A random thought blows on the breeze tonight, as an organizer takes over my brain. So many compartments, so many heads, so many many chapters of an un-writeable story mill in the teeming flurry, dead centre, and pound the wall of the skull demanding space, to be freed from the endless rigmarole of the vicious circle of life.
One random thought – what do my thoughts matter? What do I matter? Wait. Do I matter? What if I left this world, as we know it, and not one single person knew what it took for me to inhabit myself? Now, why did I want that?
He called, and told me to cut short my holiday. Said he was missing me. Couldn’t understand why I needed to be away, get away. From him? His bewilderment is understandable. If he’d done the same though, I’d probably have asked too. Wait. Would I? Another pondering thought, and I realize, maybe not…Not. Definitely. Me-times are good times. Charge-yourself-up-times.
Another thought stings. Do I get enough of them times? To know me, if at all, and dang if anyone else does not?
I should have been a counsellor, I tell you, not a data analyst with a hot shot company. I read data, figure out the trends, progressions, make projections and fail to read my own progression in my relationships. That irony sucks. Big time. How I partition bits of me – please everyone, share that bit of an acceptable me with her, him, them….
And what if, so desperately, I wanted just one person to know me, all of me, all that I could be, am and will potentially be? It suddenly seemed so important.
I can’t come right now, love. I spoke to him, inside my head. Not now. Though I miss you so! How can I tell you more! Explaining when you wouldn’t understand. You know, it’s much easier to edit things when I share them, so that I take care not to rock your boat. That sense of you being a rock to me, when I am finding a steadfast core, crumbly at times, but a core nonetheless, within me. I wish I could, but I can’t, knowing how quick you’d jump to less than obvious conclusions. I wish I could tell you of this new friend.
~~~~ ****~~~~
That new young trainee at office. Quiet, concerned, attentive. Unfailingly courteous, says the right things. Uh uh. A paragon, sometimes – would have to be, to be like this in her office! And an absolute fake, no? She asks herself, disbeievingly. Do they make people like them anymore. People who get you, respond to your quicksilver changes, keep tabs on how she was? She supposed it takes one introvert to recognize another. That acknowledgement of one’s quirks and the empathy thereof, that’s an undoing. A vulnerability too, that she was not entirely sure, she could take. A newness of being able to be yourself – not a role model, not an always-happy-beaming-inspirer!
That stray thought zings and zeroes in on him. Him. That colleague. Had to be a him, somehow. The universe always conspires, to confound, and confirm how connections form on a pre written script. Had to be him.
And what was worse, is that compartmentalization that ruled her life. She supposed everyone did it. Or was it just her? How she could be who she was with this one, boderline friend, more than one, really. But she could not tell anyone of him. Not her him, anyway. He’d never understand, believing they were enough for each other, not ever understanding that sometimes, just so sometimes, limiting a thought, and judging it was the sure fire way of inhibiting another share, another time. She knew now, enough, enough to inhibit her. That she loved him, would always love him, but would never be able to fully share of herself, was one of the greatest ironies ever! Still she couldn’t let him know or wonder what she’d been upto, for that is the progression that conversation would take. If she told him, his response after a sudden meaningful, almost reproachful silence, would ensure she’d shut up further, and shut out that cohort at the office, forever. Wasn’t that how she’d been living?
Peace-keeping forces had it easy in conflict zones, when compared to the number of cease-fires she’d carried out, without ever trying to talk it out, for she’s do anything to avoid that war! That kind of fallout she could do without!
So this time, she did not speak of her friend, but quietly went on about getting to know him better. Being a renegade of the heart was better than ravaging it for one who’d always question.
Life was not linear, and that was a lesson she was learning. That it was perfectly okay to be who she was. All along, though, there would always be this particular totem she’d need to carry. From the alternate lifetime, of her choices that she could not share, to the one she needed to be in, for her own succor as well as that she provided, on demand, infinitely patient, empathetic.
Her phone rang, as if on cue. So, you’ll come home earlier, won’t you? I really miss you!
Ah. Dear me! I miss you too! And yes, I shall, I shall. I’ll definitely do that, as scheduled. At the New Years’!
She laughed, as she said it. To take the sting out of any rebuff he could feel.
He grunted. She continued to smile, into the phone.
A tiny triumph this. A steely resolve to end a year most forgettable. Apromise, to be more of herself to her. A closure to being taken for granted. A good way to end the year.
She was beginning to enjoy living on the edge.
29 December, 2016
A Quest on Overdrive ... :) 