Failure

I guess things never work out like you want them to. I hope for a lot of things over the past few months. But nothing came from my wanting, hard work, and devotion. All except the tears of disappointment, grief, and heartache.

I can say that I really tried this time. I can also say that maybe, just maybe, the failure was not entirely my fault. Well, that is just me and my wishful thinking. In a utopian society nothing would be a consequence of our own demise. We would be without consequence and could then fail at everything without judgement or repercussions. 

I feel like a failure though. I failed at home for wanting to leave my family and begin a new life for myself. I feel like I failed my mentor for not being a top notch published ass talker. Even thought these two are family and career driven the final failure is what burns the most... I feel like I have failed at love. I am never one to search for it, to desire it, or to welcome it when it approaches. I usually stop all glimpses of attraction, desire, and future romantic interludes in their tracks before they reach me. I am safer this way. But this time I decided to give it a chance because I thought I found a nice guy.

I cannot believe I actually thought that it might work. I even slipped into some of my old habits that I promised myself I would never do for a man. I actually drank alcohol, acted like I knew what baseball was all about, and conformed to society's image of attractiveness. I really tried but maybe all that trying freaked him out. 

But I was freaked out too. I could not stand his sarcasm and mood swings. One minute he would be nice and the next minute he would be rude and mean all while blaming it on his sarcasm. I have never been good with sarcasm and probably will never be good at reading it or delivering it. I guess that is one strike against me in his book. I still remember him saying he believes in a two strike and you are out policy. I guess the lack of emotion I have received from him over he past few weeks means that my second strike has occured and now I am out of the ballgame. 

I guess I should be glad that I did not get too attached. I was really starting to like him when he started to become distant. I thought it was me and my lack of dating experience. But the more I think about it, he was very dense when it comes to courting a woman. I remember flowers use to be a thing a man brought a woman when he picked her up. I remember affection in public was appropriate too. But now, there are no flowers and now no hand holding in public. When did hand holding become too much PDA. WTF? Am I getting to old for this shit or am I just a hopeless romantic that yearns for a Prince Charming to come and sweep me off my feet. Or do I have too high of expectations for the men of 2013. It is not like I was dating a nieve boy, he was a grown man for god sake. He is in his forties and he said he was engaged at one time, so I would expect that he would know how to treat a woman... Or was that disengagement a sign for me to pick up on.... Damn. 

Yes, I am assuming that most of what went wrong had to do with him. I would love to live in that utopian society but unfortunately I don't. So maybe I pestered him too much. Maybe we went out on too many dates to soon. Or maybe he just did not find my personality or physical appearance attractive. 

I do know but i do know I did try. I was the first one who ask for his number, to initiate the hand holding, and lean in for the kiss. 

But that was all for nothing and I doubt I will put myself out there again. There is nothing but heartache, embarrassment, and tears for this woman and I hate all three.

Friends

Friend. I often wonder what this term really means. People fall in and out of friendships all the time. I know I have. I have had best friends, close friends, boy friends and girl friends. Some of these friendships have lasted for years while other were over with a blink of an eye. 

Let us look at one of my close friends. This friend has been in my life for many years but the friendship has grown apart. We have grown apart. This friend has hurt my feelings, slept with one of my past partners, and still comes to me during times of need. This friend does not sound like a close friend from this description. However, the longevity of the friendship is what keeps the friendship going. That is all. I no longer confide my deepest feelings nor do I disclose my romantic feelings about others. I guess I have trust issues that stem back to the earlier tiffs in our friendship. But I still feel compelled to talk to her when she is around and in ask her to any social gatherings I set up. It seems to be the decent thing to do.

On the other hand, I have a friend that I often hope would be more than a friend. The more we hang out, the more my friendship fades into a pool of desire for physical contact and emotional belonging. I hope with each new friendly outing we would eventually become more than friends... but I now know that we will never be more than friends. I have to push away and ignore any future feelings just so that we can still be friends. It is not an easy thing to do. I feel a stong attachment to my friend. I get jealous when I hear about thier escapades with others. I never usually get jealous of such things but this friend has caught me, hook line and sinker, but does not realize it.

Strange to think that I have more of an emotional attachment with my friend versus my close friend. Who would have thought that as a close friendship disintegrates another one festers and boils over.  

Safe undesirable solitude

Are we creatures of solitude or partnership? Most of the time I feel like a life of solitude would be perfect. No pain, no struggles, no need to worry about anyone but myself. But a glimps of the alternative peeks through the curtain. I am intrigued by the notion of caring for another. With this caring comes sharing and I give it whole heartily without judgement or worry. I free fall into the dream of a partnership and hope I never hit bottom. 

Then I see the bottom. It looks scary. I am not sure how far away the bottom is or how fast I am falling. I begin to wonder if I will bounce, go splat, or wake up upon impact.

I feel like I am in a dream. Not a good dream or nightmare but something inbetween. I start off scared. Unsure of what is happening and how I will begin. I am searching through a crowd for a familiar face. Then I hear my name and turn to find a hand that welcomes my hand into his. I feel a hand and a tug on the small of my back that pulls me in closer. A sweet gentle kiss is placed on my cheek and then on my lips. Then my body runs cold. The familiar face turns away and my hand is released with a violent shake.

I turn my head and begin my search for the once familiar face but every face in the crowd is cold and distant. I have no sense of direction. No idea where I am. The room is going dark. I begin to push aside the shadowy bodies in the crowd. It is getting harder to push aside the bodies. I feel like I am never going to find my way out. The air becomes thin and I begin gasping for breath. I fall to the ground but continue to fall through the floor. Nothing breaks. Nothing shattered. I just start falling when my body collapsed. There is a shimmering light source below me. It is getting closer, closer, closer....

I am then standing in front of a door. I have a key in my hand and place the key into the locked door. I turn the key. The door opens and there is the familiar face. I feel safe again. I walk through the door. I then wake up and try to recall what the familiar face looks like.

My natural comfortable feelings towards solitude are gone. They are no longer natural. I yearn for the other. I desire the other. I want the physical and the emotional attachments of partnership. My heart aches for it and I feel suffocated by the desires and emotions for another.

Yet, it never works out. While in the real world, I offer my hand, my lips, and my heart to the familiar faces in the crowd. I find a single face to share my yearnings with but nothing transpires. I feel the pressing of lips onto mine. I even feel the tug at my back to draw me in and close. My heart beats so hard I am afraid the face will see the pounding my chest. My body begins to warm and a sexual desire builds inside me. Then there is no response. My emotions are ignored and the once familiar face walks away with no response to my desires.

My heart breaks and I begin to cry. "Why did I let his happen to myself? Why did I think this would work?" The desire for solitude blankets my bruised emotional heart. I start to fight back the tears until I will the tears to stop falling. I take a deep breath. I breath again... and again. I then pull down back the curtain and walk in. I am once again alone. Solitude is safe. Noone can hurt me here.

I (don't) miss you.

I miss you.

Your face, your smile, your sweet embrace.

I miss you.

I miss the sound of your voice,

But not the choices you once took from me.

Not the words you yelled at me.

Not the nights of vulgarities you once whispered in my ear.

I don't miss you.

You once said I was your love and you would be there to protect me... I miss you.

But not the fists to the walls and the kicking to my heart... I don't miss you.

I don't miss your interrogations after I asked to hang with my friends,

But I miss your thoughtful gifts you gave me to make my bruise face smile.

And your sweet words, "I'm sorry, my love. It will never happen again."

And the mornings you nursed me back to health.

I miss you.

Wait a minute...

I don't miss you.

Your hard looks, your conniving grin, your folded arms and clenched fists.

I don't miss you.

Desire

Desire. What a concept. It is word with multiple meanings and a variety of explanations for why and how we could obtain it in our lives. We all communicate desire in different ways. But what drives us to the point where we feel compelled to act on our desires? Do such actions bring us closer to fulfilling our desires?

I believe there are two aspects of desire, the emotional and the physical that help explain why we act on such desires. I am not quoting a particular definition here. I choose to use my own experiences to support my case since it is hard to separate the emotional and physical element of desire in my own life. The emotional and physical feed off each other which makes both interdependent with one another and thus, making our communicative practices of desire that much more convoluted.

My list of desires is quite long. I desire both metaphorical and tangible elements of love, companionship, power, security, happiness, family, strength, success, among others that help me obtain a "perfect life." I relate my metaphorical elements to the emotional connections I have to my desires. Love and power each have their own set of performances that help me convey my emotions to others. Holding hands, a kiss on the cheek, a smile, a laugh, all communicate elements of love. I feel enjoyment, heart ache, fustrastion, confusion, and happiness during each of these loving moments in my life. Yet, power can be communicated in the same way by taking a deeper look at the performance. Who initiated the hand holding, leaned in first for the kiss, or told the first joke could potentially be seen as the more dominating, more in control, and aggressive person in the performance. I know notions of power could be complicated further but that is not the main goal of this post.

The tangible is already apparent since the hand holding and kissing would assume another person is part of the performance. I guess I could kiss myself on the hand or hold my own hand but that would not give me the same enjoyment and feelings of love that I would get from a partner. I  am now hearing the song "I touch myself" by Divinyls in the back of my mind which brings about a whole new realm of performative possibilities for personal love and the physical enjoyment that would follow. 

Back to the point, the physical could also be the material possessions that help communicate love. A box of chocolates, a bouquet of flowers, paying for dinner, anniversary gifts are the material items we consume to communicate our love to another in a partnership. I often feel special, happy, honored, and gidty after receiving such items from a significant other. After receiving such material love, I would give back and reinforce the love with a hug, kiss, or a smile and a thank you. The passing back and forth of these physical trinkets of affection invoke the emotional desires I hope for with love. That is how my desire for love would be sustained and reinforced until I discovered a new level of love to desire. You can call me materialistic but I call it satisfaction. I would not be the only receiver of such reinforcements either. I would equally contribute and partake in gift giving to showcase my love to my partner. 

Regardless of the event, the physical elements of desire help to bring about, reinforce, and sustain my emotional desire. The same could be said for my emotional desires too. If I did not desire love along with the heart fluttering whimsicle emotions then, it would be safe to say that, I would not obtain the same type of physical support to sustain my desire for love. I don't mean to get mushy and use only love as my medium for discussing desire. Each desire would bring about a new performative dynamic between the emotional and physical aspects of a particular desire. In this case I just used the notion of love because it is a desire that most of my friends and I have and discuss at great length while drinking cups of caffeine at our local coffee shop.

These desires we have need some form of action to help solidify why we yearn for and how we would obtain/sustain such desires. It is the specific desire that drives us to act out in particular ways to fulfill the desire in our life.

Desire, what a complicated performative concept. Yet, we I cannot live with our it.