Personal Journal Entry sent to the girl the writer speaks of…
Its been awhile since I’ve had a girlfriend who hasn’t had the pleasure of bailing me out of jail, tending wounds incurred during a fight, or tearfully confessed she had a miscarriage. I tend to use these facts as clear evidence of self improvement. While I know I have progressed greatly in the past few years, the nagging fear of regression persists. It always seems like progress happens in inches, while mistakes take you back miles. One drink too many, a carnal evening born from loneliness, or a bruised ego which turns into flying fists could send me continents away from where I am, and I’m still planets away from where I want to be. I would like to take all the credit, yet like all born romantics I tend to give a good portion to the people I love, especially the women I have loved. This thought process has its pitfalls.
Life is not and will never be a movie. Anyone who has ever had their own life events translated to the big screen can testify the same. It is a fine line between being romantic and romanticizing. The realist might ask “Aren’t they one in the same?” The easy answer is no. To be more specific, to be a romantic is to believe in and actively try to cultivate love. To romanticize is to fall into delusion. Here in lies the most dangerous pitfall romantics face. An idea which has been reinforced by thousands of movies and songs. The idea that the one, your one, can save your life. To save someone has nothing to due with death in this sense. It is to be saved from loneliness, a passionless existence, to never be understood, any and all existential conundrums you can think of. I have fallen into this particularly intoxicating delusion many times, attributing my partners with charms, intentions, and traits that never existed. Looking back I now know that I was trying to will these things into existence. I have always believed in the power of sincerity. I believe that true sincerity cannot be ignored nor can it do anything but have an effect. This idea has been proven wrong numerous times. The blame lies in the difficulty of achieving 100% sincerity. Even so, this idea of finding your true-love-savior, is a responsibility no one should be burdened with by inference, assumption or otherwise, nor does it lend to personal growth as the responsibility is taken from the “saved”.
Having said that, I am currently in love. Yes love. That o-so scary word that becomes the things of nightmares the older you get. I feel it and claim it on this page with guileless sincerity. I have never felt so comfortable in this supernatural skin. I know I can enjoy this love without fear of delusion due to experience, consciousness, and clarity. First, I have experienced the LSD trip of delusional romance so many times that I have built a tolerance. Like any drug the more you do it the more you need and at this point I would have to be committed due to overdose if what I am experiencing is another construct of romantic whimsy. Secondly, I am aware of what the delusion is. To be unaware of what you are experiencing is implicit to the delusional event. I can point to things as evidence of.
She has lived in Arizona her whole life and holds a kindred appreciation of home state as I do. Most people 20 odd years into living in the same city, or state would have already littered the streets with blame for all their problems, and lack of excitement, imagination, opportunity, etc. etc. Yet she wears her love on her sleeve, literally. Yet she still understands the importance of experiencing what the rest of the world has to offer. She is someone who has traveled some yet is the perfect candidate to be an ambassador for the united states, or human existence for that matter. She is intelligent, curious, and more importantly willing and excited to take part in others lives. She will never get a show on travel channel or the food network where she samples her way across the world. Yet, she would be enchanting as she travels to Madagascar where she will marvel and explain the flower and fauna with a true passion that the most plant inept would be enraptured as she tenderly bends the stalk of a flower to show the brilliant pattern hidden at its center.
She has a great capacity for love. With out hearing in depth the specifics of past relationships I can hear the pain and loss that can only come from loving another. The capacity is shown by how willing she is to give love another shot. Most of us would have drained the reservoir dry after her experiences leaving a barren cracked landscape that no heart can help but to become hard. She has a hard time letting go of others. I can relate most in this area. It’s a wonderful and tragic trait. She cherishes and keeps alive and well people and how they have shaped her, keeping memories close to the front of her mind so she can play them like records while alone. Loving the music because it takes you to a certain place. We are time travelers, memorial custodians. The danger is missing out on the present as you pine for the past and trying to find a balance before you get lost in the past.
She lost her mother to alcoholism. I can relate because my mother was an alcoholic as well. Yet my relation to her experience is fractional at best. She keeps her mother close. Photographs watch over her as she sleeps at night. Her mother as a little girl, and a young mother, smiling. I don’t know much about this as it relates to Katie. I do know she is strong. The thought of losing my mother to the same disease nearly incapacitates me. Yet here She stands.
All of this and the things I shake with excitement to learn about her are why I love her. I know that it has only been a short time, and this matters to some people. I have given up on time playing any part in my decisions when I dropped out of high school. I have been with people for years and not felt these types of emotions once. I trust my heart, and my experience, and I trust hers as well. This is the beginning of something important in my life
