So today, I wrote a song for you
Because the day can get so long
And I know it's hard to make it through
When you say, "There's something wrong."

The most gratifying thing in the world, I believe, is to take a guess and be correct, to take a risk and land on your feet. I do that a lot - take risks, mostly with other people's lives. In one way this is the safe way of going about it; certainly I'm never in personal danger. In another way, I am the only one who does get the backlash if there is one: I put myself in the position of taking responsibility for someone's suffering, of doing something about it, and more often than not, there's little in return.

So I'm trying to put it right
Because I want to love you with my heart
All this trying has made it tight
And I don't know where to start.

Maybe that's a start.

In reading through the last few posts, though, I'm realizing how incredibly sorry for myself I seem on this blog a lot of the time, mostly because I don't post as much as I used to, and when I do, it's because I'm so overwrought that there's nothing else I can do but write. In the same way that Keshena writes to Hadoryu, I suppose, when she feels her worst. It's understandable, and considering that my readership here fluctuates between slim and nothing, I feel little compunction about using it in whatever way serves my purpose. But I am also concerned that it doesn't represent me well. I'm not nearly as miserable as I seem, I promise. I am a content creature, a housecat, all curled up with a book to read. And I try to be a lot more rational than I appear here.

So I'm aware - and it must be said, while I'm in a fairly cheerful and reasonable frame of mind; if not now, never - that there is a logical fault in fixating on broken people and then being disappointed when they do not return the favor. You knew he was a snake when you carried him across the river, as they say. In large part, that makes much of the below whinging and carrying-on my own fault, and I'll own that. We all have our weaknesses; I suppose mine is just other people.

'Cause you know it's a simple game
That you play, filling up your head with rain
And I know you're hiding from your pain
In the way that you say your name.

I should be more specific - it's not just other people. It's people who need something. Who need me, ideally. Most suffering people have no fucking idea what they want, of course - you can see quite clearly from the foregoing that I certainly don't when I'm in a lapse - and so I very frequently fall into the trap of allowing a broken person to pretend or believe that they need me, only to be disappointed and hurt when they become marginally less broken through my efforts and then realize that I wasn't what they needed at all. But again... no fault, there. Except perhaps mine for stepping into that silly situation again and again.

I see you
Hiding your face in your hands
Flying so you won't land
You think no one understands

This process, of believing that I am improving or learning from my mistakes, almost never operates at the speed that I estimate, nor do its milestones present themselves when I believe that they have. Almost always a false dawn, in my experience. My growth as a person appears to be largely involuntary, and often either catches me by surprise or proceeds inexorably in spite of my vehement objections. The latest question vis-a-vis this vexing process is whether I am still capable of falling in love according to my former standard.

And you're so tired that you don't sleep at night
As your heart is trying to mend
You keep it quiet but you think you might
Disappear before the end

I'm not sure about that, still. Certainly I no longer do that thing where I talk to someone in-depth for a few days and fall madly in love with them. That's sort of a relief - it never did work out very well - but there's no denying it was exhilarating. I do miss that feeling.

Then again, it's a pleasant thought that I might have moved beyond that level of immature infatuation with most people, into one where I'm actually capable of discerning who is worth my time, as opposed to merely being enthralled by the possibility that someone might want to talk to me. From the few pangs of it I have experienced in the time since it stopped happening so regularly, though, I have to conclude that one thing I am profoundly susceptible to, even to this day, is evidence of someone's attachment to me or need for me.

And it's strange that you can't find
Any strength to even try
To find a voice to speak your mind
When you do, all you want to do is cry.

So maybe you should cry.

It doesn't take much but that - just to hear someone reach out to me, to express desire or need. Perhaps that's such a universal thing that it doesn't even bear stating, but it's interesting how much it affects me. The little things, someone being the first to message me, to start a conversation, someone asking questions, being interested, analyzing.

It seems peculiar in fact to think that what I perhaps fall in love with, in other people, is their love for me - that without that, I have merely intellectual obsession. There's nothing wrong with that obsession, really; it's a simpler version of love, fascination with who someone is - there's that XKCD comic from recently - oh, let me find it, one sec.

And I see you hiding your face in your hands
Talking about far-away lands
You think no one understands?
Listen to my hands.

Found it! That's what I'm talking about, really. This sense, which is a part of my love for my favorite people but not necessarily impossible to experience without it, that I want to attend to a given creature and see what they become, given appropriate intermittent prodding. I want to be privileged both to watch and to affect the process, to prune and protect, to defend and judiciously corrupt.

So I no longer fall in love with people at the drop of a hat. I do still fixate, in this way. Maybe that's better in the long run. Perhaps, if that fixation remains active and vital long enough, it matures into love. I'd be very interested to see if that is so. I hope I'll have that opportunity.

All of this life
Moves around you
For all that you claim
You are standing still
You are moving too.

I will move you.

Labels: Hope, Introspection, Love