Today is Mardi Gras day, and I'm feeling more than a little bit homesick. I'm needing to speak to Andrew again, even though I can't say this in dialogue, I still have to address this to him. There are two days that I need to remember with you, someday, face to face. But there's so many other parts of a bridge that need to be constructed first before you can construct the part that could be reasonably called "road" or "travel" or "connection" and from where we are, that foundation is not in place. I should probably be writing this down, in my journal where I don't have to concern myself with things like safety or exposure, but alas: here I am.
(I'm simply not accustomed to pedestrian whining, publicly or semi-publicly. Please bear with me.)
When we do reconcile it won't be to do work. It's not what we've done as friends, and I'm sensitive enough to realize what makes you comfortable and I'm soft enough to allow us to stay inside your comfort zone. But if it was up to me, we'd spend our theoretical time doing heavy lifting. We'd have the hard talks, we'd start the repairs, we would put in the work to call the connection between us a real relationship...romantic connotations of the word notwithstanding.
But you never wanted to focus on the big picture. You would rather reminisce, talk strategy, talk theory, compare reality against what you had expected, you would always rather focus on your immediate surroundings than on their implications. I would like to think that you were just afraid of the process, and afraid to express yourself, just like I was afraid to take the first steps down the slippery slope, afraid to apologize. I would like to think that you're just more willing than I am to do without the things you need emotionally. But I'm afraid that you're not afraid at all. I'm afraid that you don't need the same things I do, that there really can be such stark differences in the way human nature applies to each of us. I'm afraid that you can't see practically anything beneath the surface, the same sort of way that I can't feel practically any of the surfaces that I touch.
No. I really did feel like you didn't want to deal with the multiple elephants in multiple rooms, like you didn't want to evolve with our relationship, like you wanted everything to stay just as charming and simple as it was at first. Like it wasn't worth it to sort through the mess. Like it wasn't worth it to handle things like men. As if we were ever men. As if we had become responsible enough or mature enough to make decisions like grown men. As if we were anything more than just adventurous boys, setting off the last few fireworks in the last days of summer. Wanting nothing but to be lost.
But no, this is were our differences show themselves again.
Because I wanted to be lost.
You wanted to lose yourself in adventure, sure, but what you wanted was...a challenge.
I wanted to perform,
You wanted to learn.
I wanted to create, from the ephemeral, using improvisation,
You wanted to build, from the material, using technique.
I wanted to make pictures,
You wanted to solve puzzles.
I wanted to dominate, in an instance. I wanted to be seen and to be admired and to be victorious. I wanted my time in the light.
You wanted to climb the ranks, not to be undefeated, but to learn to be the best, and to go with confidence no matter the outcome.
But we both shared that strange bloodlust, that competitiveness and want of conquest. It's just that you were a terrible teacher, and I was a terrible student, and there was no way to reverse the roles. If there should be a future, then hopefully a way will reveal itself. But here's the golden question: when our future comes to us, will we be fighting for the same thing? There's a purposeful ambiguity here. Will we be fighting alongside one another, for the same collective cause and with the same goal in mind? Or will we be fighting one another over the same territory, for the same individual cause and with the same goal in mind?
But the thing is, all of these scenarios are secretly playing themselves out, just beneath the surface. I wonder where you were on a certain night last year and how you felt. I wonder if it was anything like December 23, 2014. July 13, 2008. August 12, 2016. July 7, 2014. April 22, 2011. None of these were the days I needed to remember, I promise. But the fact that they ever happened means that they are happening forever, like love itself.
I wish I could say that writing this down didn't make a difference, didn't make me feel any better, but the humbling reality is that it does, it does. Today is Mardi Gras Day, and neither one of us is home anymore. I don't want anyone else to help you find me. I don't want anyone else to help me find you. But if that's the only way, then is it better than nothing? I hope the expression doesn't sound sexist or bigoted, but I'm afraid that I'm not man enough to answer the question. Not yet.