boy! we made such a mess together

saturday morning. after five days of being raped of all energy and left without a single thought of my own, five nights of being unable to add to any conversation past 6:00 when i get off work… i get to sit. i choose a coffee shop that you wouldn't be caught dead in, coffee is on the list of things that you judge other people for consuming. but i like this place and light floods in from the wall of windows that face east, erasing last night's sins and making the space feel light.

i text you and i order my latte, the one you would make fun of me for. you're not him, but you're comfortable and you fill my time well. we don't have to say or do much, which feels ok, for the rest of my life exhausts me; and that serves as a pretty good excuse to keep a safe distance. you don't really seem to want to do the things i want to do anyway. photo adventures aren't quite as exciting, baseball games completely uninteresting, and i don't want to go to another bike shop, don't want to watch another movie, don't want to listen to the type of music you prefer to play. but you fit nicely around me when i turn away from you and get in a fetal position. sometimes i get the courage to show you glimpses of my heart but get the feeling that you don't understand me fully anyway, can't navigate through my fumbled words, can't finish my sentences like he could. but thats ok, when conversation isn't as fluid or seems too risky, i can shut down, turn my back to you, pull my knees up to my chest. you seem to understand. so we exist, and your lips are soft on my back.

i take my overpriced stimulus to a carefully picked table but as fate would have it, a group of pharmacy students chooses a table next to me in an otherwise large, empty room and quiz each other on pharmacy terms i'm familiar with. suddenly, abruptly and inconsiderate as always, he barges into my peaceful morning. unwelcomed, he haunts me in bookstores, in songs, restaurants, movies, sports statistics, in memories that still take up so much space of my brain, memories that fill multiple cities. shoving nostalgia down my throat. regularly feeling like a multitude of expectant tears could break free on his cue. i can't see his model of car without looking at the driver to see if he's in town. if i'm in his city, i can't help to hope that i'll randomly run into him. eyes constantly scanning. sure to be wearing something he would like, hair worn in a way that would catch his eye. going to places i know that he frequents.

i get put on auto-pilot and can't control my thoughts or actions, why is he still holding my heart and thoughts hostage? as he moves through life unaffected, what's in it for him? is this some kind of joke? i want my heart back. i handed it to him blindly because he asked for it, but i want it all back. mostly, i want my idealism and hope in love back. i want to believe that the beautiful ceremony of christ to his bride can be experienced by humans, and that the moments of reflecting christ's love to each other can outweigh the times we don't. that the intimacy of sex is something to be saved for one sacred relationship and that it all means something. that we won't always give up on each other. that the nice things you say to me aren't lies and are free from selfish motives. that you are capable of grace and patience, gentleness, faithfulness, goodness. i want light and redemption to invade my heart and erase our sins, i want to feel free from him. free from the bitterness and cynicism. i don't want you to be him. i don't want you to give up on me.

he gave up on me, and for now i give up on love. in practice it just doesn't work. we will always fail. that's gospel.

i take a sip of my drink and roll my eyes at your judgement from afar. but you're really quite alluring if i'm honest. i love the way the way you see the world, it's against the norm and refreshing. you are doing beautiful things with your life, living out of convictions and passions and not leaving it up to someone else to change the world. and i really do believe you are changing the lives of the people around you and the city we live in. we want to change a lot of the same parts of people's worlds, in the same way. the same things make our hearts beat faster, we shed tears for the same injustices. you're so talented and are determined to live a creative life, passionate about the way music has changed the trajectory of your life. you are one of the most unselfish, generous people i've ever met. you seek truth boldly and don't settle for easy answers. money is secondary, actually, last on the list and you fight that idol effortlessly. you make me laugh like few others can. your imagination rivals that of a child unfettered by the hard realities of adulthood. i see myself in you; parts of myself i like and want to be and appreciate and respect the ways that you are different. even if you do think coffee is an addictive, mind altering substance.

we can steal a glance when someone is talking and exchange a multitude of words without interrupting. sometimes i do feel understood, like you get me… like you can see through to my confiscated and deficient heart so i try my best to avoid those moments, ignore the glances, change the subject, make a joke. turn my back. i can't risk not being her, the one. if i don't give you enough of me, you won't be able to tell me i'm not her. that's ok. i don't want to be her. i'll pull my knees over my heart, let you put you arm around my waist, kiss my neck. you don't get me but i don't want to be got. i'll love you from a safe distance. i'll finish my own sentences.

but i wish you would answer your phone because it's saturday and i all i want to do is lay in bed with you all day.

speaking of silence

i splash water out of the pool and onto the concrete. the ants scurry as i watch them with my god-like eyes that hover overhead. within seconds i’ve ruined their small lives; destroyed some sort of a lesser kingdom. i decide it’s good that i'm not the real god, the one who is capable of ruining everything, but out of some sort of kindness chooses not to. i know it’s cruel but i’m sort of okay with it, killing the ants and all. “just cooling them off” i think to myself. the ledge is too hot to rest my arms on and that’s why i’m splashing to begin with. water turns to vapor right before my eyes. don’t even need a stove, just give me a pot and this concrete surface. huntsville feels like orlando in the summer; it feels like a slow melting death. that’s why i’m spending as much time as i can in the pool killing ants and cooling off.

i’ve come to huntsville for the week to see my grandpa. haven’t seen his life since my grandma died.

he’s in the house watching an old western and eating peanuts that sit next to the couch in the fancy dish. he says fancy dishes are for using today, not when you’re in the grave. i like that. i probably won’t have fancy dishes when i grow up, just not that kind of a person, but if i did i'd use them on weekdays and also for holding peanuts. yesterday he convinced me to watch curb your enthusiasm in his matter of fact sort of way. he has that power over me; power that melts my stubborn individuality. he has the same tone he’s always had. it’s the one he used when teaching me about globalization and ray charles and how the stock market works.

after i watch the ants die a dismal death i swim to the bottom of the pool and open my eyes. the chlorine is sharp, but no sharper than it was when i was six or seven or eight. i swirl around and let myself feel as free as i can. without oxygen, i let the invisible balloons inside my stomach inflate. when my face feels tomato red and my lungs get tired i surge to the top. i do back flips and handstands and think about how good it feels to be alone. there is no one to talk to and no one to listen to. i can just be. i am just being. most of the time i forgot how to be. sometimes i get nervous about how good it feels to just sit and think and grapple with the pressure of inviting someone into the very alive world that is my head.

on mondays, wednesdays, and fridays my grandpa plays poker at the elks lodge or at the dive bar on the corner i can’t remember the name of. he gets a coke and rum or some other drink i can’t remember the name of either. says he brought the bartender the good olives, not the cheap kind. brought in a little jar so they could use them when he comes in. he even wrote down how to make his favorite drink on a bar napkin, “now, tape this to the olives so you don’t forget.”

things are different here in huntsville; different from when i was little and he taught me what i didn’t know. his sad, sad, tired-from-all-the-crying-eyes share a story of grief. they tell a story of things i can’t explain. his eyes speak of being lonely and knowing heartbreak.

knowing heartbreak.

legitimate, been married for forty years and now i’m a widower heartbreak. he tells me that he misses my grandma and that he wanders through most days unsure of what to do.

“this isn’t the life i imagined, but it’s the one i’m living.”

i think that’s how most of us live, not in the lives we’ve imagined. not like when the world still felt possible. we forget about the essays we wrote in grade school and just sort of let life happen.

we let life happen. and happen. and happen.

all of it feels very human. all of it feels very mediocre.

on the drive back to the airport i know he’s finally ready to talk. there’s a new honesty in his voice, in his rhythm, in his every word. unedited sentences say more than the theories he knows by name. his splintered heart is a clean break from all the time he has spent teaching me about macroeconomics and the vietnam war. it’s a clean break from all the things that never touched on real life. who he is in huntsville is a beautiful departure from everything i’ve ever known about him.

he’s been silent for nearly a year and maybe that’s why things feel so different, so worth listening to.

he’s spent time in spaces filled with silence and now he knows what he feels. maybe that’s what we’re supposed to do, let the silence of our lives reveal the truth that’s in our hearts. maybe when we close our mouths and feel, really truly feel, vulnerability and transformation can begin.

the quiet prepares the way for the telling, the sharing, and the movement towards understanding. that’s the process of carrying out the pain. we have to know what’s real in our hearts, the culprit for what doesn’t feel good. only in the knowing can we scare away the sorrow. we have to be quiet and slow down from all of our saying. we have to ask the heart what hurts and what really matters.

then we talk and what we say is some kind of medicine.