MeliGoesRogue

Because of my many travels I think I find myself most comfortable at a table for one. I began to look at writing as if it was a conversation happening but no one could hear. I became very comfortable or rather familiar with the posture of being alone with my thoughts as terrifying as they have always been.

The new year is eating away at the hours and there is so much I didn’t say and yet there seems to be heaps more of things I wish I had never said, written or sent. Remorse such a heavy load that I seem too ready to pick up and sling over my shoulder. Sometimes I think perhaps it’s similar to self harm, which creates an external representation of pain and a place for the pain to escape. That heavy load I seem so eager to carry is really the representation of the weight of sadness I live under. Sadness and it’s explanation has been one that eludes me, so it’s easier to point to the load as the reason for being downtrodden.

I had a conversation with my younger wisdom. Ok let’s deviate (on purpose). My brother used to say to me he wanted to spend 10 years each studying wine, whiskey and coffee. He felt, that length of time would make him well versed. I understood the concept and decided to expand it, “using my soul as raw materials”. I wanted to have friendships with those who were 10 yrs older and 10 yrs younger. Having felt the weight of my years and having the memory of myself at other ages I realized how much good would come from always being able to hold the tension and harness the power of 20 years of current perspectives and analysis.

Ok back to my younger wisdom- shit can you believe I actually forgot. Maybe the gold was the idea and not what she said. I’ll remember later and tell you.

Back to current status in the hope it will jog the memory.

This year has taught me so much about myself. I mean that in the non jaded way. Motherfuckers messed with me hard this year. Sorry, while I am never against profanity seeing that word written hits hard, and yet as I look back I realize it is still the best word to describe the people, mostly men I let BACK in this year only to lay in the bed they took a shit in. As angry as they all made me, as destitute as i felt at times, I am so grateful for all those actions and inactions, as they finally lead me to intolerance. I know that seems skewed. It’s not, I’m not confused about the word. I have built my intolerance level which apparently used to be non existent. Ok wait I can hear my family up in arms, I mean men 🙄. I’ve been intolerant with family for very long but that work is saved for a therapist and not my elephant memory that has been unwilling to forgive people and allow them to be in positions where they reap benefits they never sowed. I really deviate often don’t I? This is why I could never be a writer, also why I see these as conversations. Punctuation not needed !

Oh yay I remembered. Ok we were talking about New Years’ and how it’s ridiculous that we use it as this blank slate, how it is seemingly the best time to start new diets or habits. This is my younger wisdom btw. One of the benefits of youngers is I can see her understanding but I can overlay it like an architect over mine and see how they intersect but also where they differ.

How do I explain to her that creating an end and beginning point gives us control in a world where if we are honest we have no control. I mean it we don’t have any control. I try not to look and dissect it too long, it creates anxiety when I think he meant it to create relief and peace.

See I understand why she thinks of time as this continuous thing, in truth because it is. Time doesn’t have a stop or a start that isn’t marked by the beginning of all time and the end. We as humans created this figment of time as a way to track, forgive and mark ourselves. It is only in the simultaneous depth of youth and adulthood that we see time as ancillary. When clocks are for days and not hours, minutes and seconds. Those are the days they use, not count. I tried to find the flaw in her argument and I could not. Counting has always hurt me. Years without his little face, hours without words uttered, all the minutes of unnecessary air- did I need to count them ? Would they hurt less? When I looked at it I actually saw how much pain I would relieve myself of if I stopped counting. Stopped counting the bruises covered, countless repairs of my heart and all those damn false starts.

This new year isn’t actually new. It’s this constant continuation of the decisions of the day before and the hope I keep for tomorrow. I make no commitment to tomorrow, I am starting no diet or journey, I am in fact continuing the one that began all those years ago in a bath tub with my mother and father hovering above me.

Let me try to close the loop on this. The new year is 2 hours away and i think I finally understand how little this or time in general means. I am no longer fearful of the clock internal or otherwise ticking, creating fear for yet another item I can not control. Love has eluded me thus far and instead of counting the time without it, I want to live in the moment that I have been given that is full of luxuries and so many moments of blissful happiness and not the doom of counting.

I left this undone last night. The new year arriving and already becoming old. I feel sadness but also somehow peace. I have a new word for this year. I’ve had it for months and it has already given dividends. I hope to descend to the depths of my soul and ascend to the heights of the sky where the air is clear and all

Is forgiven. I will see you back here…who knows when. I’m done counting.