Dear you

Dear You,

I wanted to begin this with 'dear kid'. Would that have been too condescending, too patronizing? I thought so. But it would make my point very succinctly. Or perhaps, points I didn't intend to make. Why use such brutish, blunt weapon, when there are more nuanced conversations to be had.

We are young, and stupid. We are so so stupid, all of us. We crave love, attention, and just to be loved. Really, that's what we all want. As the thunderclouds clap loudly outside, with the rain thumping on the roof, and lightening blinding us once in a while, we want to be comfortably inside, on the couch, nuzzled against each other, watching tv and reading book while the cute dog on our feet (is he trying to bite his tail aggain? goddamit you stupid dog!) whimpers and tries to hide from the thunder under our feet. The books are not going to be read today, and the tevee is not going to be watched. How come the blanket is so warm, or is it our warmth, and why do we feel so drowsy, so ready to just sleep there -- oh shit, it's only eight, how the hell is this happening-- and why won't we stop playing with roots of each others hairs and how does it feel so good. Is it not what we all want?

We are young, and stupid. It is not a good idea to go head-first into making mistakes, and make them over and over again. We must learn. We must plan. We must plan the shit out of our love-at-first-sights, and the one-off encounters, that will make our hearts fond forever. We must miss people.

How do we know what love is, what caring is, if we haven't felt the pain? How can we find comfort in the warm living room if we have not been out in the storm -- wet, tired, hungry, sad, so full of general surrender, and ready to give up and really, give up on everything. It is pain, it is the chaos amongst us, that allows us to judge what order is. For us to find the comfort of order, we must go through the disorientation of chaos. To value the good stuff, we must first know what shit is.

We are vulnerable when we lower our defenses. When we are naked, we have nothing to hide. While that does give us a certain freedom-- nothing to hide anymore! -- it makes us too... defenseless. This is not a game, and is not meant to be played as such, but really, we have no more cards left. We are left at the kindness and mercy of the other -- often we find our comfort and trust may have been overzealous on our part.

So we become afraid of being hurt. Afraid of lowering our defenses, and putting ourselves in position of vulnerability. We raise our guard. We become cynics. Soldiers. Who will not let in even a chink in our armor. No one shall take advantage of us, ever again!

Two things happen. First, we become cold, dead, perhaps, and have trouble regaining our humanity. The metal of the armor seeps into our hearts, and it takes active effort to keep it away.

Second, when we do lower our guard, we go alll the way in. We are so enamored by the feeling of opening up again, having a real heart, that we go all way in. Not only are we naked, but we lose our skin, our heart pounding, exposed, open to the air, because we want it so bad -- after years of being imprisoned by the metal, we are ready to love, and be loved, and give it all, and no games to play again, really, because we have had it all!

And so! Perhaps we fall in love, spend the rest of our lives together, and things are all happily ever after. Or perhaps, we make mistakes again, slightly different ones, and go back to square one. But this time it's different. We blame ourselves. It was I, we say, who was stupid, it was idiotic, it was foolish, goddamit, how could we have.

It is not only okay to want to love and be loved, it is expected. We all want to love and be loved. No mistakes were made, except when we blamed ourselves needlessly. We must live, and we must love. Again and again and again, if we must.

Life is long. Like, really pretty quite long. We are young. You are young. Things will happen, and things will keep on happening. For you, it's going to be forever. There still so much to happen and do. The story's not even begun. You're barely through the first page of Prologue. Soldier on!

Here's a secret: you will love your next lover. Really really love them. And then it will be over, almost certainly. And then you will love someone else. REALLY love. And that too will be over. And it will all be painful, and buckets of tears will be shed. And then. Things will be back to normal again. And it's all fine, and regular. And you'll learn to love again. Spring will be back.

A friend of mine, she told me a story yesterday. A friend of hers had just broken up. She cried so much, so goddamn much, on the phone, her tears short-circuited the IPhone, and it broke. Yeah: she cried so much, she drowned her phone in her tears. Literally. And she was still fine.

I write this because I'm jealous. So goddamn jealous. Jealous of you, jealous of all your future loves, and jealous of the great things you will do. Back in the day, the epitome of my achievement was advanced poop-related jokes. Really! They're all here in this blog (mostly), and it's all true. I also worry. I have known other writers. Amazing people. Who I don't know anymore, because they got lost and started to live, to write. It was awful. We must live, and live as we wish. Writing will come as we live: without having to force ourselves into situations that would germinate stories.

As always, I know my worries are unfounded. I have been indoctrinated to worry more, get things done less. You know how things are.

In other news, I biked 60 miles over the weekend. That's like, almost a 100 kilometres! It's crazy, right?! Bleh.

In any situation, life is, as it is, is cool, and we worry, and worrying is fine and cool, but deep underneath understand that you are awesome, and loved or not, lover or not, ghosts or not, the sky will be blue, waiting for you just to see it in its real color. I mean, unless you're color blind, but you get the gist.

Really, it'll be a fun life, whether we meet some loser or not (!)

byee,

-S