Do you ever look at someone's life and think, thank GOD I'm not her? I do that every day. 

Why do I always want to know how people die?

Sometimes I just need to write about it.

I’ve been in love three times.

The first love was new. Everything was so perfect. Our first kiss in his muddy cult-de-sac still makes my heart beat fast, because then it just seemed like every component of love I’d ever envisioned [or not] was connecting in one defined moment of fulfillment. Every song about love rang true, and my young heart exploded with an excitement that This Was It, finally. We danced in puddles and slept in blueberry fields. We exchanged glances from across a world and understood without a doubt that we would never find anything so flawless. We sat under bleachers and accepted our fate as soulmates. The world was muted; nothing mattered but love.
Sometimes I still wish it was that easy. I fought so hard against the idea that it could continue to be ‘all I needed’ and in the end, that fighting lead to what I’m pretty sure is Love-slapping-me-in-the-face. I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t pushed so hard for space even when all I wanted to do was give into my feelings. I guess stubbornness and pride got in the way of a boy that gave me his heart for so long, even when I chose to ignore it. What if I was there now, drinking late-afternoon coffee and reading books out loud with him at a cozy cabin in Tahoe? Would it still be the same?
I guess I don’t get the choice to know.

The second love was on fire. It was brief but fierce, hard to control, and ultimately scorched my heart to embers. Maybe it was that South Pacific Breeze, or my quest for finding things I fear and indulging in them, but I gave my heart so hard I’m surprised there was anything left when this Love failed me. I ignored all common sense, closed my eyes and took the ride. My beliefs and my mind and my comprehension were challenged, and, for some reason that made me love him even more.
But I was a kid, and he wasn’t—or maybe it was the other way around. We both needed something, and for a while, it was each other. It was learning and inspiring and becoming. It was skinny dipping with sharks. And when it was over, it almost seemed like I’d imagined the entire thing. All that was left was a few books, a lonely tattoo, and my sudden hatred for all that was love. I still think about him sometimes, and I know he does the same. We hardly ever talk, but he constantly inspires.
He was the only one that has ever scaled a barbed wire fence to eat popcorn with me.


The third love was the best. Or the worst, depending. I know I’m still young, but I feel like being alive for 23 years has at least taught me a thing or two. That’s why when Love Three came along I knew he was Love Three by date three. I’d learnt from leaving my first love that sometimes you have to sacrifice some things for love. Sometimes you have to sacrifice everything for it.
So I did.
I gave up my persistence of independence and instead let him take me in his arms and life and show me how it was to be. I let down my walls. He was everything. And it was worth it, because for some reason I was smiling even in the lowest moments. It was perfect. I was going to spend the rest of my life with this talented, hilarious, unique and uplifting man. There was no question.
Until there was a question. Something lingered in the back of my mind. Then someone planted a seed of doubt in my mind. They asked me why I had given up that unique/independent part of myself for some boy. They challenged my dedication. They told me that now was the only time I was allowed to be selfish—I was young and needed to figure shit out for myself before making any sacrifices for someone else. The seed grew into a secret uncertainty of this relationship and what I was giving up to be with the love of my life. Every disagreement was magnified, every flaw of his stood out ten times as it had when I was veiled with love. All of a sudden, it wasn’t perfect. I was selfish. I didn’t want to give up what I had just yet.
And then it was over, and somehow I though ‘I’m free… finally.’ I was allowed the opportunity to go on and keep being myself.
But now, after 6 months, I still can’t help feeling like I was most free when I was with him. I was free to love as hard as I wanted and be accepted, truly, for every part of me, including my shortcomings. I was free to tell someone exactly how I felt about them, and how they made me feel about myself, and bask in the loveliness of not needing anything else.

I tried making it better. I admitted fault, apologized ceaselessly, and tried explaining what had happened and where I had gone wrong. I was persistent, charming, honest and bold. But something had changed. Not just in me, but in him. There was a hard shell around him now that I couldn’t penetrate…a deep seeded hatred that fully encompassed a once passionate and perfect person. He had indulged in the anti-existence. And it’s my fault. I made the perfect man completely suck.
I know he doesn’t think he sucks. From what I can tell, he’s convinced himself that he’s never been happier. Maybe he thinks ‘fitting in’ will be the answer to finding another girl that loves him more than I did, or finding one that won’t make him hurt as bad as I did. It makes me sad, and I don’t really know what to do. I think about him every day, every night, every time I think of something funny or beautiful or dream of traveling somewhere exotic. I assumed that we would end up together, but every day it seems like we are walking towards different oceans in different worlds and will never be able to find our way back. How do I let go? And is it possible to stop blaming myself?

------

My advice to you is stop being selfish and start loving as hard as you can. Don't listen to anyone else, and for the love of God, if you meet someone that is your perfect compliment, bring him with you wherever you go.

This is getting over you.

Missed Connections

There's a boy I have a crush on, and he showed me these awesome illustrations that are based on Craigslist's Missed Connections. Such a rad concept! Look at the entire series here, and check out the artist's website: Sophie Blackall-- her Maps are awezommggs.

fish....

A while back an old friend/lover wrote the following. I came across it, and later found that it was written just for me.>>>


i often wonder about you..

..and if what inspired you still inspires you. you turned your travels and adventures into words like fluids freezing into solid and by that same principal you always seemed to form the shape of whatever contains you. you were like a hero a to me and i like somewhat of a novice to the colours of life and i could not hold a candle to your love for cluttered rooms and large sheets of fabric woven with sunny days. this is not a letter of love yet a love of love to one of my favorite spirits that could never sit still. as time has taken its toll we are now no more than stories we can hardly remember and pictures that do not show our faces. but somehow you taught a fish how to swim.

so i wonder about you and where you are. i wonder if the sheer magnatude of the world and its bold displays of greens and blues still enchant you. do you still write sacred words to yourself on every notebook reminding you to keep your spirits bold and ever curious? are you somewhere happily? near or far?

and its in this mystery that i find some sort of happiness and smug sense that i do not really wonder anymore. in the same curious sensation that brought our traveling paths together we have forever vanished from each other's universe and i sincerely doubt we will ever cross again. i just want to know what became of you. i want to know if you still walk the world like i do forever seeking a lonlier path and forever seeking what you are affraid of. this is not a love letter but a love of love. it is not a letter of a fleeting love or a romance somehow meant to be but of a friend that i greatly respect.. one who has great respect for me.

i write this from 7200 miles away. but away from what? home? you once helped me to realize that home is where the heart is; burried deep inside of you, and in that sense i am home and will always be home as long as i remember who i am. happy, i am, and i write scribbled words into whatever form of paper i can scrounge at this rooftop so far away. this is where i go to say goodbye to the day and where i go to lift myself into the teeming sounds of istanbul below. and the question still bugs me.. do you still feel this? do you still quote Rumi to elder shop keepers? do you still draw on bathroom mirrors? or has the world gotten to you too like it has so many others? if so then maybe that is all that you are to me, a ghost of an inspiration who too has become chained to the world.

in that sense i am sad..

you really loved the world..



<<

these just work today.

Listen >> >> >> >> The xx – Basic Space

On seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning

One beautiful April morning, on a narrow side street in Tokyo's fashionable Harujuku neighborhood, I walked past the 100% perfect girl.

Tell you the truth, she's not that good-looking. She doesn't stand out in any way. Her clothes are nothing special. The back of her hair is still bent out of shape from sleep. She isn't young, either - must be near thirty, not even close to a "girl," properly speaking. But still, I know from fifty yards away: She's the 100% perfect girl for me. The moment I see her, there's a rumbling in my chest, and my mouth is as dry as a desert.

Maybe you have your own particular favorite type of girl - one with slim ankles, say, or big eyes, or graceful fingers, or you're drawn for no good reason to girls who take their time with every meal. I have my own preferences, of course. Sometimes in a restaurant I'll catch myself staring at the girl at the next table to mine because I like the shape of her nose.

But no one can insist that his 100% perfect girl correspond to some preconceived type. Much as I like noses, I can't recall the shape of hers - or even if she had one. All I can remember for sure is that she was no great beauty. It's weird.

"Yesterday on the street I passed the 100% girl," I tell someone.

"Yeah?" he says. "Good-looking?"

"Not really."

"Your favorite type, then?"

"I don't know. I can't seem to remember anything about her - the shape of her eyes or the size of her breasts."

"Strange."

"Yeah. Strange."

"So anyhow," he says, already bored, "what did you do? Talk to her? Follow her?"

"Nah. Just passed her on the street."

She's walking east to west, and I west to east. It's a really nice April morning.

Wish I could talk to her. Half an hour would be plenty: just ask her about herself, tell her about myself, and - what I'd really like to do - explain to her the complexities of fate that have led to our passing each other on a side street in Harajuku on a beautiful April morning in 1981. This was something sure to be crammed full of warm secrets, like an antique clock build when peace filled the world.

After talking, we'd have lunch somewhere, maybe see a Woody Allen movie, stop by a hotel bar for cocktails. With any kind of luck, we might end up in bed.

Potentiality knocks on the door of my heart.

Now the distance between us has narrowed to fifteen yards.

How can I approach her? What should I say?

"Good morning, miss. Do you think you could spare half an hour for a little conversation?"

Ridiculous. I'd sound like an insurance salesman.

"Pardon me, but would you happen to know if there is an all-night cleaners in the neighborhood?"

No, this is just as ridiculous. I'm not carrying any laundry, for one thing. Who's going to buy a line like that?

Maybe the simple truth would do. "Good morning. You are the 100% perfect girl for me."

No, she wouldn't believe it. Or even if she did, she might not want to talk to me. Sorry, she could say, I might be the 100% perfect girl for you, but you're not the 100% boy for me. It could happen. And if I found myself in that situation, I'd probably go to pieces. I'd never recover from the shock. I'm thirty-two, and that's what growing older is all about.

We pass in front of a flower shop. A small, warm air mass touches my skin. The asphalt is damp, and I catch the scent of roses. I can't bring myself to speak to her. She wears a white sweater, and in her right hand she holds a crisp white envelope lacking only a stamp. So: She's written somebody a letter, maybe spent the whole night writing, to judge from the sleepy look in her eyes. The envelope could contain every secret she's ever had.

I take a few more strides and turn: She's lost in the crowd.

Now, of course, I know exactly what I should have said to her. It would have been a long speech, though, far too long for me to have delivered it properly. The ideas I come up with are never very practical.

Oh, well. It would have started "Once upon a time" and ended "A sad story, don't you think?"

Once upon a time, there lived a boy and a girl. The boy was eighteen and the girl sixteen. He was not unusually handsome, and she was not especially beautiful. They were just an ordinary lonely boy and an ordinary lonely girl, like all the others. But they believed with their whole hearts that somewhere in the world there lived the 100% perfect boy and the 100% perfect girl for them. Yes, they believed in a miracle. And that miracle actually happened.

One day the two came upon each other on the corner of a street.

"This is amazing," he said. "I've been looking for you all my life. You may not believe this, but you're the 100% perfect girl for me."

"And you," she said to him, "are the 100% perfect boy for me, exactly as I'd pictured you in every detail. It's like a dream."

They sat on a park bench, held hands, and told each other their stories hour after hour. They were not lonely anymore. They had found and been found by their 100% perfect other. What a wonderful thing it is to find and be found by your 100% perfect other. It's a miracle, a cosmic miracle.

As they sat and talked, however, a tiny, tiny sliver of doubt took root in their hearts: Was it really all right for one's dreams to come true so easily?

And so, when there came a momentary lull in their conversation, the boy said to the girl, "Let's test ourselves - just once. If we really are each other's 100% perfect lovers, then sometime, somewhere, we will meet again without fail. And when that happens, and we know that we are the 100% perfect ones, we'll marry then and there. What do you think?"

"Yes," she said, "that is exactly what we should do."

And so they parted, she to the east, and he to the west.

The test they had agreed upon, however, was utterly unnecessary. They should never have undertaken it, because they really and truly were each other's 100% perfect lovers, and it was a miracle that they had ever met. But it was impossible for them to know this, young as they were. The cold, indifferent waves of fate proceeded to toss them unmercifully.

One winter, both the boy and the girl came down with the season's terrible inluenza, and after drifting for weeks between life and death they lost all memory of their earlier years. When they awoke, their heads were as empty as the young D. H. Lawrence's piggy bank.

They were two bright, determined young people, however, and through their unremitting efforts they were able to acquire once again the knowledge and feeling that qualified them to return as full-fledged members of society. Heaven be praised, they became truly upstanding citizens who knew how to transfer from one subway line to another, who were fully capable of sending a special-delivery letter at the post office. Indeed, they even experienced love again, sometimes as much as 75% or even 85% love.

Time passed with shocking swiftness, and soon the boy was thirty-two, the girl thirty.

One beautiful April morning, in search of a cup of coffee to start the day, the boy was walking from west to east, while the girl, intending to send a special-delivery letter, was walking from east to west, but along the same narrow street in the Harajuku neighborhood of Tokyo. They passed each other in the very center of the street. The faintest gleam of their lost memories glimmered for the briefest moment in their hearts. Each felt a rumbling in their chest. And they knew:

She is the 100% perfect girl for me.

He is the 100% perfect boy for me.

But the glow of their memories was far too weak, and their thoughts no longer had the clarity of fouteen years earlier. Without a word, they passed each other, disappearing into the crowd. Forever.

A sad story, don't you think?

Yes, that's it, that is what I should have said to her.

Saying goodbye is hard to do...

All I want to do is say Hi.

<3

Hey blog. I’m sorry about neglecting you. It’s been a while, I know—it’s just that, well, there’s kind of this other blog. It’s not about you! You were great. But, I needed a blog that was a little more upbeat, ya know? One to keep my spirits up.

Yet after 3 months since we last spoke, and before that even more, I’m coming back. I forgot how you used to listen to me, even at my most bitter or depressed. You let me be honest with myself. And you kept it quiet. The few who did know about you kept their distance, let us have our space. And I respect that—still do.

So hi, blog. I missed you.


Today is the end of a long and winding road of something completely beautiful. You know the story: girl goes to random ex-make out partners house 3 years after make-out, gets drunk, and is walked home by strange cute friend of ex-make out partner. Girl and boy play battleship, trade phone numbers, and wonder WTF was that. Girl wants to call boy right away because he’d enchanted her, but waits to not seem desperate. Boy does same. Girl and Boy go on a series of dates, and sooner or later are sitting on a kitchen floor in the mountains telling each other ‘I love you’ for the first time. Those are followed by thousands more, each one more concrete than the last. Girl moves to Fiji, and Boy moves to South America. Girl goes nuts and goes to him after a painful three months. Ecstasy and empty bank account. Girl and Boy explore South America and fall more in love. Girl and Boy fall asleep in each others arms at the Airport, and get an extra two hours together before everything falls apart.

The rest is too sad to talk about it, but obviously the story of Girl and Boy comes to an end. This is it.

I’m sad you gave up. RIP Boy and Girl.

'the rest is history'

Don't think all ecstacies are the same.

11/2

I picture us in our new place--furnished with us. Little traces of you and me litter the room; a tripod in the corner, your socks on the floor. Our dishes sit in the sink and we sit on the bed. The smell of must pours out through the cracks and we easily replace two pillows with each others arms. We're comfortably perfect.

And I hate being weak.

This is worse than Fijian sharks; it's a commitment. But I ignore it, because all that speaks is you and those wild eyes. With you, everything just is.

Happy November. The days fall away and somehow I feel closer to you. I'm drawn to December, live for it. These days are happy torture... We are exploding.