Old Habits

You may be something new,
Or you may be just my old habits in new wrapping paper.

An honest love letter

I can chart my life in emails. Sometimes, when I am feeling nostalgic, I sift through old ones and remember what it was like to be 16 and have "princess complex", and be 18 and confused and be 20 and in love and 22 and searching.

The pivotal conversations in my life have always happened in person, but memory is interesting in that it's easily tainted in retrospect by updated views and convictions. It's hard to truly travel back in time because conversations are remembered subjectively, as are most things.

That's why I love emails. There is only a limited extent to which you can subjectively interpret old emails. I love letters too, but they are much harder to revisit on demand, and usually much harder to order chronologically.

The pivotal CONVERSATIONS in my life have always occurred in person, but the overflow and the backdrop has always been chartable in my inbox. :) It's true, if a stranger took the time to read through all my correspondence, they would have a more nuanced knowledge of who I am than I could ever produce at will.

Similarly, I think I may be more cogent this way than verbally?

So here, it's in writing, so I can organize my thoughts, but more importantly, so that if you need to, you can come back to this to remember this feeling. :)

I'm not saying that this is necessarily a pivotal conversation, just something that we tend to revisit but never fully explore. And I want to tell you what I want, so we can be honest about the other yucky parts too. 

Situation wise, this is confusing and complicated, but I love you in the simplest of ways.

We live in different states. We both have goals and things that need to get done. We both are not really in the ideal spot for a serious relationship. We have different relationship styles. We don't see eye to eye on some important things. We don't want the same things from each other. Yet we like each other. That's pretty cool right?

We like each other. I like you!

Slower? I thought so. :)

I

Like

You.

I know that it feels confusing to you sometimes, like I am indecisive about how I feel about you. IS IT FRIENDLY? IS IT ROMANTIC? DO I LOVE YOU?

Yes to all three. It's not one or the other. It feels like a continuum?

Like I said earlier, I love you pretty simply. If possible, its how I want you to try to see me too. Keyword: if possible. I'm not trying to say my way is better, because its not. I'm just selfish in that I want to have my cake and eat it too.

(Yes, I just compared you to cake.)

So.

I love you separate of romantic attachment. I love YOU, not the idea of being with you, or the idea of an us. If we were together, or there was an us, GREAT, that sounds awesome because I love you and I love being around you and we match very well. If there wasn't an us though, I would be okay with that as long as I still knew you. To me, having a relationship with you is the most important thing, not necessarily dating you or being in a relationship with you. As long as I know you, our relationship is open to possibilities. And conversations. 

And I know thats not romantic, and you're so grossed by me out right now, but don't hurl yet, okay?

And I want that from you too. I want you to love who I am and what I'm like (which you do), but NOT just because you want to be 'mine' or want me to be 'yours'. I want you to dig me in the easiest of ways, in the way where its strong enough that you trust me and want whats best for me but also more importantly don't resent me for not behaving like we are a unit and making choices based off of you and this idea of 'us'.

I want you to love me and give me the freedom to do whatever I want. Be that friend who is willing the fill the space, whatever space that may be. And this may come across as selfish to you. You think I am asking you for something unreasonable or too much. You think this isn't possible. It's not natural to love someone in a romantic manner and NOT want to be in a relationship.

But you're wrong because that's how I feel about you. I dig you, yes, but I'm willing to occupy whatever needs you have in your life currently. You want to talk about relationship issues with your girlfriend? Send nasty text messages? Argue over politics? Watch stupid youtube videos? Discuss your day? I'm your girl for it. All of it. :) That's cool right? I'M TRAVEL SIZED TOOO.

I don't want you to love me in a stressful or fearful way. You shouldn't worry about other dudes, or if I care about you the same. If there was another dude I matched with better, would you still want me to be with you? If I didn't care about you the same, would you feel differently? I want you to find a stance and be mostly unconditional regardless of where I stand or how I may wander.

I've picked a stance with you. I call it 'here'. It's a nice spot, I have a picnic table and a book, and I'll camp out here for a while, so you shouldn't have trouble finding me.

I want this to feel easy, and natural, no stress, no yucky feelings. None of these were fighting words. 

I'll be here if you wanna fight though. :) HERE. 

--
Sent from Gmail Mobile

The Color Purple

About a year ago, one of my friends told me that for every book he reads, he writes down his feelings about it in brief, the names of the main characters, and the major plot points just to keep. I have been wanting to do something similar for a long time. I know I know, you say there are websites to do book reviews, you have one linked RIGHT HERE! But I don't really want to REVIEW books, I just want to be able to capture how they made me feel, and what I carry away. Cheesy, cheesy, sorry, I should have warned you.

I keep this blog around, though it's been six years, not so much as a platform to write and reach out, but a platform to remember. It's interesting to me to read back through old old entries, and kind of remember those events, but not really remember the exact feelings until I read. Over time, my memory of the past becomes tainted by retrospect. I know differently NOW, so I think about the past differently than I did when it was actually happening. Which is GREAT, because teenage angst sucks, and I think I rode that wave through a couple years of college too, eeeks. Sometimes, I regret not being able to really place myself back there though. Not that living in the past should be a desirable skill lol, but it seems like a luxury to indulge in occasionally.

KEEP A JOURNAL, you say. I have in the past, and they are illegible and gross, I've never read more than a page at a time because then I cringe so hard it's almost like a grand mal.
Also, physically writing on paper is slower, and I get so lazy about it.

Most blogs I read are geared towards readers. They are themed, they are cohesive. This is not really a blog? More like a personal journal on the internet? No theme, no cohesiveness, no problem! Internet vulnerability at its most shameless hooray. I don't really know what I'm about yet, so transitively, I also don't really know what this little corner of the internet is about either? Lately, I have felt a little bit of blog shame though. A while ago, I was like FUCK IT, LET'S LINK, and I linked my google+ profile/email to this blog. AFTER 6 YEARS. Not that I ever blogged anonymously, but I loved that it was semi anonymous. My anti-conformist way of social media-ing- atleast that was the fantasy. But now I feel icky about it. I'm 22, ew, why is my corner of the internet so packed with feels and angst, and bad fiction? But still, I am reluctant to delete it, or make it private, and I am not sure why yet...
I feel like I have grown out of it in a way, but it's important for me to keep it or keep at it, because this used to be something I loved.

(^^aditi's sometimes unhealthy approach to relationships in a nutshell right there.)

'Forever does not require proximity or proof'

How hauntingly accurate.

*SOBS*

SORRY FOR ALWAYS BLOGGING ABOUT THIS

Lately, I have been indulging far too much in being disgusting. I revel in drowning in my fermented feelings. I have a problem. An emotional addiction of sorts. I peek and repeek into Pandora's box of secrets and rub the ashes within onto my skin and arms, like some kind of ointment to reopen my wounds. As they blister and weep, I grab my proverbial pencil and try to carve out this feeling before I wake up and forget.

I remember one time I was watching a documentary or reading an article or something about a therapist who interviewed refugees who relocated from Haiti after the Earthquake to help ease the trauma of relocation and it's potential negative effects. The interesting thing was, most people's 'problems' had nothing to do with the trauma of losing their homes or relocation, they were about love and relationships. Even in the face of such great adversity, the thing that was most on people's minds was love.

It was surprising, but not at all surprising in a way.

The brave may not live forever, but the cautious never live

Lets be real.

I don't draw my boundaries around me like security blankets, like you do.

Dripping soul. I drip drip drip soul onto your carpet and your bedsheets, maybe you will smell it after I leave.
Or maybe you'll walk through it like its nothing even though it fluoresces on the soles of your thick feet
The same way that nature marks her poisonous creatures
How could you ignore such a garish warning?
I don't know girl, but I did. I must be blind. Or Naive.
Or foolish to not realize that rank in your room, on your sheets, on your neck
Wasn't the expensive cologne sitting proudly on your counter,
But maybe was the rot of all the other soul that has been wasted on you.
That oozed from open heart wounds, and disappointment, and broken illusions, and the regret
of every long gone girl that sat right here on this side of your bed that you call 'my side'
I must be dumb to not realize that this seat is so comfortable, not because you are so inviting, but because it was warmed it for me by the girl who was here right before me, just as I am warming it now for the one you'll invite over as soon as I have my shirt on.

the five minute girlfriend

What I forgot to tell you was that the sky fell open and you landed in my lap like a sizzling hot piece of the sun, and though I wept and you wept and as much as we tried, we could not find the right combination of thick pasty reassurances and cool aqueous nonchalance to put your flame out.
You burned right though me. My skin, my clothes, my bones, you lay them all to waste like a ravenous beast. Your blood stained facade, rabid and unctuous, laying apologies on me like silk blankets with your eyes whilst methodically shredding my patience with your lips.
Don't you love me?
Won't you stay?

I can't. You're not listening, I can't.

Demons

In the mornings, I wake with your limbs snaked around my mind even when you are not here. I brush through the clumps of unhappy strands that drop off my head telling me its time to go then I lace my shoes.

These street corners, I whip through them like they are imaginary. The ghost town of my heart is populated even less densely than these desolate cement trails. A stray cat, a dozen yellow tulip blooms blinking in an empty yard, this is my only company. A solitary parade of 1 is how I always start. I don't feel much, just tiredness sprinkled with apathy. Part of me wants to lie down in the nearest yard, like a large, spandexed starfish. Maybe the sprinklers will come on and drown my body in the shallow green grass.

Everyone has their drug of choice. I don't drink, smoke, or wrap mine in rubber; I run. Away, away, away. I run.

At a restaurant, you once told me that it was my capability to thirst endlessly for life that drew you to me. I know that by now, you must have already examined the irony, that it was that same 'thirst' that drove me away from you in the end. You thought it was my constant need to do new things, try everything once, explore. You tried to understand, you pleaded with me, took me to a foreign country, and to a place where I could fall out of the sky. You misunderstood. It is not a thirst for more, simply an itch to push the accelerator down, to wander. It is my inexhaustible need to leave things behind, shed them as I go. Everything in the past that holds too hard, chafes too deep, or has knots, I have left.

I am the most skilled escapist you will meet, though it pains me to say it. I don't dream of visiting beautiful palaces, swimming in tepid rivers on sunny days, or eating spicy exotic foods. I just dream of getting out of this warm bed, where your limbs on my thighs have become too much like familiar shackles. Even though I have lain here, my mind has already outrun your embrace. Forgive me when you wake up. I will be not more than a speck on the horizon, and a few strands left on the pillow.

This reminds me so much of the Kanye/JM collab 'Bittersweet' from 06