To whom it may concern,
I damage things. It isn’t purposeful. But like picking at a wound, I cannot let something be. I’ve never learned patience. I’ve never understood caution. I’m wide-open without closure.
I’ve mentioned before that I use to dream about being on stage and then panicking at the thought that I may not say enough. That I may not make a large enough impact. That my mouth may hold the key to changing someone’s future and I do not know it. Yes, sometimes I say that with giggles and my tongue-in-cheek.
By damaging things, I mostly mean by good intentions. I ruin myself. I get sought out by those who need something or have a void to be filled. They see my pretty face and calm exterior, and then do not understand the raging swells underneath. They see smiles and laughter, and find disappointment when I cannot heal them of their afflictions. I know from the beginning what they are seeking whether it be understanding, acceptance, someone to tell their secrets to, someone to be comfortable with so as to not feel judged, someone to love them so they may love themselves or someone to use to they may move forward from being used. I have been all these someones at some point or another. I get sought out for I am so open-minded, and people just walk right in.
It may be my fault for allowing it, but I cannot conceive of any other way. I must stay the course. I cannot stop picking at what I can provide, what means may I offer. I cannot be satisfied with what is, and am enamored with what may be. What could be? Sometimes I feel as if it’s my purpose, and sometimes I feel like I’m wasting myself. In either case, every couple years my life is made up of entirely new people than the years before. There has only been two people that have ever stayed the course with me, and this year I let them go. I let them go because I’ve always said no one should be in your life if they don’t make you a better person. We build each other, and it is a poor structure that is built of bitter bricks.
Maybe it seems counter-intuitive to call someone a loner when they’re so busy and with so many friends, or to feel alone in a crowded room – but I am and I do. I’ve claimed both things in public and at parties loudly and with conviction. But what I have never quite said aloud is that it hurts.
It hurts. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts.
Every time someone comes into my life and walks out, it hurts. Their footsteps seem to echo longer than I’d prefer and louder than they were deserving. I’ve mentioned before that I like to leave things better than I found them. I wish they left me the same.
stray lower 
I sincerely hope the right person reads this – understanding must always go both ways. Thank you for paving another couple of yellow bricks down the road of you…
I’m not sure there is a right person, Francois, but thank you endlessly.
I enjoyed hearing your opinion of yourself and life, and when it came to the part about changing people and friends I related strongly. My first year of college there was an episode on the last day of “exchanging information” everyone was signing yearbooks and giving out phone numbers. I put mine straight into the bag without asking for anything. A friend of mine looked at me, almost offended, and said “aren’t you going to have us sign it?” I said “why? Are you really planning to keep up with all those peopl? Because honestly I don’t think I will probably ever see these people again, much less call them.” I suddenly realized that must sound so rude, but it was the truth. I don’t hold on to people. I keep moving. I allow them to hold on to me sometimes, but that rarely works out well in the long term because I change. A lot. And I want to keep changing. Most people who know me now won’t know me well in a year. I learn. I grow. I continue on. I appreciate your insight. And I agree that no matter how often it happens, when someone leaves it hurts. I don’t let go of close relationships easily. I suffer on and never forget. But I keep moving to stay warm. Thank you for your thoughts
And thank you for a bit more insight on you, as well. I must admit that your poetry always makes me so curious about you. I don’t think what you said sounded rude so much as the truth hurts. You apparently don’t go through the motions like many other people do. I don’t tend to go through the motions either, but I don’t change as much as you say you do. I’m aware that everyone is changed by their experiences but at my roots, I am who I have always been. Maybe that’s the problem…
I surmise from this that I am so like you, and so unlike. We could – maybe – get to the bottom of that – but it would take time and effort. Are you up for that, I wonder? And it may be that you are in two minds. Your words suggest that you are in two minds about a lot of things, if not everything. OTOH, maybe there is, after all, another way to go? At this distance, what have you got to lose? Step one is undoubtedly a smidgen of trust, 🙂 Here’s mine. After all, what have I got to lose? My blogs are prob. a fair assessment of what you’re getting with me. I bolster my failing memory with an Excel file of “Bloggers”. You’re down as “Unusual poetry”. Certainly this post I’m commenting on is well on the way to being a pretty fair poem … 🙂
Time and effort are the only two things which I have at my utter disposal. 😀 I am very much in two minds – and I’m somewhat speechless that you’ve noticed it. Those who know me personally have a ball at my expense about my “two personalities.” The two quarrel on this blog regularly: one is dark, morbid, sarcastic, narcissistic, and the other is flighty, flirtatious, facetious and hopeful. I always ask myself “What have I got to lose?” to justify whatever act may damage me so I may actually be in need of better justification. Apart from my “unusual poetry,” how are we so alike and unlike, I wonder? 😉
I’m going to take a brief stab at this Fountains, for what it’s worth. You say you are “wide open”, but you are very difficult if not almost impossible to truly reach. You are incredibly fortressed, and your “openness” is just one of the ramparts of your defenses.
So I don’t know that what I am saying here will ever reach you, but I will shoot a flaming arrow over the wall with a message attached to it. And it says: “From one loner to another–you have too many people in your life. You need to close all the open doors that do not lead to where you truly are, and open the one closed door that allows you to truly be open.”
You say you “cannot conceive of any other way” and that you must “stay the course”. To this I say: Conceive of another way, and stray from the course. Take your Ship out of the populous pond of fools, and launch it into the Ocean of Solitude. You may be surprised at the harvest that awaits you there . . . if you dare.
Assault away! I don’t know how much of my blog you have read, but for a better understanding of how I see myself you could read I Like to Leave Things Better Than I Found Them and If I Needed You, Could I Call You? both under the Melancholy category. You may be correct, though, dragonstrand – with a clarification. I won’t pretend to understand myself completely but I am not impossible to reach. It may be true that my “openness is just one of the ramparts” of my defenses, but I’ve built homes for everyone I’ve ever cared for within myself. It’s not a question of the possibility of being of reached, but of how long I let them stay. And for each, it makes it harder for the next – which is where what you said becomes true. But still I try.
Ships are safe in the harbor, but is that what ships are for?
I did say “almost impossible”. 😉
I’ve read a fair amount of your blog . . . I don’t claim to know or understand you, nor do I doubt any of the things you’ve said above. My point, though, and what really interests me is that part of yourself that is not open even to you. This may not interest you now, or even ever . . . but I found through my own personal Odyssey and a lot of very deep digging that there were parts of myself that I did not even know were there or existed–and once I became aware of them I realized that not being aware of them before had conditioned many of the things I did that were “damaging”.
You yourself say: “I won’t pretend to understand I know myself completely”–I’m not saying you ever can, but I am saying that the parts of yourself that you don’t know or understand just might be the key that opens up a new door for you that you did not know was there before. I have found that I am not what i thought i was, nor what I was told I was. I am something else altogether.
You said to VW: “I don’t change as much as you say you do. I’m aware that everyone is changed by their experiences but at my roots, I am who I have always been. Maybe that’s the problem…”
Maybe. You know I have to say it, but maybe you aren’t “who you have always been”. It may seem far flung, but you should at least be willing to consider the possibility. Open the roots, you may find something inside that transfigures the whole.
Okay, so then… maybe this is a stupid question… but how does one “open the roots” per se? Not sure how to find the key you’ve spoken of.
No, my Dear–that is not a “stupid question”. It is perhaps the most brilliant question of all. The very fact that you’ve asked it distinguishes you from almost the whole of humanity.
Unfortunately, I cannot provide you with the answer. However, if you are brilliant enough to ask it, then you are brilliant enough to answer it. Really, words fail here–the answer has to be experienced.
I regret if this reply disappoints you, but all I can do is leave signs in the wilderness for you. I would suggest that you confront the reality of Eternity in earnest, and in the process, the absence of any real “God” within its endlessness; and also, your actual place within it.
To do this, you will have to go deep into the wilderness both externally and internally, and shuck away all the illusions and delusions you have been fed and believed in you entire life–I don’t mean the ones you have already dispelled through your obviously exceptional intelligence, but the ones that you almost unconsciously take for granted.
I could go on and on here, but this medium is bounded. I say that if you do this, you will find powers that you did not know were there, truths that you did not know existed, and the things that you now do will become impossible to do because they bear no fruit but only lead to the Sisyphean predicament which I believe to be the subject of your original post.
Of course, you may dismiss all of this as me spinning yarns–a spider trying to ensnare you in my mystical webs. But what would I have to gain from doing so? What advantage do I have to gain from pointing you in the direction of your own deification, except that I may be joined by another Deity on Olympus? This makes you no ensnared prey of mine.
Consider it an open invitation.
You already know how I feel about being a deity, dragonstrand. 😛 But no, I don’t think you’re spinning yarns. A lot of what you say has been said to me recently by others in my life. I’m obviously missing some message that I should be hearing…
You’ll hear it when you are ready to hear it.
The good thing about this invitation is that it is open forever. Hence, there is plenty of time to accept it. 😉
At the same time, there’s “no time like the present”.
Exactly. I’m ready now. Let’s have storytime.