introspective periscope : peeking inside since Y2K ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- tell me something good. rainy sunrise - 17 august 2o22 "and the days went by like paper in the wind. everything changed, then changed again. it's hard to find a friend."~tom petty when i think of what my life must look like by what you know of it, i have a little indiscernible internal laugh. the hard times used to be marked by words. wanting to set the record, wanting to record all of it so i'd remember how hard i'd made it for myself--always the hard way--when times got easier again. to remember to keep doing the work so things wouldn't get that hard again. but i repeat some of my same mistakes over and over. thankfully, they mostly are mistakes i can live with. these days, hard times are marked with silence. if you've got nothing good to say, right? i try to wait to be able to say something good. when i think of how you wallflower, i wonder why we can't be friends? i don't imagine your life anymore other than to hope it is happy and to leave you alone. but you poked in your way and now it crosses my mind. what is your life like? what isn't said in your silences? time has a way of softening things, of rippling the surface of memories. my memories get heavy and sink into the murky depths, i've learned to let my old and useless guilts sink with them. there is no place now for regrets. you've called up my memories in a gill net and left me to to decide if i ought to try to untangle it all again. one time i said i wished to be secure enough that i could just buy what i needed if i needed something. that was all i wanted in the world. that's comforting but i learned to want more. to want community like church but not at church--i found the library. i wanted love and i've found it in unexpected delightful places and in ways i never could've imagined--all from a largely un-partnered life. i wanted success and i've found it. i've done things i never thought i would or could in my life--but i'm still scared all the time and it holds me back from more than anybody really knows. i wanted family--though i couldn't say that when i was younger. maybe not children but i'm surprisingly good at and dedicated to momming hard. i bet you can't imagine me as a parent. or maybe you can. to be honest, i don't know how you remember me. i only know that you do. i hope that you are happy. that is one of my ongoing wishes added to the list hurled at an august meteor shower diminished only by the full light of a late-summer moon. that is how i will imagine your life--happy and without a lot of pauses for the hard stuff. i know you don't know how i remember you either...but i'm glad for you to know that i do. xo, ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .what came before. - .what happened next. a new leaf - 23 august 2o22 |
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