And that’s what we do to ourselves right? Over and over again we convince ourselves we’re special. We convince ourselves that some good thing, meant to last a moment, will somehow last forever. Maybe that’s the eternity inside us. Maybe that’s what religions try to make sense of. I don’t know. No temporality can take the pain away. The only finality is death. Even that isn’t black and white.
But, somehow it is all connected. The little boy that was looking to his mom for comfort at a gas station in South Carolina at 5 am is here right now. That little boy felt all those same feelings of wonder and confusion looking into the most beautiful brown eyes last night. And now I can’t go back. But that moment is with me forever. I am still me. As much now as I was then.
Ian looked up, he set his pen down and scanned his apartment for the peanut butter stuffed pretzels from Trader Joe’s. He couldn't find them. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He grabbed his phone and checked Instagram to see if Laila had a story. Nothing. He set his phone back down and looked out the window for an answer. He grabbed his phone again and typed her name to start sending a message.
Hey, I hope last night
Nope, he deleted that and started over
Morning. What are you
No, not that either, he shook his head and put his hand on his chin, turning his head a little sideways and exhaling as he closed his eyes
Thanks
No, quit being so soft you fucktard – Ian thought to himself.
Hi
Sent.
Immediate regret. He started seeing all the flaws in sending such an empty message. Sensing the inadequacy of one word to convey the enormity of all the things we was feeling. He sat with it. He listened to where that voice was coming from. He found another part inside him that said otherwise. This part was kind to that response and said he should be ok with the playfulness. That it's okay to be a mess and short and wrong. That maybe she would think the coyness is fun. Ian grabbed his pen and went back to writing.
I can understand how Whitman came to terms with all his contradictory parts. I can understand how Brand New would title their album “The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me”. It’s even more complicated than that. Perhaps this is what other people call thinking. Letting all the parts of who I am exist together, conversing inside. Maybe multiplicity shouldn’t be so pathologized. It’s ok to have parts.
My mom would have told me they’re just different parts of my song. That we all play many instruments. She was always telling me that living is like playing music. I have to let all the parts come together. I never really understood. But I feel like I’m starting to understand now. That being alone the last 2 years has taught me. How my play my song and let other people play theirs. Maybe that’s how I know I’m ready for whatever this thing with Laila will become.
This story hasn’t been easy to carry forward. I’d gotten lost in the first-person-ness and didn’t know how to tie the pieces together. So, I just threw a wrench in it and decided the first-person parts would be Ian journaling to himself. It works for this portion of the story but would need to be tweaked a bit in the last two sections. Whatever.
I wish there was better formatting so I could indent these sections Ian is journaling to himself… It’s fun finding new angles to make a story feel real.
Sewing together a few influences this week.
Saved By The Bell Hooks
bell hooks quotes overlayed with scenes from Saved By The Bell – @savedbythebellhooks. What a gift. I’ve come back to this quote over and over.
That hot Psychotherapy woo
The first chapter of the hottest book in Psychotherapy at the moment – No Bad Parts. It’s a ton of cringy self-help fluff shit that makes me hate the fact i’m even listing it here, but I found a loophole on Audible where I can return books to get the credit back, so I tried this book out. Turns out it’s not that bad. The first chapter is all you need. And in that first chapter is a critique of Neoliberalism, Calvinist theology and monkey-mind.
v good Canadian
A poem called Sue’s Story by a Canadian named Leona Gom. It’s a clever story about a moment the character had with their mother, the line that sticks out to me reads
and how I held onto that story for years, telling it to show how far I've come.
That’s what we do right? We hold onto stories, whether or not they’re true, to help some part of ourselves feel safe. To help ourselves know how far we’ve come.
Keep telling stories friends,
Robb
I Am Still Me