"Tell me of the nature of love" she said, "When are you going to add to it?"

"I cannot", I responded. "I am jaded..."

It is not in my heart to speak of fairy tale wishes. Perhaps someday, once again. Perhaps someday. Not today.

This makes me quiet.

4/19/04

The first anniversary that's no longer an anniversary.

I take out the wedding ring that sits in the jar with broken pieces of jewelry. It seems apropos to keep it there. I am loathe to chuck it into the river. I spin it like a coin on the cool hardwood floor, watching it wind down until it lies flat, alone on the surface. I notice that my ring finger is still indented, though the white skin that once lay beneath the once-upon-a-time symbol is now gone. I wonder if that mark will ever go away. I put the ring back in the jar and tuck it back in the back of the closet...

Our last anniversary he spent with someone else

The anniversary before that was just enough to catch a whiff of dying roses

There were two other anniversaries that he spent with someone other than his wife

I should be grateful.

Instead

I am quiet...

I've had this thing going on in the back of my throat since yesterday. Something akin to shoving a piece of sandpaper up my nose, and rattling it around for a bit. It's nothing extraordinarily agonizing, but this illness has certainly disrupted the regular flow of life. Due of my complaining, my wife has given me some pills, which I took before I left for work. So instead of doing my duties to the company, I find myself sitting here in drug induced stupor, contemplating my existence. I should be doing work, and I know that if I don't I'm simply making things worse for myself in the long run, but the chemicals have control at the moment. I'm watching the little numbers float across my screen like clouds instead of discerning their relation to the company. I will pay dearly for this later. So be it.

Things have been revolving very strangely in my part of the world for the last few months, and I'm not even sure of the specifics of these problems, let alone the solution to them. My interactions with those around me have taken a surreal and convoluted turn. When I'm supposed to be concentrating to the world at hand, I find myself looking back on the world as it was, trying to make sense of little scraps of information and what little memories I'm able to retrieve from darker times. I've been talking about going to the doctor for this, but this idea merely gets kicked around the field for a bit before I put it back in the toy box of my mind. I can understand that these feelings are not going to subside some day, and that it will be better for me in the long run to try and sort out my head, but it's a lot easier for me to sit around and mope than to be "pro-active" about my life. This is how I dig myself into deep holes that take even more effort to climb out of than it would take to try and fix things now. This is the way depression has always been, and for more of us than I can fit in my head at once right now.

Instead, I do what the rest of us do from time to time. Sit in dimly lit rooms, listening to the depressing music of the past, and wallow in our own shortcomings and mistakes. Sit in empty bars with our heads on the cool, damp wood, wishing more mightily than we through we could that we could wake up tomorrow and breathe in the fresh air and appreciate something without feeling guilty about it. Shake our fists at ghosts we pretend we can interact with, and come up with the perfect thing to say to make them all disappear. Sure, I do all of this. We all do, whether or not we bring ourselves to tell other people about it. This is the state of human nature.

I've got people walking around me right now, doing little office things, trying to be productive, while I sit here with my eyes closed, typing and wishing more than anything to be under the covers. Thinking about the realities that will never come to pass, the people that will never exist, the biochemical compositions that simply will not form in my brain long enough to allow me to reach enlightenment, or whatever greater thing there is out there. More than anything, I want to be a part of this world in a way that I am not, and have not been for a few months. I want to bury the dead.

While at my mother-in-law's house a few weekends ago, she was talking about her tinnitus, and how the only time it has stopped in the last few years was when they stopped her heart during surgery. She said that she looked at her doctor and said, "It's so quiet. Don't turn it back on yet." I found this terribly profound. This feels like something I want, like being weightless, suspended. Just turn it all off, just for a little bit. Put me in the dark of ether.

Don't turn it back on yet. Give me a minute.

 

Okay. Reset. Bring it all back.

To my dear friends and pals here at E2...

I'd like to apologize for disappearing off the planet and worrying so many (but it's great to feel so cared about -- 1710 msg's ???)

When I signed off 5.5 months ago I thought it was for a few days... had I known I wouldn't be able to get back here for that long, believe me I would have done something to let ya'all know that I'm alive and well. But the few days turned into weeks, the weeks into months as my personal life spun out of control in chaos and drama. (just add wellbutrin, lexipro and anti-anxiety meds - stir well and things do start to look up...)

I still don't have internet access yet, it may be a few more weeks, or a few months till I have it again.

I plan to write a personal message to as many of my personal friends here as I can while I do have access today - if you don't get one ... pleeeeeeeeeeeease do not take it personal - I am unsure how long I will have access to the net today. E2 was the first place I came as I have thought alot about the few here who may be worried that something happened to me...

Take care all and when I do get net access you know this will again be my 2nd home... :)

Whitney

I am getting married in 2 months.
His hands are warm, demanding, and very sure.
They slide down my sides, to my back, cupping my ass just before he slips my pants off...

I love my fiancé with all my heart.
...Now I can feel his stubble scratching at my throat- first hard and scratchy, then warm, wet and sensual as he kisses and licks at the delicate skin there...

I want to have his babies.
...Now his hands are pulling my shirt off over my head, leaving trails of heat on my belly where he touched me. He sits up, leaning back as he undoes his pants. In the dark I can just barely make out the grin on his face as he looks down at me. Pants on the floor, he climbs back on top of me, pausing...

I am always completely honest with my fiancé .
...and he plunges into me; hot and hard, every inch sending my mind further away. Then Brad's mouth is on mine and I am no longer a mere human. I am a nymph, I am a goddess. This loving, this incessant mingling of our souls, is all I exist for. I have no name...

He knows that I love him.
...the darkness is lit with ecstacy as I stifle a cry, and he groans softly- neither of us wants to be heard. And then, in those soft moments of afterglow, I remember my name and his...

My fiancé's name is John.
...I kiss the bite marks on Brad's shoulders softly, and we embrace to sleep in his twin sized bed.
In the morning I am driving the 2 hours home to John anyway.

Love finally found me.

I walked a girl back from the law school to her dormitory. It was APALSA Day, when the Asian law students got together to set up a miniature carnival of Asian culture, food, and legal issues, and since I'm basically the community's resident expert on Japanese law issues, I was called in to work a table, sandwiched in between Vietnam and India. So anyway, said girl, a South Asian community leader, walks back to the main campus with me, and we chat, and we part, and everything is pretty straightforward.

She shows up again the following week, when we send a posse of Asian leaders into the administration building to meet with one of the university's vice presidents, a fellow who knows nothing about cultural diversity and tries to hide it by claiming that he's Cuban, even though his name is Mike and he only speaks English. In my typical style, befitting of a public relations person, I throw on some clothes that are imposing but vaguely unorthodox: pumpkin shirt, gold tie, black waistcoat. Unorthdox, yes, but I'm the white fellow in the Asian student council, so the term will follow me no matter what I do.

Anyway, she is silent in the far corner as I enter, a minute late, and take a seat by the door, catching the eyes of all in the room, particularly the reporters who rushed in when the press release was sent out that morning. Through the administrator's bullshitting, she keeps throwing quick glances in my direction. Every now and then, I catch one, throw it back. It feels good.

A few days pass, and she sends me an instant message. She knows my screen name because she lives with my former roommate's girlfriend. In a campus of 40,000 people, this is a funny coincidence.

I go to her place the following night. We watch Bend It Like Beckham. We both like soccer. I'm majority Irish and she's majority Indian. The message of the movie rubs off on us about 30 minutes later. I don't get home until 5 AM.

Several nights later, my best friend and I go out for pizza. The relationship is blossoming, but there's a catch: I leave Florida in two weeks. She stays for three years. For those three years, I will be in Philadelphia. There's no negotiating: there's a guy scouting out townhouses for me in Manayunk right now. "So what am I going to do?"

My friend, of course, has the right answer. "You're going to have an Argentine barbecue at your bachelor party."

Man, I am screwed.

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.