(no subject)
Aug. 21st, 2004 01:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
my_window_seatHave started the ridiculously premature task of - well, missing the things and people that I'll be leaving behind a year or so from now, when I relocate back to Washington.
It seems like nearly every day, I find myself thinking "goodbye".
I think that everyone should be issued a Very Large Satchel sometime shortly after birth, where one can collect and carry around the most-loved persons and experiences encountered during life.
Oh, wait - I suppose that's what one's memory is for.
In which case, I'm sad to report that my own Very Large Satchel has some depressingly Large Holes in it, that seem to only be increasing in size with every day.
Drat, anyway.
Every once in a while it hits me how many exceptional and extraordinary people I've had the good fortune to know in my life. Unfortunately, the thought that generally follows is how few of those people I still know.
Coming to the Land of Entrapment was definately an escapist move for me. One that, for several years, served that purpose to my exact specifications. For the first two or three years, I really felt - unencumbered again. There were a lot of things that I left behind that I wanted to be free of, and I managed to mentally distance myself enough to be okay with the fact that some of those things weren't the kind to remain neatly packaged and safely out of my sphere of influence.
I could go on a binge of depression over this - the idea that many of the chickens eventually tracked me down and emigrated once again to roost - but honestly, I know that it's good that I wasn't able to evade all my responsbilities. The illusion of freedom was just that - an illusion - and the logic I employed as a teenager, that taking responsbility for one's actions actually gives one more options, and thus more freedom, than running away from them ever allows, turns out to be true.
Even while being a total f*ckwit in adolescence, I had a few fairly perceptive moments.
One of the most obvious detriments of being young is also one of its chief benefits - a lack of experience. When I didn't know what was impossible, nothing really was. There was a time when my ignorance was a kind of springboard for leaping into the unknown - and because I didn't know any better, I didn't shrink from jumping.
A number of bellyflops later, I'm not as easily tempted onto the diving board of What-The-Hell.
For everything a man takes with him, there is something he must leave behind.
::sigh::
Still, I am doing my best to reach again for things that lay just beyond easy reach. It's not as effortless to do as it once was, and I frequently find myself cringing from fist-shaped shadows that hint at failure.
And I wish very often for a Very Large Satchel, because the leaps I am preparing to make may feel somewhat less exhilerating without the people I that I want so much to stuff into to it, to take along with me for the ride.
It seems like nearly every day, I find myself thinking "goodbye".
I think that everyone should be issued a Very Large Satchel sometime shortly after birth, where one can collect and carry around the most-loved persons and experiences encountered during life.
Oh, wait - I suppose that's what one's memory is for.
In which case, I'm sad to report that my own Very Large Satchel has some depressingly Large Holes in it, that seem to only be increasing in size with every day.
Drat, anyway.
Every once in a while it hits me how many exceptional and extraordinary people I've had the good fortune to know in my life. Unfortunately, the thought that generally follows is how few of those people I still know.
Coming to the Land of Entrapment was definately an escapist move for me. One that, for several years, served that purpose to my exact specifications. For the first two or three years, I really felt - unencumbered again. There were a lot of things that I left behind that I wanted to be free of, and I managed to mentally distance myself enough to be okay with the fact that some of those things weren't the kind to remain neatly packaged and safely out of my sphere of influence.
I could go on a binge of depression over this - the idea that many of the chickens eventually tracked me down and emigrated once again to roost - but honestly, I know that it's good that I wasn't able to evade all my responsbilities. The illusion of freedom was just that - an illusion - and the logic I employed as a teenager, that taking responsbility for one's actions actually gives one more options, and thus more freedom, than running away from them ever allows, turns out to be true.
Even while being a total f*ckwit in adolescence, I had a few fairly perceptive moments.
One of the most obvious detriments of being young is also one of its chief benefits - a lack of experience. When I didn't know what was impossible, nothing really was. There was a time when my ignorance was a kind of springboard for leaping into the unknown - and because I didn't know any better, I didn't shrink from jumping.
A number of bellyflops later, I'm not as easily tempted onto the diving board of What-The-Hell.
For everything a man takes with him, there is something he must leave behind.
::sigh::
Still, I am doing my best to reach again for things that lay just beyond easy reach. It's not as effortless to do as it once was, and I frequently find myself cringing from fist-shaped shadows that hint at failure.
And I wish very often for a Very Large Satchel, because the leaps I am preparing to make may feel somewhat less exhilerating without the people I that I want so much to stuff into to it, to take along with me for the ride.
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no subject
Date: 2004-08-21 09:03 am (UTC)One of the funniest things about Live Journal, is the fact that I am logically aware that my entries are open for public viewing, and yet, I am caught off guard when an individual reads my journal, lets me know of this, and then leaves me with the impression that I have been contacted by a stranger.
A small world? Have we met some where? Or were you making that as a reference to the Pulse?
Thank you for wishing me well on my journey. Frankly, it’s alternative to one that I was on recently, which has not been serving me well. I wish you well too, who ever you are. Reading your journal, I’ve gotten the impression that you wish for more stimulation in your life. This is the opposite problem for me, all I really want now is routine, predictability, and safety.
Sincerely
no subject
Date: 2004-08-21 08:28 pm (UTC)Live in a fishbowl long enough, it stops looking like a fishbowl. Until somebody taps on the glass. *snerk!*
A small world? Have we met some where? Or were you making that as a reference to the Pulse?
Reference to Pulse. Euphoria, specifically. But since I rarely go and lack all but the rudimentary social skills anyway, I doubt that we've met. Unless you know Nikki and Kim, in which case I may have been introduced to you at some point, but immediately forgot. Unless I've had an actual conversation with someone - an almost impossible feat there - my brain has nothing to hang on to. I'm bad that way.
Thank you for wishing me well on my journey. Frankly, it's alternative to one that I was on recently, which has not been serving me well.
Ditto. Hail and merry-meet, fellow traveler.
I wish you well too, who ever you are.
Donkey shins.
Reading your journal, I've gotten the impression that you wish for more stimulation in your life. This is the opposite problem for me, all I really want now is routine, predictability, and safety.
It's never safe to assume much of anything about me. Or about most people, for that matter. As for what I want - I'm just glad to be in a headspace where wanting things is an option again.
Anyway, hola, best wishes and all that. :)
Notation
Date: 2004-08-22 07:46 am (UTC)N
Re: Notation
Date: 2004-08-22 09:21 am (UTC)CARRY-ON all the way, baby!