i am sleepy. as is usually the case when so, thoughts leap and flit about like fish in a lake.
i think often of those i have loved who are no longer in my life. men, mostly, but not always. many types of love, for all that it seems most people, when hearing the word, cannot bring themselves to look past ruddy eros.
i always have…. though it seems most often only to court disappointment, disillusionment, and despair.
this said, i am not any of those in this moment. i’m drowsily contemplative. so instead of mourning or moroseness, simply a tired clarity that has its own quiet serenity.
i believe my perspective and intensity in love frightens people. i find, over time, that they simply cannot or will not believe it possible or true.
i have long thought myself an alien of sorts. obviously abnormal, to the extent that normacly is defined by culture and popular society and i am a person raised and tempered well outside the boundaires of either.
at first, i loved people because they were kind to me. but i learned over time that kindness is not as scarce as i’ve known it, and my reaction to it was something that drove people away in fear of the abnormality of giving ‘too much’ in return for their kindness. unwanted, that fullness; most who were kind to me were so only from sympathy, compassion, or perhaps pity. it matters not but for acknowledging that i understand it.
later, i loved people because they were loyal and did not leave when i proved myself alien or abnormal in boundary or willingness to broach it without concern. but, eventually, even this drove people away. different reasons, same result. here, i think, for their discovery of the insanity that is my stubbornness and tenacity. i would love them when they could not or would not love themselves. there is very little in the world more painful than someone caring for you when you think you are undeserving. so i have learned from those who have left due to it.
still later, i loved people just because i could. because i had largess and ability and it always seemed to me the world would be a much happier place for it… and perhaps in the doing, plant a seed that would grow regardless my presence or circumstance; something gracious and good that could live and breathe independently of ‘me’. a loosening of ego, so to speak… to love what is rather than trying to box it in various ways and smother it in the process. even so, still the people i meet do well when we’re at distance, but very quickly depart when proximity (or the semblance of it) arrives.
i am learning that i do best by people in general when i love them quietly. without demonstration other than the careful constancy that withdraws rather than reaches. i have never quiet understood how or why it is so uncomfortable to people when i give or reach… but time and repetition confirm it is so and since my intent is never oriented toward making others uncomfortable or hurting them or driving them away, i become the silent samaritan…. crumbs to the hungry, but only left in open places.
the interesting thing in all this is that i am becoming less lonely. holding without holding… heh… the buddhist analogy makes sense at long last.
most people need only to feel there is someone in the world who would show up to their funeral. or that there is someone they might call at 2am who would care enough to listen.
or that, regardless time, circumstance, distance, or past disagreements, would smile to hear from them.
would it sound arrogant to say i can easily manage that? is it arrogance if it is true? no. i think not. merely a statement of truth.
i remember discovering a few days back that something that was precious to someone i love has died. upon the asking, i was told they had made a plea for help in some quiet corner. they received no response there. they received no response and it has died.
i wish they had known me well enough to think to ask me for such help. i would have gladly given it. was it pride or anger that kept them from it? i cannot say i know. perhaps they were simply fearful of a rejection.
that thought does make me sad. they never really knew me at all.
i know i’ve written it before, and perhaps i am truly redundant rather than eloquent as i would like… but i repeat myself in the hope that someone who needs to hear it will… and that, perhaps, it will be helpful to them as well as me….
if ever i have loved you, no matter the time that has passed, the angry words we’ve exchanged, or what you may feel you know as a certainty — you are welcome here, you are cared for here, you are loved here, and there will never be a moment in which i will be other than glad to hear from you or be given the chance to demonstrate in actions that these are so much more than words.
i think i will sleep now. i hope you are well.