(no subject)
nothing good in my life has ever come to pass without an honest attempt to fight it off. some examples:
in the fall of my freshman year, after many late evenings of walking the pock-marked Fredericksburg streets with matt, when i thought just maybe i might like him like him, i wrote a poem called "Stupid Boy". it encapsulated all the vehemence with which i wanted to fight those feelings. he found it in my computer somehow, and i wasn't convinced he wasn't snooping when he signed a letter to me as Stupid Boy, but in the end i forgave him because he forgave me my bad poetry and painfully exposed vulnerability.
during the second half of my junior year, my friendship with kristy was one of the most intense and beautiful friendships i have ever known. but before we spent hours analyzing middle eastern politics and crushes over omelettes on her kitchen floor, and before we danced earnestly in the middle of the street at every chance we were given, and before we promised each other the world while wrapped between sleeping bags in a cabin full of daddy long legs... she invited me to come over to her house and i said no. i barely knew her and i avoided conversation beyond, "i like your bike," and thank god for people who insist that the walk's not that far and, hey why not, we'll feed you, because without her i would have been lost that spring.
i spent the entire summer before my senior year proclaiming to every single friend i had, "don't let me fall in love this year, i have places to go." i don't know if my friends weren't paying attention or if there simply wasn't anything that they could do to stop it, but when i met taylor i pretty much knew it was hopeless. which is why i felt so certain, on that sunny afternoon that andrew and i sat scheming on warm rocks along the rappahannock, that setting him up with mer would be the right thing to do. it wasn't. like a steamroller there was something unshakeable and ruthless in the love that plunged me head-first over the course of a few short days into a future i felt entirely destined for.
now here i am wondering: why is it that i feel annoyed that there are so many good people in my life right now. i have two friends, aide and nelly, who make me want to cast my heart onto the crayon-stained table for them both to examine. we simply do not share a vocabulary sufficient to convey my gratitude for everything that i have gained from our past year of friendship. there are seventeen men who wake up before dawn and walk through the same doors with the same groggy-eyed faces to greet me with a brand new hello every morning. i have come to care deeply for each one of them individually; each has taught me something utterly important, and i have tried, sometimes with a desperate sense of futility, to teach them something back. there is my roommate mark who called me out for reckless behavior on the night we heard gunshots. in the simplicity of their message - "if you go outside, i will follow you not because i feel responsible for you but because i don't want you to get hurt" - his words stung because they were so plainly based in a sense of caring that i was entirely unprepared to receive.
there are times in my life where my store of human connection is dangerously depleted. i have gone years without it. somehow there is an abundance of human connection in my life right now, and i feel unequiped to manage it properly. at times like this, i am again a wobbly child performing her first balancing act on the frame of a gently moving bicycle. it is thrilling and petrifying and cumbersome, and i'm never sure what to do from here. it seems, really, truly, like the only thing to do is enjoy the moment.
in the fall of my freshman year, after many late evenings of walking the pock-marked Fredericksburg streets with matt, when i thought just maybe i might like him like him, i wrote a poem called "Stupid Boy". it encapsulated all the vehemence with which i wanted to fight those feelings. he found it in my computer somehow, and i wasn't convinced he wasn't snooping when he signed a letter to me as Stupid Boy, but in the end i forgave him because he forgave me my bad poetry and painfully exposed vulnerability.
during the second half of my junior year, my friendship with kristy was one of the most intense and beautiful friendships i have ever known. but before we spent hours analyzing middle eastern politics and crushes over omelettes on her kitchen floor, and before we danced earnestly in the middle of the street at every chance we were given, and before we promised each other the world while wrapped between sleeping bags in a cabin full of daddy long legs... she invited me to come over to her house and i said no. i barely knew her and i avoided conversation beyond, "i like your bike," and thank god for people who insist that the walk's not that far and, hey why not, we'll feed you, because without her i would have been lost that spring.
i spent the entire summer before my senior year proclaiming to every single friend i had, "don't let me fall in love this year, i have places to go." i don't know if my friends weren't paying attention or if there simply wasn't anything that they could do to stop it, but when i met taylor i pretty much knew it was hopeless. which is why i felt so certain, on that sunny afternoon that andrew and i sat scheming on warm rocks along the rappahannock, that setting him up with mer would be the right thing to do. it wasn't. like a steamroller there was something unshakeable and ruthless in the love that plunged me head-first over the course of a few short days into a future i felt entirely destined for.
now here i am wondering: why is it that i feel annoyed that there are so many good people in my life right now. i have two friends, aide and nelly, who make me want to cast my heart onto the crayon-stained table for them both to examine. we simply do not share a vocabulary sufficient to convey my gratitude for everything that i have gained from our past year of friendship. there are seventeen men who wake up before dawn and walk through the same doors with the same groggy-eyed faces to greet me with a brand new hello every morning. i have come to care deeply for each one of them individually; each has taught me something utterly important, and i have tried, sometimes with a desperate sense of futility, to teach them something back. there is my roommate mark who called me out for reckless behavior on the night we heard gunshots. in the simplicity of their message - "if you go outside, i will follow you not because i feel responsible for you but because i don't want you to get hurt" - his words stung because they were so plainly based in a sense of caring that i was entirely unprepared to receive.
there are times in my life where my store of human connection is dangerously depleted. i have gone years without it. somehow there is an abundance of human connection in my life right now, and i feel unequiped to manage it properly. at times like this, i am again a wobbly child performing her first balancing act on the frame of a gently moving bicycle. it is thrilling and petrifying and cumbersome, and i'm never sure what to do from here. it seems, really, truly, like the only thing to do is enjoy the moment.