The Broken Pieces

There was this book that a friend loaned me. I won't say the title. That would be telling. But it stuck because I heard that it was something a girl I liked a lot was a fan of, and I heard my friend liked it too, so I borrowed it, read it, and it struck me somewhat too.

It explained that when we love other people, it's like giving a piece of your heart to someone. Every new person in our lives comes in and takes a piece. We go from person to person, forming new relationships each, and they all get a piece. We break up, we break off another part of our hearts, then find someone one to give another part.

Then, at the end, we find someone we really want to give the whole heart. So we try and look at what of our heart is left to give. We find out we've given away our heart in bits to others, like little floating shards of glass. We give the one last person a heart missing parts. We cannot give our 'whole selves'.

And you know what was funny? I was a college student then, reading this, and seriously, seriously thinking it made a lot of sense. I felt, "Hey, I can't go committing to others so easily. I need to take every single girl I want to take in my life very seriously, and only one can get to keep me."

Hence, I became a Man who Can't be Kept. And I learned to be vindictive, jealous, and self-centered in some ways too.

This line of thinking poisoned me, and I think it poisons others too. We think we feel less of ourselves the more we open our lives to others. We add to our list of partners in bed, or the people we date, and when it doesn't work out we doubt if we can love as hard. Then we try again, and we add to our fears. "Can I still do that? Will they think me dirty, having had others in my life, having shared my love and my body? Should I have waited until I met the right one?"


It's a nice picture, seeing our hearts as breakable, and made of sharp pieces. But it's not accurate. Hearts are not glass, hard and fragile and dangerous to others and ourselves. Hearts are muscles. Hearts beat. They quake and shake and are surprisingly strong. They also heal, mend, and grow. Like every muscle it breaks in little parts, so it can be bigger than the last one, the muscle fibers wrapping around the tiny cracks it breaks off.

I learned that loving doesn't mean we break off parts of our heart. Real love doesn't use itself up. It doesn't drain us - it renews us, refreshes us so we can go and give more. Even when we think we can't, we find it. Even when we feel lost and alone, the heart is strong. And full of powerful stuff.

We can love more than we ever had, if we allow ourselves.

And I guess that's a lesson I'm learning and picking up for myself these days. Better late than never. 

The Perfect Day

She knows where I live. That means one day, I can hear the call from the village guard, or the telling barking of our dogs. Somebody's at the door, and it's her. I'll likely still be in my house-clothes; a T-shirt, my shorts, slippers. It would be a chilly evening. Nobody would be home.

She would come in at my request. She'd go straight for the den, the room I appropriated for myself at the ground floor, turning right from entering the door. I'd ask why she came by, but her eyes wouldn't break focus. She said she sought me out to talk. And it was urgent. That a phone call or a text wouldn't do. I'd offer coffee, tea, water, and they'd all be for later, after we had words.

I'd ask what's wrong. She's said nothing's wrong. But that she had something to tell me, to let me know. And I'd concur, and I'd had stuff to let her know and feel too.

She'd shut the door. We're alone now.

And we needn't say words. Our eyes, lips, hands do the real talking.

Depression is Like...

Real life often is like fighting a dragon.
So I do little 'escapes' from real life.
My imagination reminds me I can fight dragons and win.

Achievement Unlocked

Achievement unlocked: I put a small child, son of a friend, to sleep in my arms.

He's a small boy. I'm fairly tall by local standards; more than maybe 3 times his size. The whole evening, our little man was squalling, yelling, throwing food left and right. So much more energy than we bargained for. It nearly spoiled a quiet dinner with friends.

But as the people around me tried their best to set the small apartment right, I picked him up, and started to hum along to "Zelda's Lullaby.". (Because, video game music, guys.)

He looked at me like it was such a weird thing. I walked around with him. I stood with him. I swayed slowly, left, right. I did this before with my cousins when they were small; it wasn't my first rodeo, as they say.


I sat in front of an electric fan and watched his eyes flutter shut, slowly. His breathing slowed. His mouth no longer looking for things to put into it. The people around me fell silent - the whole flat was filled with only my slow song.

I never saw myself as becoming a father. I still don't. I don't know what it's like to have a great father. I only know the mistakes that were made with me. I promised myself I wouldn't carry those mistakes forward. What better way than to never try, right?

I've lived a life where I'm supposed to be okay being alone. I've watched my hopes of finding a proper partner get dashed, year by year, troublesome girl after troublesome girl. I suppose it's a sign of our age - we young people don't want a family. We want to enjoy ourselves. We find greater meaning in our adventures and our personal struggles, and less so in the absence of it. I entered my 30's accepting the fate that I'd likely never be happily married, let alone a father of a child. I even thought I'd be part of the clergy, living a celibate life content and quiet.

But at that evening, I looked across the room and saw how the two single moms I was with saw how I was doing. They never saw me do this. They probably never thought I was capable of such gentle care. Like it was such a big shock. Like they couldn't believe I could. And I did.

I smiled and kept singing. He may not have been my kid. It may have just been a good day, one day out of what would be years of bringing up a troublesome boy.

That moment I felt maybe it's not so bad after all. Maybe it's days like that - those days make it worth it, never mind the child's not mine.

Crushing

If you only knew,
in my quiet, carefree life,
how the mere mention of you

lights up little torches in my chest,
leading through a safe, little lane
through my life's darker days,

or how the letters of your name,
leave an aftertaste,
a texture, flavor I can't place,

or how the softness of your cheek
somehow, someway,
seeks my lips, at the end of our nights,

and how all these add up, pile up,
and build a titan of memory,
crushing all, Dearest,

would you come around,
change me,
and maybe, for the first time ever,

keep me?

Unsent - Difficult Things to Say

You won't see this. I know. I check my metrics.  

And I was hoping never to have to say it out loud.

But just the same:


Dearest,

I'm writing this down because when I write it down, I mean it more. I avoid the awkward stuttering and broken choice of words I find with you.

So here.

I was ready to walk away from everything about you. In some ways, I still am. I knew that one day, I would finally end all the agonizing days of asking "What if I did something better?" or "What if we tried something over again?"  It never came, that day. I kept wondering about you in my quiet days alone. But it would fade. I would walk away, keep walking, and never look back.

And that was gonna be it. I was gonna be fine.

But then I had a feeling I had to know for sure. I found my niche, my life started to pan out properly, and I was turning the page. I just had to fix one last little piece: you and me.

I sought you out. You asked me to see you. We cleared the air. The day ended well.

And that was supposed to be it. I was driving you home, and that was how it was supposed to end.

But, I guess that's never the simplest answer, is it? What happened was you and I, in some broken fashion, resumed the dance - that familiar sway of coming in and out of each others' lives, filling it with favors and flavors, family and friends.

Friends. We would stay friends. Because you're happy being single. And so am I. And also because I can't be kept - I'm nobody's angel. I have many things I still need fixed. In essence, I have a life away from you. 

Or so I thought.

Day by day I watched the other parts of my life fade fast. I would watch all the other interesting women in my life just mysteriously pick up and leave. It was like they just quit, gave up, or were pulled away by something. I saw friendships, even family, who once warned me that nothing like this ends well, well, sing a different tune.

You would tell me, too, day after day, that there were so many others who came by, asked, and never really stuck. And I've been doing my best to smile, and cheer you on.

But truth be told?

There's a well of difficult things more I need to pray over, write down, and lose more sleep on.

And all those things, lately, involve you.