Derailed Thoughts

The Post I Wrote, Published Accidentally, and Decided to Keep

June 30th, 2009

To deal with inner frustration, I sometimes write blogs that I have no intention of publishing.  They’re like journal entries with an imaginary audience, but for the most part they are too personal to just post for reading.  Today, I wrote one of these posts.  And when a roommate distracted me for a moment, I accidentally clicked “publish” instead of save.

I’ve always been intrigued, though, with knowing what people really think and feel.  It’s rare that we ever even see someone totally alone, acting without the social guards that they usually do.  It’s infinitely more rare that we get to know the deepest feelings of a person–we may see only a few such relationships in our lifetime.

As an experiment, then… I’m leaving my post published.  I’ll admit I’ve polished it up a bit from the blast of words that spilled out of my head at first, but these are my thoughts when I think I’m alone.

——————

I have a problem. I’m absolutely, positively in love with a girl. This girl that I’m in love with has a problem too. She doesn’t exist.

I’m in love with an idea. A thought. A smile that I’ve seen somewhere before. A laugh that I’ve heard two or three times. I’m in love with the quiet, even breathing of a girl asleep on my shoulder. I’m in love with a twangy attempt to play the guitar along with me, with a kiss without reason, with a call just to check on me.  I’m in love with shakes on top of a parking garage, with forts in an apartment, with a scooter ride to the lake.

Somehow, I’m in love with a girl I’ve only met in pieces here and there.  I know how she acts, and I know a lot of what she looks like… Today, I’ll admit–I’ve thought I’ve found her a few times.  In the most recent time or two that I’ve been strongly interested, in fact, I never found a reason that it wasn’t her.  I still wish it had worked.  That’s a frustrating feeling, knowing that the only conclusive reason is that you weren’t right for them.  Love is a big, warm, fuzzy wrecking ball.  And it hurts a bit if it swings the wrong way into your happy little Smart Car O’ Life.  But it happens to all of us, if we’re willing to admit it.

All that being said, here’s the point–we all have relationships that fail, but there’s a deeper reason for it.  Over time, life slowly hollows out a place in our life that can’t be filled by just anyone.  It builds a vacancy in our lives that can only be filled by that person, thus far imaginary, who is the completed whole of pieces gathered from so many others.  How much greater, then, when it finally works?

I have a theory that one day, love does just that–it just works.  It works without bending your personality into place, and without compromise.   It requires sacrifice, of course, but never a loss of self, and certainly never a loss of joy.  When we find the right person, it just works–somehow, you’ve both been waiting for each other.  You’ve already known them.  So long as we are trying, we cannot mess up what is meant to be.

Maybe that’s cheesy, and maybe it’s nothing new… but it’s what I believe.  And it’s what I think about more than anything else, if I’m honest.

And I’m happy to keep watching for her.