smoke and mirrors

image from this flickr found via this tumblr

I'm not accustomed to love.

To feeling it, giving it, pining for it and, at times, yearning for it to leave me in peace; I am more than well acquainted.

But to experience love, love as it is given, and love as a mutual, wholehearted and shared experience, I am unaccustomed.

This is not to say that I have never, ever been loved before.

Certainly, those whom I have loved or have been involved with in the past may have loved me, but this was not love in all its great wondrous, unencumbered and almost unwieldy glory; this was love as a small, contained and conditional gift. A heart-shaped gesture of affection from someone to whom I have been unconditionally devoted; to whom I have unconditionally loved.


Thus, the premise of friendship  throws up walls against the reciprocation of my feelings. I lose myself, so much of me, and so willingly, to the other. And they, by the by, continue to remain, as they were, maintaining the status quo of themselves and their emotions and only lightly acknowledging the depth and intensity of the sea within which I am drowning.

This seems ridiculous; why fall in love with people who do not reciprocate these affections? This is a question I ask myself frequently; and am yet to discover an answer.

Numerous axioms and adages seem appropriate here; the grass is always greener, love the one you're with, plenty more fish in the sea... it is alarming how unimaginative people are in their efforts to console other (irrespective of how true any of these sayings may be). What cannot seem to be answered, however, or find an appropriately blithe retort to, is the question that has plagued me throughout my adult (and somewhat not-quite-an-adult) years.

Why?

Why me?

Why do I yearn so long for that which I cannot have?

Is love some kind of holy grail, that I am destined to spend my years searching for, only to perish on its discovery?

And if I think I have love now (god-willing, I do) will I squander it in my efforts to retain it, being as unaccustomed as I am to any kind of reciprocal emotion?

talk.

image via fffound

That you may say you are there for me, that you'll hurt anyone that hurts me, and other similar claims of protection and loyalty, means so very little to me now.

I believed you for a moment, that you really were genuinely interested in my own emotional well being and happiness...until I realised that you were drinking and laughing with the person that hurt me, left me vulnerable, broken and raw. Took what I had to give and gave... nothing... in return.

And this was when I realised your words were hollow; straw monuments built up to fill yourself and anyone within earshot with your self-importance and devotion, and blown over at the first hint of a breath of a challenge.

Gone.

from here

Talk of loyalty and allegiance is just that; talk.

Our real dedication is evidenced not in what or who we tell people we are - hiding behind our bravado and grandiose claims - but in what we do, and whether or not we are there for those that we hold dear.

Especially in their hour of need.

like mismatched pieces of a puzzle

image from here

I pull the clothes from the bag I so foolishly packed last night, and cringe at the memory of the conversation explaining myself... I could have said nothing, should have. 

I felt the words tumble from my mouth, laying around us on the ground, awkward and uncomfortable as we stood in the empty street. You looked tired, and I interpreted hints of impatience as you waited for me to stop speaking, and leave.

I mull over everything I said as I make the long drive home. Wishing for a retraction, a do-over, an opportunity to go back and make some sort of semblance of reason and sense; though I know you will give my words little if any more thought.

With a sighing reluctance, I scrape together myself - my thoughts, my inadequacies and my indelicacies, and prepare to greet the day.

awake

here, me naked and you in your underwear, as I lay restless and edgy,anxious and unhappy and wondering if I wished I was elsewhere.
Your fingers smell like cigarettes- a habit you promised you would stop for me- and I find i cannot escape you, as your touch, the very essence of you and your being is imbued in the pores of my body.

I don't know if this is what I want.

I know that I should simply rejoice in the moment; the being and togetherness of ourselves, but I find myself left wanting, longing for someone who wants and needs me as wholeheartedly as I want to want and need them. I don't know if you do this. I don't know if this is something you can give me, or indeed if this is something that you want. I don't know.
And perhaps that is the fundamental issue here, the unknowing, the uncertainty that if I give myself up to you, that this will be treated with the reverence I feel it deserves. But then, I don't know, maybe you fear the same things. Maybe.

like a torchlight held up in the darkness

via ffffound

I give until I have nothing left.

I don't have any logical or rational explanation for why this happens, only that I know that in doing so, I am left raw, open, exposed and vulnerable to the ever-changing needs and feelings of the people around me.

And at times, taken advantage of.

The justifications for these behaviours are repetitive and I find myself once again in a wash-rinse-repeat cycle of hurt and confusion, occasionally angry and almost always in tears. That this pattern is so frequently repeated should mean that I have developed warning bells, triggers to tell me when feelings need to be withheld, and a face of stoicism presented...  As yet, I am unsuccessful.

Subsequently, I am left, once again, feeling devastated at the loss of friendship with another. This is not unfamiliar territory for me, in so much that people need me in their lives, and I fulfil that purpose. This, on its own, seems like a beautiful, wonderful gift that I can give to a person that may otherwise have no one, and I am grateful for the opportunity to be able to do so.

Whether or not this weighs up against the emotional toll that is taken on me, I am yet to decide.

paper dolls, paper heart

I love paper dolls. As a child, paper dolls represented to me an uncomplicated intersection between art and craft (of which I was always engaging, in some capacity or another) and the over-dramatic roll-playing of which I was also quite fond.

So, imagine! My joy when I discovered these paper dolls:



yes!!! you too can own this

The jokes, the paper-doll-possibilities are endless! Why limit yourself to "I did not have sexual relations with that paper-woman" when he can also deny sexual relations with paperclips, staplers, that piece of cardboard over there that you were going to make in to something cool, the felt that you rescued from the craft box that your mum was going to throw out... amazing!



PONIES?! BILL CLINTON KNOWS A THING OR TWO ABOUT PONIES!!

YES!! BILL CLINTON AND PONIES?! AMAZING!!!





And this, because as a feminist, I (somewhat predictably) embrace Frida Kahlo as an icon of aggressively independent, creative and outspoken feminism... so naturally to me, these paper dolls are  amazing and I love them:

from here

 Amazing!

(dis) connected

amazing paper dolls from this website here

It seems that I have become so dependent on my ability to instantly communicate with people that those moments when I am not afforded this connection I start to find myself lost, caught in a tailspin of disconnection and suddenly second guessing not only my ability to communicate, but my existence in a world so intrinsically interconnected with each other.

And this is not to say that there is anything actually wrong in my life, that I would need the contact and connection in order to feel validated, alive; rather, my simple efforts at reaching out, asking questions that become unanswered, sending words that are left unresponded to, are trivial, simple reminders and thoughts that are otherwise immaterial and not really worth articulating.

However, in the absence of any kind of response, the idea that someone may be unavailable to me, that something may actually be wrong, begins to ebb and etch its way in to my psyche... why hasn't she replied? What have I done to offend her? Is she busy? Is she okay? Is she upset with me? Did I say something upsetting? Am I being too much?...Most definitely, yes. Yes, much too much... why did I send the second message? Why did I say that? Why didn't I say that? What?! Why? Why? Why?

And then... the phone trills. A reply! A simple, appropriately non-committal response deserving of the simple, appropriately non-committal text message that I sent her hours earlier.

And all is well within the world.

from here

“A year, ten years from now, I'll remember this; not why, only that we were here like this, together.”

Adrienne Rich