If Only, If Only...

To make a long story short, I like a guy, but it appears as though, this one, too, will be playing the role of "not interested" and exiting stage right.

But, you know, I tried. As a result he, as I imagined would happen, no longer pays as much attention to me as he used to. On most days I'm not really particularly upset or embittered by this, though it does hurt my feelings, and I'm trying hard not to fault his person or resent for simply not feeling the same way about me as I do him. He doesn't deserve that.

It occurs to me that the longer he cavorts around playing the bachelor, the harder it will be for me to still want this if, in the future, he should ever change his mind. I don't know if I could bring myself to want to be with someone that I already know would pick a stripper over me if given the choice. But I feel so strongly for him that there are moments it consumes me and simply saying his name will fill me up from bottom to top like a balloon inflating inside my soul. All I ever seem to think about is him, both fondly and with sadness and regret that he would choose to reject me. There's this image of him as the desktop background of my mind, this gloriously shining thing that I'm not allowed to touch, but I really really want to.

He's smart and he's clever and he's charming and athletic and he makes me smile. He has the most beautiful eyes that I'm afraid I'll get lost in if I ever look into and a great smile and a broad chest that I just want to stand with the flat of my palms pressed against. I wish I could lay next to him with my head on that chest and listen to the swell of his lungs as they take in air, the steady drumming of his heart as it beats; to feel what it's like to have his hands wrapped together with mine.

My image of him is ideal, of course, but I'll never know the real him if I never get to know him, and he just doesn't seem to have any room or interest for me in his life. And that makes me sad. Not because my heart is broken or because I didn't get what I wanted (which is true enough), but because I felt something real and powerful towards him, something that, beyond knowing why, just feels right; like I was meant to find him. Not to mention the universe threw a thousand signs drawing me to him, drawing me to trust that, in it's own time, this could work out for me. But how long does a window of opportunity stay open, and is the glass thin enough to break if one should decide they made a mistake when they let the chance pass?

On June 19th I pulled two tarot cards while thinking about this man. The first was the Two of Cups: A card signifying a harmonious relationship; the soul mate card. The second was the Death card: A card signifying the end of one thing, begetting the start of something new and different.

Next week I'll be starting a new job, one that is very well-paying, very respectable and quite possibly the job that will be my career for years to come. Next week, I truly step into the role of adult, a role I've only just begun to play in this real world, but at the same time feel like I've been playing for years now. I'm exited and nervous about this big change that somehow fell into place around me. I hope that I can retain the knowledge I've learned from life's lessons and continue to adventure and learn new things and see new wonders. I hope that when I step into my adult shoes they fit me properly and I excel from now until the horizon of my future. I hope that I have it within me, the strength and the drive, to meet this challenge head-on and over take it.

But in my heart I hope, most of all, that this man whose name I will continue to withhold for his own privacy and peace of mind will give me a chance, the one that I deserve with him, before it's too late for both of us and he becomes just another crush I had one glorious and amazing summer.

Ah, Young Love

So, I like a guy.

This, in and of itself, is not an uncommon thing for a single girl of my age. The problem is the only time in my life that I pursued a guy and he didn't reject me, he rejected me 3 weeks later, citing my physical appearance as the reason he couldn't be with me. Apparently there's more to it than that, but Lord knows I'm not entitled to that "private" information and I'll just never get closure from the one sort-of relationship I've had in my life. But that's not what this is about. I'm probably about as over that situation as I'm ever going to be, and I accept that there are some wounds that will possibly never heal fully.

I'm writing today, because I am really really interested in a guy that I haven't been able to stop thinking about since the last time I saw him, but I have been rejected so many times, that I just don't know if I have it in me to try again and be disappointed when he says he's not interested in me, like ever other guy I've been interested in has (or that he already has a girlfriend, in which case I would just feel like a dumb-ass).

My plan of action at the moment is to wait, see him a few more times, let more time pass and see if anything sparks, but I can be shy. PAINFULLY shy when it comes to boys, and I feel like every time I need to say something to him that matters, I say something stupid and blow the whole thing and feel more like a dip-shit than a flirtatious Goddess of beauty that every man should want to get his hands on (which I am, and I don't mean that in a boastful way). So it's one of those moments where I don't know whether acting or not acting is the better way to go. I suppose it's always possible that he's interested in me, but afraid to say something just like I am, but, given everything that I've been through, I don't know if I'll ever be able to be interested in a guy and believe that's true. I guess I've always fallen for the misconception that it was easier for guys to pursue a girl they're into, and if he hasn't pursued me yet, he's not going to (understand that I labeled this as a misconception because I realize that it doesn't always stand that way).

He's also probably about 10 years older than me. Which, I'm at an age now where that doesn't matter much to me. If I were 15 and he 25, that would be a different story, but we're both adults, and I truly believe that physical age is not always a reflection of how old someone is. My concern is, in the Fall a friend of mine sent me up with a man who was about 17 years older than me, and I just couldn't do it and had to end it after 3 weeks because I just wasn't into him at all, and part of that was because of the age difference, I think. I realize that 10 years and 17 years can actually make a huge difference in this case, but it doesn't quell that fear that because I, I suppose, technically age-discriminated against the first guy, whose to say this guy isn't going to look at me and think, "Why would I want to go out with someone 10 years younger than me? She's practically a baby!" because in the karmic universe that's what I deserve for rejecting the 40-year-old that I was set up with. It sort of makes me feel like I'm a 7th grader who has a really really big crush on one of the Freshmen guys at my school, knowing he's "too old" to date Jr. High girls.

So I guess the purpose of this is just to ask, what do I do? What does it mean when the girl who always believed that you regret more the things you don't do than the things you do, and the girl who isn't afraid of anything, is so afraid of the pain of another rejection that she doesn't know if she can muster up the courage to say, "Hey, I'm really really interested in you and I'd love to hang out sometime. What do you say?"

Summer Days Drifing Away

I've just had a wonderful weekend.

Friday evening was spent playing beer softball with some friends of mine (and a guy that I happen to be really really interested, but am not sure if I'm getting an interested vibe from) and it was blast. Despite twisting my left ankle and taking a stray pitch to my right ankle, I had so much fun. It reminds me of summer when I played sports habitually and it makes me sad to realize that it was a part of my life that I had gotten away from for so long, and sadder still that it was because I've let it get away from me.

Saturday afternoon I went to downtown Ithaca with my best friend Lizzie, where we perused the vendor-laden streets in dazzling display for the Annual Ithaca Festival. Being surrounded by the eclectic population of the city on a beautiful sunny day with local businesses selling their wares to whoever will buy reminded me of the charm of this place that I love so much.

Then Sunday it was back to the softball fields. The game was canceled due to rain, but we met up and hit and caught anyway and, again, every moment I spent on that field just made me happy to be there, with the smell of the rain and the grass and the trees, surrounded by people enjoying the delight of team sport.

Now if I can just get myself to the gym... :-)

There's an image of me in my mind: I'm sitting on a blanket on the grass on a warm, cloudless day. The wind stirs the grass and the air around me and carries the sound of the waves of the lake lapping up against the shore to my thirsty ears. I drink in the sound, breathing deeply, letting the warmth of the sun beat down on me, the soft wind cool my brow. Maybe I'm humming. Maybe a small thread of some untold story fragments its way through my thoughts, eager for a chance to survive, to be brought to life by the fingers of the storyteller. Maybe I'm just sleeping, or replaying a cinematic dream of a memory: a remnant of a ghost whispering of springs past.

When I think of myself, this is what I see. A master, quiet on the bank of the shore in search of her lost craft, missing the way it felt to have the earth cradle her.

I looked at a picture of myself today and found that once I glanced, I couldn't take my eyes away. Something about the composition, the lighting, the perspective, the glint in my eye, the curve of my hand; all of it hit me with such a tremendous feeling of beauty that I felt proud that I had managed, in my random bouts of photo-taking, managed to capture such a fantastic image of myself.

Turning away from my computer, I held my arm out in front of me and inspected it carefully, bending inward and out, stretching the hand, curving it under; I examined every line and curved it made as I twisted it through the air and I realized that I've finally learned to see the beauty in myself, and these small things: Taking a great picture, appreciating my arm; were just the catalysts to this revelation.

Maybe it's a silly thing to be excited about, but I feel like accepting oneself is the greatest struggle any person can undertake and knowing that I do love myself and how my life is unfolding just fills me with a very profound sense of peace and happiness.

I think that sometimes it's nice to share these moments with others so a little bit of my glow can spread to them.

Here's to the Nights...

I've spent the better part of my evening today sitting out on my balcony letting the world pass me by. I read a book for awhile, which re-awoke within me my love of everything magical and fantastical. It's a book I've read many times and never grow tired of, as well as its three successors.
Then I wrote for awhile, which is something I haven't done for quite some time.
Have you ever experienced what it feels like to lose sight of your passion for the one thing in life that you truly love? That's been my predicament with my writing for well over a few years now. I have a talent that I love, and love to nurture, but never the desire like I used to, and I miss it. I miss spending countless hours locked away inside the world created by words and imaginings.
I miss the magic and exhilaration I used to feel when I was writing.
I think what's happened to me, is that my words have all become stuck in my head, and only threaten to come out at moments when I'm not in a position to write them down. Then when I sit down to write, I don't feel any motivation or inspiration. It's sort of like I've lost one of my best friends, and she only ever calls when I can't answer my phone, so I'm left with a lot of messages that I can't seem to respond to.
I wrote a letter to Alec today. For those of you who don't know, he was the third boy I've ever loved in my life, but the one whose loss sticks with me most poignantly, like a really really good book gone horribly wrong. I think it's because he's the first boy I've ever loved when I was mature enough to really understand what love is and feel its loss so heavily.
I know that I will love again. I hope that I'll find a boy who will love me back, and then get to experience what that feels like, which is why I wrote the letter today. I'll probably never get the closure from Alec that I need to really let go of everything that has happened between us, but I can't let him stand in my way anymore. I refuse to let what he did to me stand in the way of my finding something bigger than myself in this world.
Maybe someday if I ever see him again I'll let him read it, along with all of the other scribblings I made to him and about him in my battle to cope with my heart break. I'll probably always go through phases of forgetting and remembering, but I won't let it weigh me down. There's too much to be excited about in all of the little things in life to let anything take away from the enjoyment in living every day.
It also sits very heavily as I write this, that as I decide to live for everything in this world that there is to live for, someone very close to me is saying her last goodbyes and, most likely nervously, accepting the inevitable end that every road comes to. My mom's oldest sister is dying of pancreatic cancer, and with her a small light is going to go out in the world. My best friend Lizzie described it to me most accurately: It's hard to imagine what things are going to be like when someone who was so staple in so many stories of my life just won't be there anymore. The last time I got to see her was Christmas, and I feel that some part of me will always regret not having the chance to say goodbye.
I hope that her passing will leave something beautiful behind; that her time here will have had a profound effect on enough lives to make the world a better place. Even if it's just in a small way. I hope that her passing is painless, although I'm old enough to know that this road has been a very painful one for her, both physically and emotionally. I hope that, when it's my turn to go, I can bow out with the same grace that she seems to be exhibiting.
Mostly, though, I hope beyond all hope that there really is a Heaven or Elysian or Nirvana so that I can sleep with the knowledge that her beautiful soul has passed on to a place brighter and more beautiful than any of us can imagine.
And so I hope that this goodbye, is enough to give me closure for both cases. That I can move on from what my life could have been with Alec, and meet someone and fall in love again without the weight of his loss in my heart, and that I can accept that even if I'm not there to see someone pass, not there to share in the heartbreak and loss, not there to say goodbye, that they know and understand how much I love them and wish them the best in whatever afterlife awaits.

A Prayer

Dear God,
Grant me patience and understanding, and the ability to grow each day and learn from my mistakes. Not to regret making them, but to promise to myself and those that love me that I will never make the same mistake twice, and to love each one for the experience that it was. Thank you for the sun in the Springtime and the cool breezes in the Summertime. Thank you for the firework displays that we see on the trees during the Fall and the freshly accumulated snow in the winter that blankets Earth as it hibernates. Please look after me and protect my friends and family, and all of those who have been a part of my life, as well as what few enemies I have, that they may one day also find the happiness that I have.
Grant me the grace to let go of the things that trouble me and ever strive to move forward, to be the best me that I can be, to always treat others with at least a basic kindness and learn to be stronger than my vices.
Amen.

Still, Still, Still

I love watching the snow fall. Especially when I'm curled up in a blanket in my nice, warm apartment and the snow is falling on the other side of the window. I love watching the big flakes cascading down like little icy specks of confetti. I love how the fresh-fallen powder blankets the earth, turning it into a giant canvas lying in wait for the next wandering animal to paint a new picture on its pristine surface. I love how quiet things are when the snow is falling, like someone threw a comforter over the World that muffles out the bustle of day-to-day.
It makes me happy to see everything so fresh and new: Infinite possibilities exist for a new landscape laid out for us overnight while we slept. Anything can happen to the new-fallen snow. The wind can sweep by and change its shape and contour. An animal can trudge along and change its color, as well as create patterns, adding detail to what was once without marking. There's a lot of hope in snow because you know that underneath it all the grass is still green, waiting patiently for the sun to come out from behind the clouds and melt away the shell, and you know that, come spring, the World will burst into life again, despite the long winter.