Sometimes we forget what makes us US.
I mean, things happen. Life happens. You get so busy, so extremely busy, and so stressed. So very stressed. What do you like? What makes you feel? What makes you laugh? What would you do if you could do anything you wanted? If your only answer to that question has become something like "Escape", then I would venture to guess that you and I are in the same boat.
Writing is cathartic for me. it always has been. So is music. I LOVE music. I haven't written in months. I haven't listened to anything, I mean REALLY listened, in even longer than that.
I like to go to bookstores and buy a cup of peach tea and sit and read their books. For hours. I like to look up from a page and observe the couple arguing over self-help books, or watch the expectant mother rubbing her growing belly as she loads up on What To Expect literature. I like to smile at the girl who looks just how I always want to feel, wandering around, with all the time in the world, browsing fiction and travel and art, all categories of equal interest, not settling on anything yet because she doesn't HAVE to.
I like to sit and ponder what my life would be like if I would have chosen differently. Where would I be living? What would I do there? Would I be caught up in a whirlwind romance or would I be happily settled or would I be triumphantly single? Would I be completely content, or would I be pensive?
Probably pensive.
I'm always pensive.
I don't think it really matters where I am, or what I'm doing, or how whirlwind my romances are or not. I also don't think that I, as a human being, would change all that much regardless of where my choices led me. Would I?
Wouldn't my basic qualities still find their way to the top and spill over and eventually constitute whatever "life" I was living? Wouldn't those basic qualities be the same regardless of where I lived; what I was doing; who I was with?
Does our essence ever change? Is it a guarantee that no matter what, no matter how long it's been, someone who really knows me could eventually find me if they just searched out enough bookstores, asked around about the local music scene, or perused the internet for any trace of my writing?
If all this stress doesn't end soon, will I make it through as the same person?
Will I come out on the other end and still be me?
Because it feels like I'm already forgetting. How do you hold on to yourself?
Well, I read this right after reading YOUR comment on MY posting.
Yes....I understand. And you understand. Even though our words were very different (yours more eliquent, I might add), we meant the same thing.
Let's make a deal: I won't forget who you are if you won't forget who I am. We'll remember for each other....we'll be a constant reminder so that the other doesn't forget completely. That's about the most beautiful description of friendship I've ever seen.
Posted by: Allison | February 01, 2006 at 02:56 PM
Agreed. On all counts.
Posted by: elise | February 01, 2006 at 03:03 PM
i need your address so i can send you a wedding invitation. will you email it to me?
Posted by: heather | February 13, 2006 at 01:49 PM
in the past i've confused what I thought were parts of me with what I was in order to make other people happy.
but now i do know that writing is a part of ME.
Posted by: beck | March 13, 2006 at 05:58 PM