Second Verse, Same as the First

REM “The One I Love”

I try not to deal in absolutes.

Good, bad, right, wrong, normal, weird.

Those ideas feel like cages, with no room for intention or humanity.

We are all just star dusted meat puppets with varying levels of awareness. Wandering around hoping to bump into someone that says ‘me too’at the right moments or any moment.
Wanting to love and be loved and stealing little moments of peace where we can find them.

This is why people go to church, it’s a shortcut to ‘me too’ and peace and love. Me? No, I don’t find satisfaction there, I can’t bow down to false idols, I find these things myself. My urges are mine, I don’t need an imaginary God to tell me that some of them are right or wrong.
I prefer to float. Every person and situation either feels light or heavy. I gravitate to the light and shed the weight.

The man I like asked me ‘why’. I stumbled through an answer laced with giddiness from breathing him in and a bit of Jameson’s. I write, talking…talking is hard for me. I managed to get out that like him because he is gorgeous, smart, honest, strong and I love listening to him talk as much as I love kissing him which is a lot. My mouth felt clumsy, there were holes in what I said.

I mumbled into his shoulder that he and this just feels light, lighter than I am used to. I want the overwhelm. it just feels good. I’ll pretend he didn’t hear me. He already knows I am weird but I harbor this delusion that I can hand it out in metered doses. But he knows.

How do you put into words that I saw him, weighed and measured Everything he is. Because he showed me and I finally had the option to make an educated decision. He doesn’t lie, even when it’s the easy, natural thing to do.

What I came up with is that I want him. I was thorough when I looked for him. He is my choice. There is no room for argument here, this decision is mine.

I spent a year pretty much* alone just to make sure I could be alone. Figuring out who I am and why I do what I do.

I dated a 24 year old for a couple months this summer.

I didn’t mean to date him, I am fucking 40.

We sat in a bar, drafted rules. Within a week he broke every one, I let him.

I met his friends, he told his mom about me, he was here, a lot, doing things that weren’t just fucking me.

My ego was pleased. All the other parts of me just sat back and gave into the experiment. No point arguing with Ego when she gets on a roll.

And then he was gone.

Not a good clean gone either. A messy, raggedy gone. Occasional messages and pop bys, it dragged out longer than it existed in the first place.

Maddening.

If I had a map or a script and handed it to this new one, it could not have gone any more the same.
He was here, it was good and then he was gone.

With literal similarities. I left Sunday Again. No net.
I said the door was open and he stopped walking through it.
Second verse same as the first.

I got stubborn and decided to be me, do things my way and somebody would like it. I started to doubt.

What the ever loving fuck?

Except it’s not the same.

I didn’t balk or pout (okay I balked and pouted a little, quietly, in my own house).
Instead I shed an even bigger net, the net to end all nets, dove down deeper into me and looked for other things I could let go of.

It’s one thing to say ‘I don’t blame others for the actions of one’. It’s another to throw all out reference points and similarities and empty that filing cabinet to make room for new experiences. There is comfort in the familiar even if it’s shitty.

It’s an act of lunacy to say ‘technically you are fucking this up, except I am not going to let you.’

I didn’t get any resolution or vindication from the young ‘un. I don’t want it.

What is the point of hollow words from some hollow boy? I got something so much better, a shining example of a man that had absolutely no integrity, no bravery, not an ounce of truth in him, all wrapped up in skinny jeans and bad shoes.

And then this glorious juxtaposition from the universe. “We are going to show you bad and then immediately show you good, so you can see it, clearly. Keep doing what you are doing, and it will work itself out. You are not wrong.”

This new one, that did all of the exact same things in the exact same order has more integrity than I knew one human body could contain, more strength and grace than I have ever witnessed in a single person.  Honesty and honor are simply what he is made out of. Someone who came by these things through work and experience, not because he read the words in some book and decided to be like that. Someone who just is brave.

I got to practice on the unworthy, push my limits and figure out what I can handle and then I pushed it some more. I KNOW what it feels like to settle and make excuses for someone. Then in waltzes the new one, this collection of traits I haven’t dared dream exist in one place since I was a little girl, before the world got at me and made me feel like I deserved less. I don’t.

Everything I have done, seen and been through up until now makes sense.