2009

Cleaning my room is like sifting through the pieces of a history museum. Here and again I find old writings that remind me how I once used to think, stories that remind me of that question, "Are you really the same person you were before?" I am detached in many ways, but I know I am still deeply entrenched because sometimes these pieces make me cry. Maybe I'm just sentimental. This being the case, it takes a great deal of courage to delve into the artifacts, nervously awaiting the instant I find a chilling photograph, or a memory I once tried to sweep into my consciousness. What I found tonight was moving. Aside from the fact that it reminded me how sentimental I can be (to a fault), I remembered that I was once a good writer. And I mean that. It takes a lot to recognize myself as good and perfectly talented, but indeed... I once was. Who knows? Maybe it's hindsight that allows the past to glitter. 2008 will seem a gleaming year, even though at the moment I allow myself to fill with "should haves" and "could haves." I also remembered Isabelle, quietly chastising myself for not having the gall to call her up and say hello. My petty excuse? I've yet to research the word for "newspaper" in French. Lame. 

  I think I really loved her those months I spent with her. It's the memory of that love that haunts me now. This is why my heart is heavy when I think of our short time together. Deep inside, I still hope she is the same. Or better... I pray she is still alive. Even if she waited for Jean-Charles patiently, those slow days she'd spend tending leisurely through her routines. Water the garden. Mow the lawn. Do the wash. Shower. Dry her hair. Sit with Pepette and watch the Jura in the distance. How did I not realize what an impact she'd had on me during that semester abroad? I noticed Grace Princesa's influence before Isabelle's own. 

  The point is, I've allowed myself to wallow in some kind of self-pity ever since the catastrophic-break-up-of-2006. That break-up that left me wondering if I was still a good person. The one that revealed how much I clung to a false self-imposed image of "goodness" and perfection. The one where I learned why Redemption is so powerful after all...so powerful, I couldn't bring myself to understand that it was available even for me. And since then, I've let things slide. I haven't been honest, I haven't written to the best of my ability... I've "let it go" in a sense. The tiny but daring observances of everyday had just wilted to daily routines. I miss the days of wandering through New York and finding inspiration everywhere, even through the sensory overload. I don't even watch things anymore - I just sort of see them. How pitiful, I think. I am so good at wallowing, these post-college days. Wallowing that I'm not in a good-paying job. Lamenting that I haven't figured my life out yet. Crying over spilled milk. Fear and self-loathing breeds stagnation. This was a life I would have once refused. And still can. 

  I think of Jon Nabo and how he inspires me. He reminds me what there is to live for. That even though we all die the same way, we are not here for naught. We are here to be human and to live utterly complete and painfully emotional lives. Not just to sail and be content; not just to let our pay stubs define our status and mold our self-images. We're here to live because we were blessed with life on this unique Earth. In 2008 I missed that somewhere. I let myself fall into remission. With my retreat into seclusion, I also retreated from myself. 

Not this year.  This year everything changes.

I don't think I'm meant to return to how it used to be.  But I know it can't be as it has been.