but here

i have realized that certain people (mother) around me create limits for themselves and then try to justify these boundaries by creating limitations for other people around them (me). 

there is no reason not to go somewhere because you don't like the throughway, there is no reason to tell you daughter not to get her doctorate in NC because you aren't willing to visit, there is no reason you can't take your dog to the beach just because he won't pee in the grass. 

really. 

and what's worse is that these self imposed limitations are selfish, they are nothing more than a resentful, bitter, attempt at transferring ones boredom and disappointment at their own life on someone else. 

i don't need that. i need people who can be happy for me because i am breaking boundaries, not irrationally mad at me because i am not staying confined within in their comfort zone. 

i expect more than that from the people i'm surrounded by; the problem is i find it impossible to extricate myself from this particular relationship as it is one of the few that has no choice but to last a life time. 

ergo, i have no choice but to mutter under my breath like an immature teenager and sneak around behind the backs of those who should be the most supportive because they are too near sighted to see the bigger picture. 

holes growing in it

its amazing to me how relative our existence becomes in the face of tragedy. people search for a community when normalcy is disrupted, when the relativity of our untouched realities is extracted and defaced. 

how much of shared grief is a function of pretension? necessity? is this need for community an ingrained coping mechanism? is this how we cope with the disruption of complacency? 

is this what makes us believe we will never be completely alone? 

the ability to grieve simultaneously with those who have become all but strangers? or the ability to achieve simultaneous mourning for a time in our lives where reality seemed less aggressive; where we weren't strangers? 

at least pretend like we had one

it is interesting to think that relationships are an integral part to human existence and relationships themselves are so consequential because they generally come with an expiration date. what's weird then is that no matter how serious or casual the relationship our knee jerk reaction is to resist its ending. 

recently i have seen people pull away to avoid this anxiety over the conclusion of interpersonal relationships. the most common excuse i hear is 'well i'm never going to call you or see you or bother to keep in touch after i leave."

it seems like our defense mechanism is to react to ending with degradation, as if cheapening the significance of the relationship makes leaving all the more justifiable.  

this degradation, it has also become apparent, gives way to physical vices one part of the relationship would never visit (or revisit as the case may be) unless there is an imminent ending. 

the potential vulnerability appropriated by endings gives us both cause to rebel against significance and at the same time give more significance or greater degradation to a relationship by taking it out of the emotional and into the physical realm. 

even if this physicality is not realized its inclination is significant with reference to the  rapid evolution a relationship endures in its last leg. 

and what does the ending do in regards to the relationships course up until that point. is a relationship given more purchase because the ending is sentimental? or less because the relationship is cheapened by a cowardly exit. or is sentimental physicality, or the desire for it, the ultimate cowardly act because it distracts from the reality of ending? 

truer at a remove

maybe it's when people reach out for each other in times like this that we experience "enough", fullness even - strength in shared helplessness. we cannot fix one another but maybe the want to soften the blow is the only band aid we need. sharing silence - or the meaningless lack there of to lighten the atmosphere. 

reaching out with simple existence, just functioning in the same air of circumstance.  

it doesn't seem fair that we should have to see people close to us suffer through circumstance. people who should be closer to us and the people that are closer to them that need to reach for someone. 

and maybe in that reaching people share enoughness. in the presence of one another- in the simple act of needing because they know not what else to need, maybe people are enough for each other when it is not expected, when we least expect them to be. 

maybe thats why we are here, circling each other constantly, to be enough at the moments where everything else is out of step. to be a constant in the background and feel what they feel, feel what they wish they could feel,   to be enough when they think nothing could fill them out. 

how do you explain grief for the fringes, for the bit players, and for what they do to our own players. 

maybe that existential grief is proof of the fullness we find in each other. because everything is truer at a remove - 

without desire

its not that it's not me, it's that it would have been someone else had i left. it's the not being enough, not being even an inkling, that its impossible to walk away from. 

something about sober thoughts in a different state, something about my not liking my body enough to make things work. something about a lack of something else. 

knowing that if i had left it was going to be someone else, no matter who was in the room, and knowing that that someone else would have faked innocence in the face of substance to get ahead. 

because it's not just one night and too many beers to me, because its 11 years worth of might be and maybe's, because i'm not enough, or not right now, or not ever because i'm too close. . because i'm not ever anything that they need. 

thats why i won't be ok. atleast not tonight. 

what it aims to preserve

if we make up patterns to gain control over situations that are out of our comfort zone then how do we know if what we are feeling, or perceiving, is real? do we make it real by acting in accordance to this perception or do we make the situation less tangible by distancing ourselves with needed patterns and insinuated emotions? 

can our perceptions be right in one place and wrong in another, even with the same person, because of an outside player? can a disturbance on one end disturb the overall if the environment has changed? or has the environment been instituted in the first place because this other party was looking for a pattern set by that same outsider? 

do we place ourselves in situations to look for patterns? and can two people be looking for two completely different designs and still find a common ground? can we even see the others ground from where we're standing? and if we can and we acknowledge it is that a pattern too? or does that disturb what we were already looking for?

what if we are looking for the same things but in different patterns and maybe all it would take is looking at where we are at face value instead of trying to substitute it with the patterns we are so used to seeing? 

is it possible for us to take things at face value, with no expectation, or want, to see something that may or may not be there? and if we can is that when real person to person connection takes place? or is this when we miss each other?

can we find each-other through the holes in the patterns we are trying to find? and if we happen to look through the same holes at the same time is that when things catch? is that when we can both fathom things working, if even for a second? 

before this outside player closes the hole and makes the pattern complete? or are we only affected by this outside player because we feel obligated to be? because we were for so long. and acknowledging their lack of power over us would be breaking a pattern that we find comfort in? 

or is this whole game a pattern in itself? and by this pattern becoming reliable and expected we never really see someone for who they could be within the context of our own life. 

and how do we break this pattern? 

just with

If familiarity is a function of environment, and liking is a result of familiarity with a person, then there must be a certain amount of time where liking can turn to loving. But once that time has passed, liking will remain stagnant or start to decrease. This "threshold" (or time limit) must therefore be measured with consideration to environment. Also, If a certain amount of familiarity is essential for love then it may be possible to sustain love by re-familiarizing one person with another through a change of environment. 

familiarity -> expectation/anticipation -> ritual -> love? 

or maybe:

familiarity -> expectation -> ritual (disappointment) -> like

familiarity -> anticipation -> ritual -> love

so maybe the key is not predicting what a person is going to do and being disappointed in their not coming through but instead anticipating what someone will do and being happy when they surprise you by being unpredictable. 

now thats a concept. 

empty peace

"Still, there is no law that says all decent things must be permanent. Perhaps (intimacy), itself, like beauty, is temporary, and no discredit attach to impermanence." 

g. maguire 

things you swore to be true

can we assign ourself to the fringes of someone's life? can we elect to remove ourselves from the day to day of a person? from the things that effect them, and change them? can we be a constant influence from the sidelines?

and how fulfilling can a relationship be when the only reference you have of a person is isolated? are you then getting the whole person or merely the part that they project as desirable? and is it wrong to be okay with taking that removed part?

can you escape to person . . use a person as a way to be yourself and discard insecurity and love them for that? no, but you can love them for the function in your life .. 

is that selfish? of course .. but is it even more selfish to like that spot .. and to realize that because you have been placed in that role the other person also places himself in the same role. and is it ok to be that to each other and live your lives? 

or does it back fire. . can you really be all of yourself to someone else when you have a part of yourself you can only be with another person?

and isn't all of this wildly unhealthy to begin with? especially after 6 years .. 

 

things that didn't burn

do people enter our lives at points of significance? or do the construct themselves in order to set up comparisons? 

can people who have nothing to do with each other and still function to enhance the others function in our lives? 

of course .. because our subconscious is the common denominator . . so do we perceive people as foils to one another in order to process our relationships? or does this hinder our knowledge of the people we surround ourselves with?

and if so how do we see someone clearly? without transference? without hind sight? 

are we supposed to? 

or do we look different to every person close to us because they are also perceiving us with the same calloused eye? how can we ever know the field we are playing on if we don't know who we're playing against? 

how can we develop as individuals in another's narrative unless we know who the characters are that are effecting how we are perceived?

are we really just supposed to depend on the dialog? . . take all confrontation at face value? where is the perspective in the analysis? 

can we truly have that? or does that cheapen experience? 

and after all this what is there cheapen if we can't gain full perspective to being with?      

mended by who

split . . 

on the losing end

no choice 

in staying 

consistent, connected, comfortable. 

controlling your need with passive action. 

passive emotion in the face of knowing

the every now and then of wanting, 

   admitting to a need.

distance suffocating prospect, 

indiscretion. 

something devoid of ritual .. 

someone without the need for consistency

not me 

not in the i'm seen 

by you. 

stillness together

is it so much to ask that someone own up to their emotions? 

is it so weak to be decisive? vulnerable? 

or is it that once people have pin pointed an emotion there is not challenge and therefore no purpose? must we always be searching for something to justify our feelings? what if they just exist, mutually? does emotion lose purchase when there is no reason to prove it? if it is just known between two people that there is a connection is it not enough?

and if emotional fulfillment is not enough then what are we looking for?

are we looking for someone to hear us? and when we know we are being herd do we then have to project our doubt or indecision onto that persons understanding so that the picture is not so clear? 

is this over complication nothing more than a defense mechanism? or is it cyclical? things can't make sense for too long? or if they do make sense consistently how do we justify not wanting it, or not letting ourselves want it?

can we trust someone with everything that makes us hole accept ourselves? is it possible that those whom we trust are the most dangerous to us at our most vulnerable? 

or maybe it is that strong emotional connections are built on a comfort in unknowing rather than strength in internalizing the details. 

of a crumbling

i am attracted to people who can't take responsibility for their emotions. Maybe its to counter act my hyper awareness when it comes to my emotions .. or maybe it's a defense mechanism .. get involved with the ones who don't know what they want, or how to know, so that when you run he runs too and you can blame it on his lack of emotional competence. 

but then again .. who isn't more than a little afraid of being completely aware of what they're feeling?