What I'm Reading

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I'm reading it again because it's one of those books that is so intricate that you feel like you don't fully get it all the first time. And it's one of those books that is delicious--you feel full after you read, if that makes any sense.

“He dug so deeply into her sentiments that in search of interest he found love, because by trying to make her love him he ended up falling in love with her. Petra Cotes, for her part, loved him more and more as she felt his love increasing, and that was how in the ripeness of autumn she began to believe once more in the youthful superstition that poverty was the servitude of love. Both looked back then on the wild revelry, the gaudy wealth, and the unbridled fornication as an annoyance and they lamented that it had cost them so much of their lives to find the paradise of shared solitude. Madly in love after so many years of sterile complicity, they enjoyed the miracle of living each other as much at the table as in bed, and they grew to be so happy that even when they were two worn-out people they kept on blooming like little children and playing together like dogs.”

I thought I had become a complacent feminist lately because nothing had really gotten me pissed off or argumentative in a while. Today I found out that's not the case. My mom and sisters and I ended up having a conversation about the value of sex, or "purity", rather. We talked about a lot of things (in the theoretical, of course), but one thing was whether having sex with multiple people somehow decreases its value in a future marriage. It's something to think about. I don't know where I stand on it. My mom said lots of married people regret the casual sex they had before getting married, but I wonder how many people wish they'd experienced more before settling down. You can't live your life wondering how you'll feel about your choices years and years later. It's complex and different for every person. I personally believe that sex with a partner you love will be better and more meaningful, but it can also be something fun and light with someone you don't love. And also that sex with someone you don't love, but who means something to you (as all human beings should) is a good thing as well. It's a means of connecting with someone. As for its "future value"--I don't know. I think that could be another sex-negative argument with no real truth.

I should have said that to my mom and my sisters, but I didn't. I was worried they'd judge me.

I've been thinking about when the official end of my childhood happened. Was there a concrete marker, or was it a series of events?

The last Harry Potter movie comes out tonight, and that made me think about it. Not because I feel like my own personal childhood is ending tonight--the movies have never really been that important to me. It's funny how media plays such a huge role in our childhoods. I've heard people say that tonight, the last movie, is the end of their childhood. The magic is over--the belief, the innocence that comes with it, and we are all a bit more cynical. But that's the way it should be. You can't thrive without a little bit of cynicism.

It's possible that my childhood ended when the last Harry Potter book came out. I was 18, during the summer after my senior year. About to go to college. I lost a lot of my innocence the first year of college. Some of the magic of childhood that Harry Potter represents also disappeared. I like adulthood. Sometimes I feel like I'm still not there. It's not that the last book caused my childhood to end, but it appropriately happened to fall at the same time. Although, you get to be a kid in college a lot.

I suppose that single, isolated events don't spur huge life changes. Rather, it's a series of small things, a slow process, but sometimes there are strange moments where I turn around and suddenly realize I'm different. I do believe that these small things culminate in single moments, or single moments reflect a whole series of changes, like a microcosm.

Other things you deserve

Spending 12 hours in bed.

Sleeping. Or not.

Nice coffee.

Brunch, stuffing your face.

Handwritten notes left on your nightstand.

A good writer and thinker to talk to.

A huge laugh.

Butterflies.

Believing

"My dear it was a moment
to clutch at for a moment
so that you may believe in it
and believing is the act of love, I think,
even in the telling wherever it went.”

-Anne Sexton, I forget which poem.

There's a definite moment right before you fall for someone when you have to decide whether you're gonna take that leap or not. It's a real, concrete choice. I don't think that many people blindly fall into love--the results are too heavy to take a decision like that so lightly. But what it takes is belief in the other person and in yourself. Belief is difficult too. It's really kind of an insane belief. Or at least how I've experienced it. Maybe when I'm with someone who makes more sense, it won't seem so insane that I'm in love.

Of course, getting out of love is the hard part sometimes. Once you've made the decision to give up that control, you lose control from there.

I've woken up with a feeling of unease for the past week or so. Or year? How long has it been? Not dread, not a huge ache, or not even sadness exactly. Just like something is slightly off, but only slightly. I don't like sleeping by myself. I feel like this makes me weak, my inability to be by myself. I used to be good at being by myself. Every moment of every day, I've felt like I need to be with someone. What am I trying to distract myself from?

I've learned tough lessons. Those people who feel so solid in your life will leave. Unexpected people may stick around. People will always be around if you let them, but they come and go. I don't feel lonely, exactly. Just like I need a solid figure in my life. I need to live with people I can laugh with. I miss that apartment, the apartment I lived in my junior year. I get nostalgic for that time, but I know that even then I was not content, I was just dealing with different problems.

What I wanted to say

I weighed the words in my hands.

They would be heavier than a doorknob,

I felt.

But they might be lighter than maybe,

a handful of quarters.

And they rose from the bottom of my stomach

Up, weaving between my ribs

Fizzing to my mouth like a helium balloon,

Sending a chill back down my spine

Like fingertips.

Spilling out,

Flooding the area around you,

Muddy river water and whatever else I'm made of,

And you.

I would imagine that you'd swim with broad strokes.

And that you wouldn't notice the deep blues and greens.

And you probably wouldn't see me,

As I tread water with a trench below me,

a million miles deep.

I want to expand on that poem I wrote...I feel like I can do more with it.

You felt like

The thrill of riding my bike at night.

The wise stars above me,

Looking fake and bright like in a planetarium.

But they seemed to assure me with weighty reality:

This is real, raw as a sliced apple.

There was concrete below us that day,

And your shoulders and knees made me inhale,

Take a quick breath and catch it at the back of my throat.

Like almost-crying.

You were all legs and arms and hipbones,

And shrugs and made-up words.

You were awkward and earnest and innocent.

Wanting badly to be brave and true,

Wanting me.

There was a bridge,

And the hot summer was still clanging against the iron,

Though the crickets' chirping had turned the sky dark.

And there we were,

My foot around the juicy back of your calf,

Feeling nostalgic for that heat coming off of you

Already.

What I meant to say

I'm feeling a little homeless right now in East Memphis on a break from work.

I don't think I could live out here, or in any other similar place, cause there are millions of similar places. Concrete and nothing built before 1997. I'm at a Starbucks right now mooching off the WiFi.

I'm feeling homeless, and a huuuuge part of me wishes I were settling down. I'm moving. It struck me the other day that anytime my family had to move when I was a kid, I would throw a huge tantrum, and get sad for a couple of days. I don't feel any of that now, just a calm resignation...no, I'm looking forward to it. I'm sad to leave everyone here. I need to be away for a while for a lot of reasons. There's really nothing I can do about it.

I hung out all day swimming, eating, drinking, and talking a lot with some of the girls in my life who I respect the most. And it made me realize how important it is to have women surrounding you who put you in the best light. It's sometimes hard to find because women are taught to compete (Men are too, but maybe in a different way, more obvious way). There was a lot of girl power. I felt so lucky to be in a group of intelligent, driven, fun women. When you're around people who feel good about themselves, then you feel good about yourself.

As a general rule, it's best to be around those who you are your best around. Relationships, friendships, everything. Those who make you into the best version of yourself. It's easy to get stuck in a relationship that makes you a bad version of yourself because it's comfortable or because you're too scared to be alone.

Anyway, my ramblings. I've been lucky with my friends. I hope I always make people into better versions of themselves. And not in the superficial, "omg, you're sooo pretty" way. Genuine advice and reminders that they're better than _____.

To you.

You deserve it all. You deserve lemonade in the summer and sleepy mornings and summers and days off.

And you deserve people who toast to you. And people to play with your hair. And pay the fuck attention to you.

You deserve someone who carries you from the car to your bed when you fall asleep. That's unrealistic and probably unlikely, but you deserve it all the same. And someone who your family thinks is fantastic and who you think carries the moon and stars. Someone who tells you that your handwriting is sexy and doesn't change his mind about that.

And when you're on a canoe trip, and your canoe turns over on a treacherous rock, you deserve someone who helps you get all your canoe shit together and asks if you're okay.

So I want it all. All of it. I want to be so crazy about somebody I can't help but make out with them on a dance floor inappropriately. I suppose that this readiness is the first step.

I can see a lot of light in you.

One of the hardest parts about growing up is being disappointed by a person close to you.

It makes me realize that I'll always have people in my life, but I don't know if there will ever be one person who is going to always be around. People will come and go, but all I really have is myself. You lose your naivety when you realize that a person you thought would always be there whenever you needed him/her just isn't around. And it makes you wonder why they were always there in the first place, what the original motives were, and whether they were as pure as you thought.

I see a lot of potential in this person. Endless amounts, and that's why I keep trying. Did he change or did I? Or was he just as disillusioned by me as I was by him?