a lesson on being harsh.

It is one thing to let relationships become houseplants that wither and die. Of course, you had the best of intentions. You meant to water them. You wanted to get them enough sunlight. You hoped they'd revive themselves after your neglect was apparent and if they don't...well, it's not like you really cared, cause if you did, you would have done something to keep that from happening.

It is quite another thing to cut someone off from you. Having never done this before, I find that it feels harsh. I feel like a bad person. I am sensitive and being sensitive is hard.

Two people who have been very difficult for me to be around both asked me to get over it and stop behaving like they did something wrong. I told both of them that I didn't want to speak to them any longer. Now they suddenly want my friendship back. One was the very person who drove me to find this new blog address. The other is a friend from a long time ago who I recently wrote about. As I put it somewhere, she demanded everything I had, then took my heart out and stomped on it and asked for more.

I had different things to say to them. To him I was cold. Very cold. I told him there was no point in being friends. He would simply invade my life in ways that would slowly spiral out of control and I would be embarrassed and unduly stressed and there would be no one to blame but me because this has already happened before.

To her I was slightly kinder, but not much. I used words that had been used on me, to cut me free from a friend, to give her space from me. In a way, I see the reasons she had clearer now; I understand why she did that. And so, I borrowed her words and gave them to that supposed friend.

Neither responded. Perhaps they could see that I was not going to relent. I can be very extreme sometimes. My words were very cold. They both pushed me too far and if I actually acted like everything was okay and I could just pretend to be their friend again, I would hate myself.

The only person who has survived this sort of emotional fallout has been him, the love of my lifetime, Eric. No matter how many times I swear to myself that I will never look at his face or hear his voice or feel his touch, I always relent.

I want so much to be a good person and a good friend but I find that it requires a lot of my time and energy and frankly, it is difficult to maintain. I would much rather read, knit, or write than muster up the enthusiasm some people seem to want so badly.

As I contemplate being mean to those two, I realize that nothing could make me return to those times when I loathed seeing their phone calls, or answering their texts, when we spent time together and I felt like I was watching a reality tv show I couldn't turn off, or especially when I had something to say and it went completely unheard.

it's the sound of the toilet flushing

So, you think you can change the rules of our "friendship" and get mad at me for not getting it right? And what, do you expect me to come running back to you? You came to me every time, every interaction, but now I have to call you, is that it?

I wouldn't care except I never got the chance to tell you what a jerk you were, how you thought everything I did was weird, so I slowly just stifled myself and quieted my voice until there was nothing but you and you still weren't satisfied. And of course, now you're blaming it on me, cause it's never your fault.

That you have the gall to be pissed is unbelievable. It always was.

You approached me many years ago when I was still gullible enough to think that people were good and kind and decent and that even though every fiber of my being was screaming about how awful you were, I still thought you deserved my friendship because you wanted it. You wanted me.

You told a person you barely knew that she was your best friend in Chicago. And then you proceeded to demand everything you could with a twist of the head, with a critical tongue, with such extreme entitlement that I was afraid to say no.

I helped you move, I babysat for your child (for free [!]), I talked you down from so many ledges, I listened to all of your bullshit and ate it up. I even let the father of your child stay in my home for a week and all you had to say about it was some smart ass comment about you and I not talking in two months. You couldn't just be gracious and appreciative, you had to be a jerk. And I knew it all along but I felt stuck in being wanted and being nice and then I just stayed stuck.

Even though you may not be book smart, you do pay attention and recently, you'd realized that I have new friends who I am myself around, friends that I have exchanges with, friends who I look forward to seeing, friends that I enjoy spending time with. They are not critical and full of "helpful" suggestions. They let me make my mistakes, they may have opinions but they don't kill me with them, and they would help me out no matter what if I needed help.

That you wouldn't help me when I needed you, when I asked you for help, that I had to beg you and you complied and then you turned your smiling face around and made fun of me, after all I've done for you, well that was the last thing I could take. After that, I made no secret about my dislike, I would not agree to hang out with you and I will never spend time with you again.

Standing around pointing out the small and large mistakes (which are usually just your brand of "common sense") committed by everyone else may provide you a temporary respite from your own fuck-ups, but it also brands you as someone to avoid. Good luck with that.

at 24 I was pretty funny:

Thursday, April 26, 2001

Regrets:

Dropping out of school.
My estrangement with my various family members who should know who they are.
Letting my relationships get all taken for granted.
The way Vince and I got engaged the first time.
Passing on opportunity.
Not volunteering for a good cause when I should have.

Goals:
Graduate college by 2006.
Be a millionaire via intellectual property.
Be a generous millionaire.
Write a novel or two before I turn 30.
Volunteer and learn more about marine biology through Shedd Aquarium.
Become a mentor.
Become more involved in YCA.
See my nephew at least once a year.
Have the wedding that I dream of having.

Interestingly enough, the only goal I managed to make good on was graduating college by 2006. And even that is a little off, because my last day of school was December 18th, 2006. Of course, my regrets are the same and even have new offshoots of them, and my goals actually don't sound so bad, except for the wedding part. I almost left that out, but that and the millionaire part made me laugh.

I've been reading through a lot of my old journal entries trying to identify the "great writer" that Scotty's brother Tom claimed to remember from my bugs in amber days. It's been a while since I looked at those entries and to a large degree what I see is a person who is me but not me, my life is completely different now and everything I used to hate I have learned to embrace. A lot of what I wrote were highly amusing stories that took place at the coffeeshop:
liar, liar, garbage can on fire!
the jesse jackson of clark st
seven strikes you're out!

So did I see a great writer? I don't know. I wish I could say that going to school and spending sixty grand on a fancy education made me a better writer, but I think it made me a better person, so it's not such a loss. I think my journal writing hit a brilliant summit during the dating and exhilaration that was Mr Burnham (which can be viewed at the diaryland site).

Take them or leave them, online journals, blogs, chewed up bubble gum on the sidewalk, there's something to be said for being able to transport back in time with a few clicks on a keyboard.

in that place

I am in that scary-ish place where life seems to be making sense and yet it feels awfully hollow, like I've got it all figured out but there's no satisfaction in having it be comfortable. I am fine. Things are good. I am paying my bills. My apartment is nice. I have a good family that loves me. I have great friends who care for me. My jobs are fulfilling (what's more amazing than contributing to the growth and development of another living being?). Nothing is wrong here.

and yet,

the love of my lifetime is a slippery being who eyes me with distrust and distances himself away from me in ways that hurt more than a month of his self-proposed exile. we are as good as we can be and I have even managed to find a way into his blackened heart, but he is holding himself tightly for someone that is not me. And as much as I know that, I cannot turn away from him and his defective version of love. I love him so much that even the toned down carefully scripted version of him is worth it.

there is the feeling that there is always something I could be doing that I should have done that I'm not doing because I'm a selfish jerk with attention deficit disorder thanks to that shithole job I can't stop working in.

there are those few people whose attentions I could do without, whose flavor digusts me, whose turns of phrases make me want for the friends whose eloquence far surpasses the slugs I sit across from, and when the opportunity comes to brush them away, I don't.

and get this, I am stubbornly reading a terrible first novel just because someone gave it to me to read which I promptly dirtied up in my typical way (it spent one week in my jungle of a purse) and now have to buy the person a new unfilthy copy of a book I didn't even really want to read anyway.

see the pattern? I do. And part of me is afraid that moving to a new state for a new school is a fancy grown up version of discarding the half lived life I've had here and try and make it somewhere newly, as a butterfly instead of an uncharming cocoon with some potential for something greater, full of promise and nothing more.

I have a great fear of failure and somewhere in this pattern is the set up for what feels like the inevitable rejection letter from Iowa, a place I have arbitrarily chosen as the place for me without any research into it whatsoever (which has not done me wrong in the past, and served Cher pretty well in Kiss the Girls).

Luckily, I have sabotaged my old self that persists in many lizard brain ways and the things that are a shock to me, the things that I now accomplish with ease, the fact that anything I put my mind to gets done means I will fail (if I do get rejected) in a different way than before: At least I did something else. And then, I kept doing something else.

not so happy camper

As I endeavor to make nice nice with one Mr. Burnham, I find it hard to maintain my shiny veneer, the shellacked version of myself that I trot out for mostly everyone (except for family, in which I feel it is fine to be myself in all my bitter glory). I incorrectly assumed that since I'd been working hard at being this upgraded happier version of me for the better part of a year, I'd have no problem giving him this new improved glossy me.

For a while, I blamed him, feeling that when he takes a seat next to me, I become a console of buttons that he freely and gladly pushes. I branded him a button pusher, a finger pointer, an instigator of angst, and tried to go along on my merry way.

The hardest thing to admit is that I am simply not happy. Sure, I'd like to be. I see other people being happy and it looks like a good time. I've always wondered what it would take for me to be happy. I had it like I had to have all my ducks in order, everything perfect and then I could be happy. It never occurred to me that it had nothing to do with what I had or didn't have, or if all was right with the world, or if my immediate safety wasn't threatened.

I don't like feeling miserable all the time. Being happy is an effort for me. Being unhappy is like breathing. Thankfully, I'm not much of a complainer (probably because I work out a lot of my grievances here), and I'm pretty diplomatic, so spending time with me isn't so awful, but I'll admit it, if you're looking for cheery, delighted-by-life company, you won't find it here.

A lot of things bring me joy, a lot of circumstances illicit gladness, and the friends I spend time with are good ones, people who stoke conversations and model the ability to find happiness in a fucked up world. Externally, if the things I deem as pleasurable surround me, only then can I be content.

What I've come to understand is that part of the reason I'm not happy is because I'm not happy with myself. All of the things I thought I'd be by this time in my life haven't happened. I got stuck somewhere along the way and now I feel like I am constantly excavating myself and retracing my steps, and searching for that fork in road where I got lost. In doing so, I've regained some semblance of normalcy and recovered some confidence in myself that brings me some happiness.

The work of being happy involves many ducks: ace-ing the GRE, editing my manuscript, applying to grad schools, getting my apartment in order, maintaining my physical appearance (a grueling chore) and having a job I don't hate doing. I realize that this approach is almost like the guy pushing the rock up the hill. I can't disagree. I do these things because I know that they are external things that bring me some sense of relief, some sense of duty, some sense that I am trying to do something with my life. This is the blueprint of happy I was given and it is all I know, and I know that this approach seems to work some of the time.

And then, there are some moments when I let go, when my smile comes freely and I am happy, when being happy is just something I slip on, like a pair of sunglasses with a pink tint and the world appears not so harsh and blinding.

sitting across from my impending future

another reason to run, run, run far away from clark st:

She is a woman who looks weathered, her freckles have multiplied into large dark brown spots we call mega freckles, and she's got the freckles everywhere, and that is not all.

the wrinkles. the teeth. the hair. the body. the saggy skin under her arms. the pull on her earlobes from her earrrings. all of it is one big disgusting mess. and she thinks she is gorgeous. and if I continue to be a lazy slob, I will most certainly resemble her.

Except for the words coming out of her mouth, you would think she was sixty years old. I have no idea how old she actually is, but the age she purports to be, the age she pretends to be is my age. She is mentally stuck somewhere between twenty-five and thirty, but she is deluded. Seriously, the most delusional person I have ever spoken with.

Sitting there, her and I, in a place neither of us belongs, we looked like tourists, obtuse tourists, who had ambled into a restaurant merely based on the review in our guide book, and what's worse is that no one said what I'm sure was on their minds, that we looked like a mother and daughter out on the town, that we did and did not match at the same moment, that we did not belong there.

I was about as uncomfortable in my own skin as I was in high school, an itch arose in random places, my nose was running, I was anxious, could not sit still,

could not even stay for her offer of free drinks, that's how damn uncomfortable I was.

my hasty exit was awkward, and uncertain, and odd. but better that than sit with her til darkness crept into our eyes and my tongue loosened and said all the the things no one else ever says but that I always seem to.

death to debauchery

I'm not sure how I'm gonna swing it, but I gotta take a huge step back from these innocent nights of drinking that turn into ridiculous marathon drink fests that leave me ruined for the next day. as fun as they are--and they are fun--they are costly, damaging, and altogether too frequent for my tastes.

Thing is, it's not like I've been overdoing it for very long...it's been about five months of serious and consistent drinking, but I do know you could compile all the other times I've gotten drunk before this period and it would hardly be a list worth bothering over. I was never much of a drinker; then I met Eric. He stoked some appreciation for alcohol in me, and truth be told, it wasn't hard for me to say yes. Addictive personality always reigns. Yet, I was in school full time for the duration of our relationship and I made my fair share of passes on life's social outlets. I tried to honor the ever important birthdays and other such would-be offenses had I skipped out, but I felt like I was saying no a lot more than I was saying yes.

There's no reason to pass on a good time other than the getting up early for work reason, so I've been going along with a lot of drinking nights. Sometimes two or three a week. Usually at least six hours a night. Drinking as much as we can. Smoking as much as we can. Trying to forget. Trying to pass the time. The other day Barb told me to enjoy myself and not make myself feel bad about it. Easier said than done. She also managed to point out: that my life is pretty responsibility free right now and this is the perfect time for this kind of stuff. I'm single, childless, largely debtless (except of course, for the student loans), and I have a dumb job I can sleepwalk through.

The cloves signified to me that I've reached some kind of calamitous summit that has breached the idea that this whole venture was ever considered "fun." Whenever the urge to smoke cloves hits me, I know I am in some serious self-infliction pattern and I am reaching my capacity. Usually what happens is I take the hint and pick up the pieces.

I haven't smoked all day today. And my resolve to quit cigarettes seems as strong as it ought to be to try it cold turkey again. The other part will be a lot harder. I love my friends, my new boozy friends, but I just can't go out the night before I have to work in the morning.

I was a mess today. I literally--not exaggerating--could barely function. I could hardly form words. I didn't drink that much, but I only slept about three hours. And when the alarm went off I groaned--that felt like no time at all. I then proceeded to trudge through a six hour shift at the coffeeshop and seven hours with the world's cutest but hyper conversational two year old. And it wasn't til I got home and took a shower that some semblance of normality returned to me.

But the worst thing these last five months is facing the knowing glances and comments from some of the fucking customers at the coffeeshop who mean well but send their judgmental bullshit in my direction. It makes me want to drink more, seeing their tsking-know-it-all stares, because it always seems so futile to fend off other people's opinions.

it's been an eeyore kind of day.

so this is what it's like to be 30. exhausted. tired. full of warmth, lacking vigor. I don't know, maybe it's just the last couple days and attempting to recover. or the disappointment that there was no big peal of proverbial lightning (though it did storm right before my party) where life made any more sense than it already does.

but maybe the thing that I never realize is that I know exactly what I need to know.

the intuition has been quite vocal these past few days and I feel its burdens, it's grousing, it's voice screaming, and though I want to acknowledge that it is true and right, I find myself very opposed. I find myself rigidly turning the wheel of politeness and conceding to societal demands rather than honoring myself and my word. as paul put it, be glad it still talks to you.

my birthday party was a rousing success. except for that I felt like I couldn't spend time with anyone, it was a lot of fun. I'm still not sure how many books I received, but I did get a nice pile, and some bookstore gift cards and it was very nice of everyone to play along with my idea of giving me a copy of their favorite book.

I feel a great urge to get a start on the many things I have tabled in favor of turning 30: my daily writings, my taxes, my apartment being a mess, my laundry, painting my toenails, trying [in vain, I suspect] to go to Prague, editing my writings [my march goal], taking the GRE, applying for grad schools, etc.

I have set up my blog to accept texts and photos from my cell phone. this should be either interesting or dull, depending on the day. I like the photo option quite a lot.

that is all.

wreathed in smells and glances

his eyes find mine and there is something between us. he is who he is and there has always been that hard stare between us but this time I am bolder, this time I am full of myself, brimming over with joy and love and confidence,

I spent the morning planning the words I would say when our paths crossed again and it was gonna be perfect.

and then,

he was looking for her, and I sensed the bond between them, but I wondered if they were just good friends. then he asked about her and someone said who's she? and he said, she, she, and he glanced at me and then away, she is my wife.

and for a flicker, my smile fell, and then came back, lit up, brighter, wider, overcompensating for its faltering.

later in the evening, long after the flow of life had ended, where the feeling of time slowed, the empty room cleaned of all evidence of them, all that was left behind were his things: knit hat and scarf and his coat, heavy with keys...

and the smell of him floated out of them, a thick smoke of nighttime smells and incense, a smell I knew was his and before I could consider what I was doing, I picked up his scarf and leaned over, cautious, secretive, and I inhaled his smell.

I have always been swayed by smells, the odors of men have sparked a chemical dependence that I could often not reconcile, and this was no different. [she, she, she is my wife.]

as the evening ended with all of us in a circle exchanging goodbyes, I realized that they have a certain thing about them, they are so comfortable with each other that I'm sure people ask them all the time if they are brother and sister. they look like two parts of a whole. that made me glad. despite the lingering looks we shared, looks that gave me hope for something with a like minded man, it made me glad that they fit together. that gave me hope too.

as the rest of festival wore down, and my face emerged again, his eyes found mine, his smile opened, and he waved at me, from across the room, the first time that he took a moment from his role as organizer to acknowledge me with more than burning eyes.

the evening found him at the microphone, announcing his departure to Germany, for her [she, she, she is my wife] and I hoped that one day, one day there would be a man who would glow for me, a man who shared his time under the stage lights with me, a man who would announce to a roomful of strangers his profound love for me.

groan

yet again, I have decided not to go to Prague. I don't know what it is about this trip, why I feel such urgency to attend the summer session the fiction department runs there. why I keep deciding it is much too extravagant and far beyond my means at the moment.

Maybe this is the part of being an adult I haven't come to terms with: having dreams, watching them wither and go away.

as my mother--who tends to be far more practical at a moment's notice--pointed out, I could spend that money better in grad school.

of course, there's no way of knowing what six weeks in prague would have done for me. the only thing for certain is that it would have made me really, really broke. and even though there's a million reasons to go, I'm simply not going.

if you have any ideas on how I can make 5,500 bucks magically appear, I'm open.

the power of magnetism

aches so deep they're wrapped around my joints, rather than throbbing through my muscles, and I can only feel them when I extend my legs, so I do, I raced up the stairs two at a time to feel those aches, that reminder that there are consequences for who I was,

for my own sake, and that of modesty, and my propensity to avoid embarrassments, I think to myself, I won't tell anyone, but as soon as they saw my face and heard my voice, they knew, and my inability to keep myself a secret from anyone fell and I blurted it out in the worst way possible. of course.

all I can see when I close my eyes are his, staring at me, soft and kind, his smile bemused, his head sideways on the pillow, but up enough so that he can see me with both his eyes. when I think about all the pain we've shared, I am amazed that there is still so much love in those eyes for me. and even though a lot must change for love to grow between us again, I see its tendrils curling around me and it is a beautiful thing to recognize.

I distract myself with things purchased: a fuchsia slip that I will wear alone. a sweater I might wear for my birthday. a knit hat to replace the one I've lost somewhere [the cab, the apartment filled with everything but books, the apocalyptic streets]. I distract myself with food, but nothing fills me up: a chocolate doughnut, a soy mocha, a crack sandwich, a plate of pineapple fried rice, spinach rangoons, thai iced coffee, and still there is room for more, for me. I distract myself with the Pan-like time fritterings of the internet, and though I feel a slight sense of satisfaction, I know it will quickly rot into paranoia and fear, for I will wonder if my ways of speaking went too far, as they seem to usually do, and once again I will have to stand by and defend my actions, as ludicrous as they might be.

I try not to stare at my phone, as if the instant I glance away he will call, but I know he won't, for I am synonymous with the things in his life that cause him problems. things that force him to spin out of control, and he must not engage in me; he even has a note on his fridge that says, "stop thinking about her."

though I long to be part of what's good for him, to present him with the best of myself, when I get near him, my facade crumbles and my mean parts seem pulled magnetically forward by a force stronger than myself, and I even suffered a strike of nausea so strong and so concentrated that I had to double over to stifle it in order to hold back from simply being mean.

tonight I will be reminded that being a great person has something to do with the company you keep, and dustin's is magnanimous, shiny, keen and brilliant, and in his glow there is room for anything to show up, but especially the things he favors, and his favor is strong. he has no magnetism for negativity, and it shows.

I cannot hate myself for being human, for having these hard knots of hate, and I cannot hate him for not knowing the difference between spite and confusion, for it has sounded like one and the same for a long time. and there may not be a difference really, in fact it may just be my defense.

profound lassitude...

seized by a boredom so pure, it threatens to undo me. It has been a long time since I felt like doing something bad simply because it would make me less bored. I contemplate the million things I could be doing and wonder why I ought to bother doing them at all. Why knit myself a pillow? Why photomontage? Why make my apartment look less like someone just moved in and more like someone lives here? all the plans I make with friends eventually give way to my cancellations. If all the variables are not in place, I say fuck it, why bother?

half of it that I don't suffer through things anymore. if I don't feel like it, I won't do it. This seems very childish and backwards, but for someone who never used to stand up for herself and always look for opportunities to be the victim, it's actually a triumph. the other half of it is just pure abject boredom.

maybe this is just part of some stage I'm supposed to reach before I get to enlightenment, before I realize that everything is actually a bore, but it's who I am about it that makes it good or bad.

as one of those liberal minded free thinking types who doesn't own a television (and refuses offers of free ones, thanks), I've often been disgusted when I hear people remark on how bored they are. Usually though, they meant it in a present tense that applied only to that moment in particular. And usually they are boring people. It is a rare thing for me to be bored in a moment, for there is always something to do. The kind of boredom I face everyday is why bother? Sure I could wake up a half hour early and take a shower before work, but I'm just gonna get dirty at work. And I could brush and floss my teeth, but I'll probably be having coffee and a pastry soon after. And I could dye my hair but it's just going to grow out again.

The weird thing is part of me--the part that cares about my physical appearance--really wants to do these things, but the lazy procrastinator in me is like ah, whatever, just do it later. And it's like this with everything I consider doing. I consider it, and then I think what's the point?

anyway, I think this is beginning to pass because I am able to talk about it, and I am resolved to do these things. Yesterday I spent six hours getting my apartment into some kind of tolerable order, and today I am going to spend a long time grooming in the shower.

"newly baffled strangers"

the joy that rises in my chest from the company I've been keeping has been so thoroughly fulfilling that I feel I might explode from happiness. it seems strange to realize that all these wonderful people have been surrounding me for a while and it is only now that I have awoken to their presence and personalities and I find them to be such tremendous people that I almost quaver in their presence, as a fear trembles over me that I might somehow ruin it all if I say the wrong thing.

my new year's resolution has been the driving force behind this, and yet, it had already begun some months ago with the inclusion of annie and walter (two amazing and incredibly warm and fuzzy coffee shop customers) into my social bosom. all day I wondered how I could wait until Monday to speak with annie again. today I had a sushi lunch with walter and it was like spending time with someone who knows you so well that you don't even have to talk, yet there is always something to say, no matter how many times I hang out with him. then there is my coworker val, who has the kind of laugh that makes you yearn to say funny things just so you can hear it again and again. her delight in me gives me great pleasure, and I can only hope she feels my appreciation of her good values, sense of humor and kindness in each of my expressions to her. we went to see a movie and I spoiled her with peanut butter hershey's kisses and hot cheetos, and we reveled in our own secret jokes.

yesterday I got to hang out with beth, who I realize I haven't seen in many months, and her husband ed, and their pets, and I literally found myself sitting back in one of their newly accquired dining room chairs and simply being in the moment, resting, completely content, a feeling I have not had in some time.

my conversation with them is awkward, and sometimes intimate, as if they can see past my physical self and right into my innermost thoughts, and I know this is just a symptom of my loneliness, which I had not realized plagued me so deeply until today.

a man who comes to the coffeeshop quite often who happens to physically resemble my old roommate greg: entered and I engaged him in the most gregarious and whooping kind of statements that he, quite frankly, seemed baffled by, because there is no history of that between us, just polite and perfunctory exchanges, and it occurred to me that I miss my old roommate greg quite a lot, a lot more than I would ever admit as an answer if that question was posed. of course, when I am no longer forced to endure his presence, I find myself fondly recalling the moments that were good between us and feel forlorn enough to wonder if it really was so bad after all.

[can you tell I am reading a classic novel?]

mais oui...

Happy New Year!

May it be full of wonder, magic and awe.

all my love!

this whole thing

I look to the future and know there will be a time in my life when the landscape of men is behind me, where I forge ahead with one truly great man who is my equal and also challenges me to be my best, as I do for him, and we share a love that is bigger and more consuming than we have ever known.

The world we move with parts before us like the breaks in a crowd, and we innovate, excel, create dynamic things wherever we go. We do not simply allow life to come to us and swallow us whole.

We do not need to remind each other of our greatness, for it beams out of us like lighthouses; an ever present ray that illuminates everything. We merely provide the support needed to regain footing, and we do so with compassion and generosity.

Those who know us personally will bear witness to our great love, and see no facades, just the simple structures of our love, expressed in kindness to each other, a mutual respect for our words and actions, and the joy that comes from loving and being loved by another person in perfect synchronization.

Yeah, that's what I'm playing for. And I'm not letting just anyone in anymore. I may not find this with the next person I choose to give my love and time to, but I will be looking for its potential all the while.