Getting to know me

I've spent many hours over the past month cleaning and organizing, trying to bring some sense of order and beauty to my living space. Tonight, I spent hours pulling out old books and binders and journals, making a mess out of my bookshelves and covering the living room floor in drifts of paper. This seems both predictable and somehow right. I found plenty of interesting things. In no particular order:

A notepad with a series of rather detailed character studies and the vaguest possible outline of a novel. I remember writing these things on a plane, I believe to Seattle, and so this would have been the fall of 2006. Three years doesn't seem like enough distance to forget a novel, and it certainly doesn't make sense to me that my perspective has changed so much in that time. Reading through my notes, they seem very adolescent, little more than a clumsy, childish gesture at adulthood. I wanted to write a coming of age story about morality and religion, and honestly believed that a 23 year old might have the perspective necessary to do so. I suppose it kept me calm on the plane, and it never hurts to flex my writer muscles a bit, but I'm a bit embarrassed by the obviousness of my symbols and the utter transparency of my own moral insecurity. And by the fact that I kinda want to revisit it to see if I can make something of it, maybe just some short stories.

Old emails from Matt, along with some unsent hand-written letters to both him and Jacob, from 2000 to 2003. My god, I sounded pretentious. Do I still sound that way? It's distressing to realize how little my younger self and I would like each other if we could somehow meet. All the same, my voice is sweetly, achingly sincere, and so obviously full of love and gratitude for those two. And so was Matt's, in its way. It made me miss him intensely, though I know the friendship we had then was predicated on time spent together those last couple years in Odessa, and there's no way to get back to the same kind of closeness now, with so many miles in between. It's good to know that love can be like that, close for a time but still real even with distance that you know you'll never quite cross.

In one of Matt's emails, the words to a song he had just written, which I can still hear in my head and desperately wish I had a recording of. I don't think he would appreciate my sharing the title, even after all this time, but I have no doubt that he'd be flattered that almost ten years later, I still find it pertinent enough to repost in my own space:

I've got things to get back to
I don't want to think of you
Because that means that there's a choice
And a chance to fall back down
Well, I've been scared a long, long time
afraid to be afraid
so are you thinking what I'm thinking?
Do you care?

Can't you see
I could die inside tonight.
You make it seem and feel
like right is always right.
Do you trust me?
Oh, the things you'll see.
The things you'll see.

I've scared myself away,
and I'm afraid I'll do the same
to you and everyone that comes
to ask me how's my day.
Is it a wonder that I doubt
or a wonder that I pray?
And I don't know if you can understand
You don't need to understand.

I suppose it's a little adolescent, and it should be, seeing as he was all of eighteen when he wrote it. But it's also exactly the thing I've been chewing on tonight that led me to tear my apartment apart looking for pieces of my own history, remnants of my voice. I miss having people around me who know me, but I'm also afraid they never really did know me, because I hide myself away without meaning to. I want to be known, and I'm afraid to show myself, even to me. And is there any way to deal with these feelings that doesn't boil down to adolescent navel-gazing? I had a good and productive day, kept myself occupied with good and important things, but when it got dark and quiet and there was nothing left to be done, I filled up with this anxiety and loneliness, and I don't know what to do with but distract myself or dive head-first into analyzing it.

Getting back to the things scattered around me on the floor: a nice leather journal with gilt edges, a present from Brian for Christmas '01. Distressingly, I can't remember what I gave him that year, though I remember shopping/planning with him for Karen's present quite clearly. There are exactly two entries in the journal, because I'm always nervous about filling up nice, clean spaces with my messy words, and the first is a note from him that, among other things, praises me in terms I'm sure I didn't deserve at the time and haven't lived up to since: "Your love that refuses to give up on anyone has surely blessed my life..." Yeah. Sorry about that, Brian. That's certainly the most flattering way my clinging has ever been described, and I have no doubt that it was sincere, but it makes me feel sad and conflicted to think about it now. I can't really explain how or why I pick the people I decide to love, and I just refuse to let them go once I have, even when they really need me to. And it exhausts me, I can't sustain it and take care of myself, and I have to wonder how many potential relationships I've missed out on in all my chasing after people who were, for whatever reason, done with me. And, at the same time, I feel incredibly guilty that I haven't even heard Brian's voice in years now. So different than the way it felt to remember Matt, and I can't explain why. And, again, very pertinent to the events of the past few weeks. Do I keep loving Lain, keep chasing after Livvy, or do I let them slip away since that's obviously what they both want? I feel so very neglected and taken advantage of in both relationships, exhausted by the effort of being good to them, but it eats me up that the last time I spoke to each of them was in anger, and I haven't even apologized. The obvious solution is to write a couple apology emails, send them off and be done with it. Maybe I'll be ready for that in a couple more weeks, but right now I'm still far too hurt and angry to be able to do it with any sincerity.

Do other people agonize over these decisions like this? I know I'm no more generous or compassionate than anybody else, because we really are all pretty much the same when you get right down to it. It just looks from the outside like other people make these decisions with less angst and inner turmoil, and I'm not entirely convinced that all my worrying is actually making me a better person in any way. Of course, I'm also quite concerned that if I just dismiss these decisions out of hand I am essentially guaranteed to make the wrong choice and just hurt everybody more. Stupid brain. It's bedtime now; I promise we can worry more tomorrow.