To love someone means that you are fulfilled the most by putting their deepest desires ahead of your own.

It started with “Those who have come here to hate should leave now, for in their hatred they only betray themselves.”

It ended with “She gazed into his eyes for the longest moment. And then he kissed his wife, the woman he loved, the woman who meant everything to him. The woman who loved him.”

And I wept.

Great wracking sobs... heaving shoulders... gasping breaths. Tears streamed down my cheeks and soaked the hair of my chest until I thought I might meet the fate of the Man Who Couldn’t Cry. I became concerned that the word antediluvian was going to take on new meaning for me.

I cannot express how thankful I am that I didn’t read it this summer.

I’ve no idea how I would have dealt with that. Hell, even survived that. It’s more than just words to me. For several years, these books, and the ideas in them, were part of my life. More deeply ingrained than you probably know. They crystallized concepts I have held dear nearly all of my life in a way that finally allowed me to express them to others.

I think, this summer, that these lines could have changed my mind, my world.

I don’t know if that would have been for the best or the worst.

I’ve no way to know.

I don’t know if I want that crystal ball.

I’ve known the truth of the subject line in my heart for years. I lived that truth in the only way I could see. Wishes would not have changed the future. The pain waiting there should have been greater than the pain I caused.

As I read those words, though, all of my certainty fled.

I put those desires above mine; it seemed like the right thing to do.

Is there a single person I know who is happier today than they were on April Fool’s day, 2007? Sky and Thumper, probably. ZBS, if you can believe his blog and catch it on a good day. Podicious pan paniscus LXIX? Have to ask on that, could go either way.

Me? Well, I finally laugh more than I cry. I talk too loud, again; embrace all that is strange and tantalizing. Enjoy the idiosyncrasies of a life lived. It took me long enough. Tonight, however, I am melancholy and wish I had someone here to hold; to hold me. To talk and show me the empathy I am notoriously incapable of reciprocating.

I spend most of my free time with my friends, old and new. We continuous adventurers seeking new delights around every corner with the abandon of college students, the unselfconsciousness of preschoolers, and very little wisdom of our years. Finding them far more often than is even vaguely healthy.

I look forward to our next escapade and the ones to follow that.

Until I am in my empty house once again.

From Roget's II Thesaurus

maudlin

ADJECTIVE:

Affectedly or extravagantly emotional: bathetic, gushy, mawkish, romantic, sentimental, slushy, sobby, soft, soppy. Informal : gooey, mushy, schmaltzy, sloppy, soupy. Slang : drippy, sappy, tear-jerking. See FEELINGS. *Or read the post below.

I began with this:

Thank you, Mom. I appreciate all that I know you have sacrificed, missed, given, and suffered for me. No one else would have done these things for an ingrate such as me.

Thank you, too, for the things you made me do that I did not want to do and for not letting me do the stupid, dangerous things I was wise enough to let you know about before I did them. I say wise because only when even I knew something was too foolish, too pinheaded, for any sane person to do, only then would I come to you with a hare-brained idea. Sincerely hoping you would be the voice of reason that brought me back from the precipice of unreason.

Also, thank you for extending your love for me to those important to me. I know you know that polite civility is all I would ever expect from you toward anyone I bring into my life, but you rise so far above that. Despite your nearly feral protectiveness, you welcome with open arms those I love. You treat them as your own blood; give of yourself to them as I certainly never will. Where they fail to thank you, let me stand in their stead: You may be imperfect, and no saint, but let no person doubt the steadfastness of your heart to those you love, thank you.

More than those things though, I want you to know how much I appreciate the things you almost certainly endured, accomplished, or avoided on my account -without my ever knowing. I'm certain there are times I have no concept of where my mere existence changed your choices. It is these times by which I am most humbled. As a child, the world revolved around me; as it does for all children (and most women). Surely I failed to be properly grateful, then. Of course, I cannot see any way in which I could be suitably thankful.

So we're back to it: Thank you, Mother.


And I ended up with this, too:

As I finished the above, I found myself reminded that my cup runneth over with another form of love.

I have a knack for making the truest of friends. I'm not particularly proud of it, and I abuse it brutally, but I am blessed nonetheless: I don't make a lot of friends, but those I do are ridiculously loyal.

I have, for instance, a pair of friends who I honestly believe would take a bullet for me. Now, I would totally disapprove of them doing this, and seek to dissuade them. They are that kind of friends, though. The kind of friends to whom I can do horribly, terribly, selfish things and they will love me as though we are from the same womb. As I do these things.

Don't get me wrong, I love them, too... and would take a small caliber round for them (like a BB or a paint ball, maybe) I just cannot seem to grasp how they can love me in return.

I have another group of friends with whom I am also blessed. While I do not know that
they are up to dying in my stead, they will do (and have done) things for me that are far beyond the things I've heard of other people's friends doing - except in the movies. Things that people go to jail or hell for, in some cases.

I love them all, too.

These people, including the two above, are some of the nicest people anyone will ever meet. No one who gets to know any of them would be less than honored to be able to call even one of them "friend". Yet I, unworthy bastard though I am, have the distinction of calling them all not just "friend", but "dear friends".

So I'd like to finish with this:

So, to all of you (I say "all" because everyone who fits the descriptions above are privy to this document) thank you.

Thank you? A million times thank you would not be adequate for one of you - what the fuck am I to say to you all?

I love you and I am so glad

I'm not living this life without you
I'm selfish and clear

Milk crates... they're not just for milk anymore.

Psychedelics swarm my brain
the rope affects me by the grade
snow has caused my nose to drain
come on, electric cool aid

Tie it tight; the flame's a fuss
release the knot and and feel the rush
catch the buzz and spread ethereal wings
didn't even mind the sting.

It used to bother me.

Soaring high I scan the tracks
that seem to congregate in packs
in ugly lines they make attacks
along one's visible veined backs.

I wonder where they lead.

Crystal swirling in my grain
sweet embrace of grapes once trod
the hops play with me little games
is this the nectar of the gods?

I believe I've put time in a bottle.

I search, sometimes, for a place to land
but clouds are constant, all around,
like thinking through a velvet band
I never seem to touch the ground.

How long since last I was down?

I really don't remember.

I fear the total uncontrol
and impulse urges me to flee
I can run until I'm old
but how do I run from me?

Trapped.

This situation calls for change
what's left of thought,
I need to know,
is there still time to clear the brain?

I'll let all my monkeys go.

Do you think I will regain
does the brain remain the same
would it be a crying shame
were I never me again?

How could I ever know?

I didn't write that; I edited it a bit, but that's not even kind of the same thing. I do dearly love the man who, in 1980, wrote it and it affected me greatly. The lines struck fear deep into my little burgeoning control freak soul. Scared me off many drugs, to be certain.

If only he had written something as powerful about the dangers of falling in love. My heart may never have been broken.

It's late

I'm up past my bedtime. I got up well, well before normal today. I'm at least three hours further into today than is usual for me. Yet, perhaps that is not what I mean.

Maybe I have another meaning for the phrase "It's late" floating around in my subconscious. If that's true, the very distinction between "late" and "too late" would seem to indicate that I have hope of recovering(or rectifying) whatever I'm unconsciously obsessing on.

Of course, I have no idea what that may be. I was just online and bored. Everyone I know is asleep at this hour, so I thought I'd bother them (you) tomorrow. Or the next day. Or whenever.

I probably shouldn't post this, but my self editing filter has long been porous and the pure inanity of this is unlikely to alter that now.