All The Times, When We Were Close, I'll Remember These Things The Most, I See All My Dreams Come Tumbling Down, I Won't Be Happy Without You Around
--"Train in Vain", The Clash
As I sit in the terminal of Logan Airport with her and I preparing to say good-bye for the last time I can't help but wonder what the really means. Whenever we say farewell to somebody do we ever truly think it's going to be for the last time? Even when we think we shall never meet again, I think there's always some small part of us, call it hope or even naivete, that refuses to believe what our brains tell us is true. It's the same part of our brain that allows us to believe in things like Santa when we are younger, the part that allows us to get through broken arms when the pain is excruciating, the part that allows us to look at concepts with death without succumbing to numbing fear or ineffectiveness. I think there's a part that shuts off the part of our consciousness that knows what events really signify and allows us to go on blithely believing the best about our atypical situation.
As it is, I'm finding I'm less anxious about us separating for a time than I was a week ago or even a week ago. The only explanation is that I've fooled myself into thinking this isn't happening. I'm not really here. Nothing is going to change.
The weird part is that I can see it in my writing too. I've taken up a new idea involving a main character who loses her brother right near the beginning of the tale. It isn't a nice and sunny loss either. She basically witnesses his murder in person, up close, and, due to the circumstances, she is unable to react accordingly. Basically, the way I envision it, the first quarter or half of the book is a prolonged repose for her from being able to process the kind of devastating loss she has just suffered. When I say that this premise is strange, it isn't because it's a situation I've never encountered before. No, I haven't lost a brother right before my eyes. Jennifer is the closest I've come to that particular incident. When I say it's strange it's because I am at ease writing about an individual who sublimates her feelings in such a manner. Far too at ease.
Nominally, it should be easier for me to write about people grieve at the time when it's appropriate to grieve. After all, my favorite show is Avonlea, a show predicated on the axiom "to everything a season." After all, Rachel, the only person I've ever looked up to as a genuine hero, was very heartfelt and open about how she felt about a great many things. Why then should I be so untoward when it comes to handling the sadness as it's dealt? This great part of my consciousness seems to be working overtime when it comes to making the best of a bad situation.
I can only answer thusly. There's a part of me just like my main character from the story that processes things in a first come, first serve manner. I have a natural talent for focusing predominantly on one thing, while deferring everything else to the back burner. It's the reason I can be at work, answering calls and processing customers' requests, while working on the through line for another short story or novel. It's the reason I can set up anecdotes ahead of time while managing to steer the conversation so that the anecdote becomes strangely appropriate. It's the reason why I can go out with one young woman, while the whole time pine for another. That's the way my brain works. Let's face it, I've never been good at dealing with any uncomfortable situation that I didn't originate. I hate surprises. I hate being blind-sided. Quite frankly, I consider saying good-bye to someone the worst offense in this regard. What do you mean you're going? Or, more likely, what do you mean
I can't stay? That's how I see when people are parted. Leaving is evil and always will be. Therefore, I refuse (mostly) to consciously do it. I put it away in the bad place where bad ideas go. There they stay until such time that I'm forced to starkly deal with them.
Places like here are where I deal with evil ideas like that. Talking on the phone with Lucy or Orlando are where I deal with evil ideas like that.
Like the main character in my new story (who really needs a name by now), I've got too much to do in the way of living to make time for the subtleties or nuances like people leaving. I cannot and will not be bothered with trifling matters such as that now. As Ilessa, who I ran this idea by this morning with, explains it, I'm like one of those animals in a zoo. Tell me where to eat, tell me where to go, tell me what my boundaries are, and I'm good. I'm not one who reacts well to change. It bothers me to a sizable degree. More than it should, actually. I've always been better dealing with the iniquities of life if they are constant and unassailable. Give me a cage and lock me up as long as you allow me to call the cage home. It's only when you invade that space that you afforded me with things like people leaving, people changing, or people dying that I get irrationally upset. You can't set up a system that works for me, sparse and unrelenting as it very well may be, and then take a portion of it away from me. You just can't. That cage is my home and it should stay exactly as it is for the rest of time.
I can take not being exactly free, being a prisoner to my routines and preferences. I've always been stubborn and cantankerous to a fault. That's just who I am. But now I'm seeing there's a part of me that thrives on those routines. There's a whole world of freedoms that I never take advantage of, but all of us have to draw the line somewhere. That's what separates us from being entirely savage, the fact we set routines, we get familiar with our surroundings, the fact we have proclivities and dislikes. Like my main character, when presented with something that strays us from our path, sometimes all we can do is continue the rest of the routine as best as possible. Sometimes the rote schedule of activities that we enact is all we have to fall back on. It isn't so much that I don't want to see the significance of what is happening to me at this time. I know it's big. It's because it's so momentous that I'm compelled to go through what I think I normally would do to take my mind off of just how life-altering days like these are. I need to feel safe by doing the little things I can control because I'm realizing on days like these there are just too many big things I can't control.
Sure, saying good-bye to an old friend is nothing like watching one's brother die.
But the way I handle is much the same.
I don't dare say a word and I don't dare act like anything is out of the norm. For, if I do, then my whole world comes crumbling down rather than the small piece I've confined sadnesses like these to.
Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers
As I sit in the terminal of Logan Airport with her and I preparing to say good-bye for the last time I can't help but wonder what the really means. Whenever we say farewell to somebody do we ever truly think it's going to be for the last time? Even when we think we shall never meet again, I think there's always some small part of us, call it hope or even naivete, that refuses to believe what our brains tell us is true. It's the same part of our brain that allows us to believe in things like Santa when we are younger, the part that allows us to get through broken arms when the pain is excruciating, the part that allows us to look at concepts with death without succumbing to numbing fear or ineffectiveness. I think there's a part that shuts off the part of our consciousness that knows what events really signify and allows us to go on blithely believing the best about our atypical situation.As it is, I'm finding I'm less anxious about us separating for a time than I was a week ago or even a week ago. The only explanation is that I've fooled myself into thinking this isn't happening. I'm not really here. Nothing is going to change.
The weird part is that I can see it in my writing too. I've taken up a new idea involving a main character who loses her brother right near the beginning of the tale. It isn't a nice and sunny loss either. She basically witnesses his murder in person, up close, and, due to the circumstances, she is unable to react accordingly. Basically, the way I envision it, the first quarter or half of the book is a prolonged repose for her from being able to process the kind of devastating loss she has just suffered. When I say that this premise is strange, it isn't because it's a situation I've never encountered before. No, I haven't lost a brother right before my eyes. Jennifer is the closest I've come to that particular incident. When I say it's strange it's because I am at ease writing about an individual who sublimates her feelings in such a manner. Far too at ease.
Nominally, it should be easier for me to write about people grieve at the time when it's appropriate to grieve. After all, my favorite show is Avonlea, a show predicated on the axiom "to everything a season." After all, Rachel, the only person I've ever looked up to as a genuine hero, was very heartfelt and open about how she felt about a great many things. Why then should I be so untoward when it comes to handling the sadness as it's dealt? This great part of my consciousness seems to be working overtime when it comes to making the best of a bad situation.
I can only answer thusly. There's a part of me just like my main character from the story that processes things in a first come, first serve manner. I have a natural talent for focusing predominantly on one thing, while deferring everything else to the back burner. It's the reason I can be at work, answering calls and processing customers' requests, while working on the through line for another short story or novel. It's the reason I can set up anecdotes ahead of time while managing to steer the conversation so that the anecdote becomes strangely appropriate. It's the reason why I can go out with one young woman, while the whole time pine for another. That's the way my brain works. Let's face it, I've never been good at dealing with any uncomfortable situation that I didn't originate. I hate surprises. I hate being blind-sided. Quite frankly, I consider saying good-bye to someone the worst offense in this regard. What do you mean you're going? Or, more likely, what do you mean
I can't stay? That's how I see when people are parted. Leaving is evil and always will be. Therefore, I refuse (mostly) to consciously do it. I put it away in the bad place where bad ideas go. There they stay until such time that I'm forced to starkly deal with them.
Places like here are where I deal with evil ideas like that. Talking on the phone with Lucy or Orlando are where I deal with evil ideas like that.
Like the main character in my new story (who really needs a name by now), I've got too much to do in the way of living to make time for the subtleties or nuances like people leaving. I cannot and will not be bothered with trifling matters such as that now. As Ilessa, who I ran this idea by this morning with, explains it, I'm like one of those animals in a zoo. Tell me where to eat, tell me where to go, tell me what my boundaries are, and I'm good. I'm not one who reacts well to change. It bothers me to a sizable degree. More than it should, actually. I've always been better dealing with the iniquities of life if they are constant and unassailable. Give me a cage and lock me up as long as you allow me to call the cage home. It's only when you invade that space that you afforded me with things like people leaving, people changing, or people dying that I get irrationally upset. You can't set up a system that works for me, sparse and unrelenting as it very well may be, and then take a portion of it away from me. You just can't. That cage is my home and it should stay exactly as it is for the rest of time.
I can take not being exactly free, being a prisoner to my routines and preferences. I've always been stubborn and cantankerous to a fault. That's just who I am. But now I'm seeing there's a part of me that thrives on those routines. There's a whole world of freedoms that I never take advantage of, but all of us have to draw the line somewhere. That's what separates us from being entirely savage, the fact we set routines, we get familiar with our surroundings, the fact we have proclivities and dislikes. Like my main character, when presented with something that strays us from our path, sometimes all we can do is continue the rest of the routine as best as possible. Sometimes the rote schedule of activities that we enact is all we have to fall back on. It isn't so much that I don't want to see the significance of what is happening to me at this time. I know it's big. It's because it's so momentous that I'm compelled to go through what I think I normally would do to take my mind off of just how life-altering days like these are. I need to feel safe by doing the little things I can control because I'm realizing on days like these there are just too many big things I can't control.
Sure, saying good-bye to an old friend is nothing like watching one's brother die.
But the way I handle is much the same.
I don't dare say a word and I don't dare act like anything is out of the norm. For, if I do, then my whole world comes crumbling down rather than the small piece I've confined sadnesses like these to.
Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers
Labels: betrayal, connections, fiction, Ilessa, The Clash
posted by mojo shivers @ 12:43 PM
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