howeverbrief (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
howeverbrief) wrote2011-07-19 10:42 pm
howeverbrief) wrote2011-07-19 10:42 pm
Entry tags:
Missing
I talk a lot about missing things-- bits of previous versions of my life and self, yes, perhaps certain situations that are best left to theory and speculation rather than actual experience, tastes and smells and places that evoke the long-stoppered winds of innocent and blissful ignorance, but people mostly. Mostly people.
Missing being what it is, I can almost forget what a day is supposed to feel like. One gets wrapped up in the current moment, always shifting papers around and chatting with coworkers and eating sandwiches and gathering up what's left at the end of the day. There's always something to be done, always another chore waiting in the wings. It's almost nice that there's perpetually a stack of dishes to be washed, a floor that will never quite come clean, counters to be scrubbed of various attempts to be domestic. It's all right to flop on the couch and flick on the television and pretend there's nothing more to life, nothing more than doing your work well and using the rest of your time to do jack all so long as the majority looks good on paper. It's easy enough to lull myself to sleep at night and passively hope that the best is still in front of me, yet to come.
Forgetfulness is an essential part of missing. One lets things slip out of view just long enough for the emptiness to take hold, to settle in and make itself comfortable and familiar. Once established, it is child's play for a stray snippet of conversation, an unplanned recognition, a coincidental rediscovery that cracks the consciousness to knock you off your well-kept axis, if only for a brief instant. It appears without fanfare but is fast-moving in its cunning and devastation. That's all it takes-- one instant to shatter your facade and send you reeling, frantic to glue all the pieces back together. Surprise!
Oh, it isn't just the missing. It's being confronted with what you've lost, what you wish you had, what you may never see again. It's the great enormity and stark contrast between what's in front of you and what you know very well can't be-- the haves and the have nots in sharp relief and nothing to do but look on helplessly and attempt to keep yourself balanced even if it would be simpler to fall and let it wash over you and into your lungs and wear you out, out, out.
I would have hoped that my personal (and at times quite ridiculous) act of missing would have died down by now, but, while not as deliberate, I don't know if it will ever dissipate completely. Being limited as we all are, I can't see that far ahead. Still, being who I am, I doubt I have much of a choice. Despite all my loneliness, all my introverted hiding from the rest of the world, all my shut down, can't-take-it-anymore whining and righteous indignation over past miscommunications and ill-treatment and mistaken interpretations and overly sensitive catches in my chest, no matter how many times I've been hurt, infuriated, humiliated, confused, heartbroken, flabbergasted, and ultimately betrayed--
For me, it always seems to come back to people.
Missing being what it is, I can almost forget what a day is supposed to feel like. One gets wrapped up in the current moment, always shifting papers around and chatting with coworkers and eating sandwiches and gathering up what's left at the end of the day. There's always something to be done, always another chore waiting in the wings. It's almost nice that there's perpetually a stack of dishes to be washed, a floor that will never quite come clean, counters to be scrubbed of various attempts to be domestic. It's all right to flop on the couch and flick on the television and pretend there's nothing more to life, nothing more than doing your work well and using the rest of your time to do jack all so long as the majority looks good on paper. It's easy enough to lull myself to sleep at night and passively hope that the best is still in front of me, yet to come.
Forgetfulness is an essential part of missing. One lets things slip out of view just long enough for the emptiness to take hold, to settle in and make itself comfortable and familiar. Once established, it is child's play for a stray snippet of conversation, an unplanned recognition, a coincidental rediscovery that cracks the consciousness to knock you off your well-kept axis, if only for a brief instant. It appears without fanfare but is fast-moving in its cunning and devastation. That's all it takes-- one instant to shatter your facade and send you reeling, frantic to glue all the pieces back together. Surprise!
Oh, it isn't just the missing. It's being confronted with what you've lost, what you wish you had, what you may never see again. It's the great enormity and stark contrast between what's in front of you and what you know very well can't be-- the haves and the have nots in sharp relief and nothing to do but look on helplessly and attempt to keep yourself balanced even if it would be simpler to fall and let it wash over you and into your lungs and wear you out, out, out.
I would have hoped that my personal (and at times quite ridiculous) act of missing would have died down by now, but, while not as deliberate, I don't know if it will ever dissipate completely. Being limited as we all are, I can't see that far ahead. Still, being who I am, I doubt I have much of a choice. Despite all my loneliness, all my introverted hiding from the rest of the world, all my shut down, can't-take-it-anymore whining and righteous indignation over past miscommunications and ill-treatment and mistaken interpretations and overly sensitive catches in my chest, no matter how many times I've been hurt, infuriated, humiliated, confused, heartbroken, flabbergasted, and ultimately betrayed--
For me, it always seems to come back to people.