Long awaited goodbye

I should have written this a month ago. But I was too stubborn, and unwilling to admit that I'd stopped writing. I don't know that I will continue to write another chapter - I don't know where I'll be, and the uncertainty makes me unwilling to commit to anything. Its 2:30 am and I can't sleep. Feeling disjointed, trying to be hopeful. Last night everything came together, and we became something more. I really wonder if I'll ever be able to leave him. Love seems to be a good ending point. This Oxford ends but never fades.

Something old, something new

I've been in this doorway before, rolled in the night to see it all beside me, slowly waking me up several times a night and not being the least bit concerned. Decisions haunting me and too much time between evenings. I put away my laundry, languid motions, and listen for some voice from within my body to tell me where to go. As if it were as simple as my sock drawer versus t-shirts. His voice on the phone last night made me wonder, despite a slight buzz, whether I should make sure to keep him, since surely he was the kindest man I had ever been with. A totally unexpected apology, unexpected and utterly comforting. Knowing that earlier that day, his reaction had provoked a reaction in me, and I had spent my afternoon wondering if I had somehow upset him. Persistent calls to say "I'm Sorry" in person, rather than leaving a message on my machine.

The past few days have been a whirlwind of nothingness, feeling exhausted for no reason and placeless, directionless and alone. Missing mountains and fresh summers, wishing I knew where things were going to take me. No jobs, or rather, no idea where to look. For Sale: One intelligent, articulate, Oxbridge graduate. aka: a dime a dozen. Yikes.

Well I'll follow you wherever
When you lead me by my nose
On another big adventure- I suppose
Then you lay me down in clover
With their petals on my back
I should make some time
To do more things like that...

Won't you sing to me your poetry,
Won't you take me to your home,
Won't you be for me forever
So I'll never be alone
And just one thing...
If you're my queen...
Then it's a beautiful thing...

Well I'm buried in my bedroom
Under fourteen feet of clothes
I could drown in all this clutter I suppose

But then you're standing in my doorway
With a suitcase on your back
And it blows my mind
When you do things like that

Won't you sing to me your poetry,
Won't you take me to your home,
Won't you be for me forever
So I'll never be alone
And just one thing...
If you're my queen...
Then it's a beautiful thing...

Yeah, reminding me
Well I might be poor
But summers free...
For me, I didn't know I was sleeping

-- Sister Hazel, Beautiful Thing

Vignette

She sipped the strong, sweet espresso. Yawned. Checked her phone one more time. So alone. The irony of sad music swept through her body, how she hated that body, betrayal, so hatefully betrayed. She had begged it to give up so many times. It kept speaking slowly, relentlessly, about change.

Hopeless guitar chords, the beauty of someone else's voice singing her own words, and she lamented, for the first time in weeks, that the sunshine had disappeared, leaving only clouds. The warmth she had felt on Saturday dissipated, just a wasted year and wasted love and the desire to be wasted.

And she could vaguely feel the city behind her window, the world turning towards her. Time was that the secret rush of change was all she needed, and now she longed to stand still. To freeze those past few months and never leave them, wander through their sunshined streets, their rainy afternoons in the park and their late nights, communing with nobody and everything, as the endless stars wishfully spun stories of what might be.

He had gone and everything fell apart, and even though she had read all the signs, knew so intimately every breath he drew beside her at night, that it had not come as a surprise. But lord she missed it all. Quarter life and so tired; is this all she had to wait up for? What was the point in looking forward to more of the same? As cities rolled beneath her feet, travel dissipated into loss every time, and honestly what was the point if we always moved on alone.

Her dress cut long to hide her knees, which she hated. Resisted the urge, walking by the river that morning, to throw herself from the bank into its depths. Knowing of course that the river was slow-moving and silted, barely five feet deep in places. Suddenly she missed home desperately, where waters ran deep and cold, pulling secrets into their depths and holding them close, merciless in their bitter, twisted courses. Young rivers for a young land, she knew deep down that she did not belong here, just as the water in this strange nation ran, stagnant and shallow, under her feet each morning, and again in the afternoon. Ophelia must have drugged herself first, she thought, there is no way that these waterways could be capable of murder otherwise. Accidental death.

*disclaimer*
The above is artistic and bears little resemblance to real life.
Please do not comment that I seem 'sad'.

Everything has fallen out of my ears while I was sleeping... I knew I should have pulled an Elephant Man. And my piercing hurts for the first time in months. And I can't remember anything I've studied. And I think I should have had coffee instead of tea.

And I'm out of milk.

And I'm going to crash and burn, I can feel it. It'll be a severe uphill battle just to avoid throwing myself in the river. Or out the window. Or both (out the window followed by dragging myself into the Cherwell). Time to don my sub fusc...

Summertime

The living is downright miserable. Today dawned like the past fifteen, minus two, with glorious sunshine, hitting twenty degrees by ten in the morning, my curtains snapped shut so I could focus on the task at hand - pages of notes that refused to adhere themselves to my brain.

Rattling on like Roast Beef, I sent out a handful of nonsensical emails crawled back into bed, notes across my knees, and read. Uselessly.

At one I ventured out, blinking in the sunshine and thinking that if I only had a pair of sunglasses I could sit outside and read my notes... but sunglasses look like shit on me no matter how hard I try to find any other kind, and furthermore I didn't have the time to waste on sunglasses at the moment. I did however, have an hour to spend wandering town with my bf, who I've been seeing far too little of lately. I guess I dont' really mention him much here, what with secrecy and non-disclosure being so popular these days, but I suppose its enough here to say that its been a few months, its still all wine and roses (metaphorically speaking, as I tend to drink things that aren't wine and am not a fan of roses in most contexts) and since I started studying and he started well... I don't quite know... its been reduced to brief lunch breaks and snippets of time between World Cup Football and forced Arts and Crafts. Fair enough, but I'm starting to miss him. And not just because my stress is beginning to manifest itself as knots in my neck and sleepless nights. Bed on the floor seems to have lost its magical sleep-inducing powers.

I walked home and started thinking about the Men=Cabs hypothesis. Marriage aside, I wondered if all relationships were based on timing. Although this one wasn't necessarily, I figured that I know others had been centred around bad timing... then again, nobody actively dislikes the idea of being swept off their feet right? Its all a bit blurry, and with the English in full effect (to the extent that G had to translate for us the other night, with sexy results... ok, Simpsons quoting aside, they were sexy...) and generally the problem with men, I have no idea whether this is a question of timing or personality. I'm hoping it was the latter, unwilling to pigeonhole myself into a place where my sunny relationship that has been making this term oh-so-lovely can be reduced to circumstance and boredom. Perhaps when I'm being irresponsible tomorrow, and while he's being drunk, I will pry.

But things are on the up and up, I was told today that I looked 'summery' and later 'fine' (the 'damn you're fine' sense, not the 'adequate' sense) in a half-joking 'I am trying not to sound insincere but fear that I do so I'm going to make this a joke' kind of way. Ah the mystery of cultural differences.

Wasteful

I haven't been this much of a deadbeat in weeks. I swear, time wasting has become an art, and I am an artiste. Almost 5pm and I have achieved very little, I sti staring at books, photocopies and my own neat, black handwriting, wondering how on earth to cram all that stuff into my head before Saturday night. Tomorrow is going to have to be a very long day.

And it will be fine, everything always is, but I'm not really prepared for exam 2, having spent way too much time on exam 1, and even then perhaps not enough.

The lines of writing mock me. And what is one more cup of tea, some webcest, dancing around in my underwear before scrambling into the bath-shower. I am irresponsible and easily led into temptation.

All will be well, all will be well. I must curl up in a ball and contemplate other options... like shredding my notes and eating them, becoming one with their notiness, or stuffing them into my ears at night. I think I will sleep with them under my pillow, in case that actually works.

I know I've been off for ages, I promise everything is fine, I'm just swamped.

Exams are in five days and I'm woefully behind (what's new)

Attempting to organize my dissertation

Still attempting to see the man every day, because if I don't things start to feel funny

Keeping track of the silly little things I'm meant to keep track of, like toothpaste, and failing.

I have a job interview next week after exams, and heading home for a visit in just about three weeks. I could report things but I think life has been pretty quiet this month, what with exams, the end of the hockey season, and steady relationships evening out the usual madness.

I had to leave the library earlier than I wanted, realizing that I didn't have the things I needed/wanted there... but now that I'm home and its five and I'm thinking that in the three hours between now and when I'm expecting a visit, I don't really want to go back... even though I'm behind, I can just read over some things here and have a cup of tea and generally unwind, especially because I'm going to head back in at 9 or so for the night shift. But there is that little voice inside my head that is getting louder and louder, and lord I am panicked when I listen.

Paul Simon

I get on these random kicks. Once The Weakerthans, The Shins, I was briefly onto Matchbox 20 until I just kicked that bad habit, resting tonight on The Decembrists, and when that didn't satisfy my craving, back to Paul Simon, as I tend to do, and I Am A Rock is bringing me home. I remember the first time this song was quoted at me, and so many time's I have come back to it, that one line that he pulled out to chastise my emotion. "If I never loved I never would have cried." Indeed, seems that is one sentiment I have yet to master.

So we are afraid of getting hurt? We hide from feeling, from the chance of falling for someone, who hides better than men? He acts like a jerk to stop you from getting close, he was cheated on, jerked around, messed up, she left him broke and bound to his insecurities by invisible threads with the strength of steel. This never once happened to me. Instead I was tricked into falling hard, insecure, and knowing deep down that jerks would hurt me, so that when they did I could think "yeah, that's no surprise" and roll through one learning experience to the next.

Last week we watched Closer. I love that movie, because its true. We are all so fucked up, so haunted, so wasted by old relationships that we can't step clean into the next without dragging through bullshit - lucky if it is only ankle-deep. And I have my share, of course I do, its why my friends (especially male friends) ask me "why are you right all the time" and all I can do is laugh... somehow I've seen more than my 22-year-old share of relationship bullshit. But this is a tangent, where was I... ah, yes. Closer.

And so we settled in, and I raised the fact that everyone was fucked, without realizing as I said it that he, this innocent who shares my years and not my experience, is not. Has never been. Wow. This came as more of a shock than the physical inequality, than the number of past 'what-have-you's' that we have each seen. He's a clean slate. And that is why he's sweet, is why he treats me honestly and kindly and as a friend. It is how this works. And as I loathe inexperience, it is, apparently, the only way to find someone who can (as Krista would say) cut the bullshit, is to find someone who has never been hurt. They are uncomplicated, no anger, no residual, no ghosts of relationships past. Nothing dragging on their heels into the next one.

"Don't let yourself get hurt, don't let this ever fuck you up."
"I don't think I need to worry about that."
And suddenly I'm mildly insulted... wouldn't you be?
"Why do you say that?"
"Because its too even, here."
I thought about it slowly, turning the idea over in my head. He's right you know, it is, if anything he has it all wrong, and I am the one to get hurt. That's usually how it goes. I've never been good at keeping my feelings from overwhelming rationality, and as I've pointed out so many times before in so many forums: I wouldn't have it any other way.

Now, if you'll excuse me, Paul and I have a solo-dance-party to attend to.