Deranged Philosophical Outpourings

Tuesday, April 23, 2002

Late Night Musings: A Look Back

Years. Memory fails me on how many, but a little mental legwork can provide a rough estimate: Seventeen...count count count, twenty or so. At least three years.

I have never, ever had to deal with something like this. Maybe never will again.

I don't know about the rest of the world; I don't know what goes on in other people's heads most of the time, although I pretend to occasionally. I know what happens in me, that's about it.

I know how one love felt; like it would kill me if I didn't hold it down and beat it occasionally, with all-night talk sessions until the daylight came, with discussions of things most people can never discuss, with mindblowing sex and strange little rituals. Constant contact.

There are those who would say I describe an emotional dependency. Perhaps. I have seen emotional dependencies in people for other things, though; who is to say what is worse, emotional dependency on a needle or on a person?

Not I, not yet. I have very little experience with what comes through needles.

It always hurt. God, did it. It hurt so much sometimes, and less others, but it hurt 24/7 in some way, shape, or form. It always did.

Perhaps it always will.

But I can see that it's gone. My eyes had been blind for so long, but they aren't any more. I can say to myself, "I know better now."

But what do I know?

Nothing. I wouldn't have done it any differently. I have to believe that I did the best I could, managed the best I could, did what I could. Could not have done any more.

I don't know if I would ask the person why. I don't know what kind of answer I would get. I don't really know any more.

I used to think I knew what went on in their head, no matter what, all the time. That escaped me at some point, and a communication barrier popped into place. They had a name for it, the "Wall".

I'm on the other side of the wall, and I don't know if I like it or not. I only know that I can't do much about it.

There's a chance they read this. There's even a faint chance that this has caused some reaction within them, or clarified some reaction of mine to them.

See, but they don't have a wall as such. They have a filter Their filter blocks things coming out of them from going to other people. It's a handy filter to have, I suspect.

I don't have it, though.

I have a different filter. I always had it, it's always been in place, and it filters things going into me from other people. My laundry -- I believe -- is essentially out for the world to see, if only it will look.

However, now, there's a blank space. A nonfeeling. An antifeeling.

I don't know that I like it; but, on the other hand, I cannot do what I previously did. The difference between a stalking and a love affair is whether all the people involved are willing participants, nothing more. I don't wish to become a stalker for any reason, legal or moral or otherwise.

But God did it hurt. Perhaps it still does, and it's just hurt so long that it's like cutting scar tissue, where the pain receptors are mangled and shifted and misfiring. Perhaps it's changing into something else. Perhaps it's all of the above.

Then again, maybe it's just four in the morning, and I'm feeling a sickly nostalgia for something you can't have twice with the same person.

I'll know before I die, I guess.
posted by Gregory 12:47 AM