"I have not broken your heart-- you have broken it"
Heathcliff to Cathy, Wuthering Heights
You don't want to be the type of girl who uses tricks and schemes to trap a boy. So, you don't. Besides, games aren't any fun unless you really know how to play. You love yourself unconditionally, and hope that it's enough. You like being alone, or at least, you're used to it. To be honest, it's the only way you know how to be. And there's the thought in the back of your head, that old rhyme that if you learn to love yourself, then love will find you. But it doesn't find you, because the Disney movies lied, and there is no perfect person anyway, because there are no perfect people. Then you try to think logically, and you consider that maybe this takes work. What kind of work? You don't even know how to date, for heaven's sake. You're not afraid of getting hurt, in fact, you want to get hurt, because at least then you'll have felt something stronger than apathy. So, you try something with the boy you think might finally be worth the bother. And it works, it's almost scary how easy it is. But it's just a game, it's a trick, it's a scheme, and you knew from the start that it wasn't the way to go. Predictably, it falls apart, not because of him, but because the whole thing was fucked from the start. You sit there, feeling empty, and you are completely, maddeningly aware that it's all your fault. You have broken your own heart, and it hurts. So what do you do now? Do you put your own picture on the bullseye?
Sway
Since I find you will no longer love,
from bar to bar in terror I shall move
past Forty-third and Halsted, Twenty-fourth
and Roosevelt where fire-gutted cars,
their bones the bones of coyote and hyena,
suffer the light from the wrestling arena
to fall all over them. And what they say
blends in the tarantellasmic sway
of all of us between the two of these:
harmony and divergence,
their sad story of harmony and divergence,
the story that begins
I did not know who she was
and ends I did not know who she was.
-Denis Johnson
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2 comments:
The paradox of romantic relations is that, ideally, one is for the better (although, perhaps more weary) for the next relationship because of the one most current. Of course, that can occur within a relationship but that tends to be more embarrassing (and rare) than starting fresh. I, for one, have always been too immature to grow in time to save a relationship. Not to say I haven't grown in time for a relationship. But it seems always to fall on the individual - and in a relationship the experience has multiplied. What gives? "Know thyself," crooned the Delphic code. Well duh, that's of the utmost importance - the inner journey - but what of everything else? Are flirtation, camaraderie, chemistry, and romance mere exercises (or games) in the formation of inner growth? And is that the rub: satiating that which can't be satisfied?
*sigh*
No one converses with me beside myself and my voice reaches me as the voice of one dying. With thee, beloved voice, with thee, the last remembered breath of all human happiness, let me discourse, even if it is only for another hour. Because of thee, I delude myself as to my solitude and lie my way back to multiplicity and love, for my heart shies away from believing love is dead. It cannot bear the icy shivers of loneliest solitude. It compels me to speak as though I were Two.
~Nietzsche
I didn't know if I could ever get close enough to anyone to have my heart broken. Maybe that's the thing. . . I didn't get close enough for it to happen, and that's how I ended up breaking it myself. I'd like to think that I'm better for my next go-round, but I don't really think that's true. The last line of the Johnson poem speaks more to me than him. I did not know who I was and I do not know who I am. However, I suppose the fact that I'm even pondering these questions means that I've grown a touch.
I thought I consistently trusted my intuition, but I see now that I ignored things in front of my face. And when I put 2 and 2 together, I realized that I had known it would equal 4 all along. I don't know what I'm trying to say. I guess I did mature somewhat, but really, I'd like to give up the wisdom and take the boy instead. I've had twenty-five years to get to know myself, it was a nice change to feel as though I knew someone else that well. And for me, here's the rub: I didn't.
I'm grateful for your words and the Nietzsche quote. They are more relevant and poignant than you can ever know. And no matter what happened or will happen, "my heart shies away from believing love is dead."
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