bones and had spit in his mouth and water in his eyes and snot in his nose. He was real in every sense of the word and that made me real too. He met my friends and was so nice and friendly, and i suddenly understood so much about him from watching him interact. He was so overwhelmingly warm and kind and comfortable with everyone. We were filled by walking and talking and looking and watching and listening. Also filled with a racked brain, a sudden manifestation of self-conciousness and worrying that I wasn't pretty enough or I was too tall or too fat or that i was too loud or too awkward or ditzy. I forget my keys constantly and I can't parallel park-- ryler never knew that before. Ryler knew what poetry I liked, and what I thought about in the privacy of my mind when I fell asleep in the summer. Did these other quirks ruin it? Does truth ever cancel other truths?
Will I ever see him again? Will he ever write to me again? Is this the conclusion or just the beginning? Will I ever meet someone who fills me with such hope and despair and feeling of home and feeling of trust and love and honesty who is ready to, can, and wants to love me in all ways and formats? Will I ever experience the intense feeling of being with someone who is everything I want?
I wonder if I will ever make sense of all this.
"There's a love-song for you!--Ah, if only
There were no teeming
Swarms of mankind in the world, and we were less lonely!"
-DH Lawrence
i don't know what i think. But i know that this weekend was absolutely amazing, in the most internal way.
but. I didn't realize what a reckoning that would bring with my own self-concept and identity.
When the phone rang my legs started to shake. Standing outside, trying to act calm, I saw him walking down the steps in front of me, wild mane blowing in the cold wind, and a smile creeped across his lips. I instantly started beaming.
Yes. This was RYLER. The recipient of 4 years worth of correspondence, mailer of postcards, and my soulful aspiration.
"Well. Hello." He grinned and we hugged intensely, rocking back and forth, my fingers threading through his hair. "Hello. It's you. It's really you." I said. I couldn't catch my breath. I wanted to cry and kiss him and in the intensity of the moment I almost did.
We walked up to my room and started talking, and watching each other intensely. How we walked, how we talked, the expressions and gestures and eye movements. Everything was suddenly deeply meaningful. Everything was powerful and real and new. And it came to the point where I almost questioned who I was myself. Suddenly I didn't know anymore. He knew the things of me that few others knew. What then, with that knowledge, does the rest mean? Besides it's been a year and a half since we had real correspondence. So much has changed.
We went out for dinner, then drove around cornell in the pouring rain. My heart was filled with an emotion that I cannot describe. A mixture of love and fear and a sudden realization of my limits as a human being. The limits of this life, and how we expose our humanity.
We chose to stay in the quiet confines of my room, talking, catching up, and learning the basics of each other. I was intensely drawn to him but I didn't know how or what format. I knew suddenly I wanted to do anything for him. I realized he had already done so much for me.
The next day was very much the same. I couldn't sleep for the excitement that ryler was there on the floor next to my bed and that he was composed of flesh and carbon and bones and had spit in his mouth and water in his eyes and snot in his nose. He was real in every sense of the word and that made me real too. He met my friends and was so nice and friendly, and i suddenly understood so much about him from watching him interact. He was so overwhelmingly warm and kind and comfortable with everyone. We were filled by walking and talking and looking and watching and listening. Also filled with a racked brain, a sudden manifestation of self-conciousness and worrying that I wasn't pretty enough or I was too tall or too fat or that i was too loud or too awkward or ditzy. I forget my keys constantly and I can't parallel park-- ryler never knew that before. Ryler knew what poetry I liked, and what I thought about in the privacy of my mind when I fell asleep in the summer. Did these other quirks ruin it? Does truth ever cancel other truths?
Will I ever see him again? Will he ever write to me again? Is this the conclusion or just the beginning? Will I ever meet someone who fills me with such hope and despair and feeling of home and feeling of trust and love and honesty who is ready to, can, and wants to love me in all ways and formats? Will I ever experience the intense feeling of being with someone who is everything I want?
I wonder if I will ever make sense of all this.
"There's a love-song for you!--Ah, if only
There were no teeming
Swarms of mankind in the world, and we were less lonely!"
-DH Lawrence
i don't know what i think. But i know that this weekend was absolutely amazing, in the most internal way.