Yesterday, though, while digging through my stuff to get a notebook for use with gaming, a folded bit of paper fell out of the bookshelf. A reminder that it's not all pain, that sweetness and loyalty exist. It was a love letter from Vynette, my last girlfriend and long-distance love of five years ago. She was a poet.
You are charming-- wooing even the finest ladies to love's first breath. Showing all everyything that makes you, you, and makes them fall for you. Eyes that shine clear as the afternoon sky, releasing allt he secrets you hold inside swing to amusement, you laugh with all that energy that lights up a room. It's days like that that I know my heart bleeds for you.
Vette goes on to describe my better qualities, ranging from intelligence, creativity, the passion of a predator, and always with a kiss as if it were the last. She was obviously the "finest lady," for I don't think many have seen such things in me since then.
Vette and I remained in a long-distance relationship for awhile after that... I'm thinking it was about a year after that letter was written. She had ties that bound her to Texas, and I between depression and stubbornness, couldn't reconcile the idea of moving down there to be with her even long enough to tie up the loose ends and start building a life together. Eventually she (rightfully) left me for someone who was there, who could give her what she deserved.
Her own letter allowed a certain sadness that she could not penetrate.
I stretch my hand out
and in my mind's eye I can see you
There beside me
Reaching one finger at a time
I touch your hair, then move across your face,
sliding around your ears and down your neck
As I reach your chest; I stop above your heart
So broken and cold
Somedays I wonder if I will be able to
mend it all
I lean over and kiss your cheek
Wherever you are
As it turned out in the end, she could not mend it, though not for lack of love. Dovanna and I talked about the dichotomy of choosing love with your head or choosing it with your heart. She's gotten burned doing both. So have I. Is the key to choose love with both your head and your heart at once? Or is there some other alchemy that evades us?
I sometimes think that a lack of substantial success in life is what prevents me from finding a relationship, but inevitably I meet some abject failure who regardless is married and happy, fighting through it one day at a time. Sometimes I think that being out of shape is the problem, but then I see some obese schlub walking down the street arm-in-arm with a 98 pound Thai fashion model or something. It's not a lack of a car, I know that: I see plenty of folks happily biking as a duo down these Uptown streets.
No, the alchemy of a good relationship can't really take hold unless one feels good about oneself in some fashion. Things didn't work with Vynette because I didn't feel like I was good enough for her, that I was (at the time) unemployed and depressed and at the mercy of bureaucracy that I didn't even try to fight.
I am starting to feel better about myself. I'm writing again. Since I started biking again, I'm reclaiming my own body from its negligence. I'm trying to be the good shepherd to my friends and make sure I'm reliable. I'm going to hit Convergence next weekend and tackle that shit for all I'm worth.
Right now, though, I'm going to go sit under a tree at the Pride festival. It's always good peoplewatching. I've always empathized with queer folk. Like them, I don't conform to the standard paradigm of relationships in our culture. They can't (and shouldn't) stop themselves from loving in non-standard ways. I can't stop loving differently, either, though it's less about society's norms than interpersonal understanding. Maybe someday I'll find a tent big enough for me.
In the meantime, see you at Pride!
Sometimes I think that being out of shape is the problem, but then I see some obese schlub walking down the street arm-in-arm with a 98 pound Thai fashion model or something.
Girls don't really think about guys figures that much, it's more personalities that do it for us. I've heard plenty of guys say "I don't date fat chicks" so I think it's women that get the short end of the stick.
And don't forget, some of those schlubs have mail order brides.