deeplyshallow // self preservatives

self preservatives

A few posts ago I wrote (partially) about the sobering sense of responsibility that one feels when one learns who is reading one’s blog, and so I dodged that responsibility, and thrusted back with a few spurts of irreverent profanity. Fun, wasn’t it? If perhaps a little juvenile. But I bow to juvenile impulses these days; the rest of my life lacks the spontanaeity that those contain. (You have to get your kicks somewhere, is what I’m saying. Give them, stop taking them to the ribs.)

The past few weeks have been shot through with arguments and plea-bargains and uncertainties. I’ve been hesitant to write about it here because, well, you’re not the only person reading this blog. My imminent in-laws read it, as well as plenty of people who know me only as the guy marrying the girl they know, and who want (perhaps foolishly) to know me better. My parents don’t read it — or if they do, they don’t say so — but there are cousins and aunts and my mother’s high school chums who do. And these aren’t really the things you want to lay so wide open, mostly because they aren’t anybody’s business, but also because other people will see them differently than you do, and won’t understand why you feel the way you do about them.

But I can’t not write about it. There is only one person other than Susan who I confide in, and that’s my sister. But confiding in her about this sort of thing risks certain prejudices being created, which isn’t something I want to do. Still, I briefly briefed her a month or two back, and she advised me rationally and surprisingly insightfully, and stood up for Susan in a way I am moved by, because my sister doesn’t really do that sort of thing for anybody but me. And maybe that scruffy dude she’s now suddenly engaged to.

What I’m getting at is simple, and anybody who has ever written knows this: writing is cathartic. Self-therapy, really. And it’s been killing me not to write about this. I poked around in the archive a bit until I found a post I wrote years ago. I knew it was there somewhere. I am apparently doomed to repetition, seeing as how I’ve been through this before. It’s a lesson I’d still like to learn, and have maybe convinced myself incorrectly that I already had. Maybe the lessons that take your entire life to learn are the ones most valuable. Maybe you have to fuck up a few times so that when you finally learn the lesson, you understand its worth.

But as much as I have needed to write about what is happening these days, I can’t do it. I am a contradictory mess. My instincts are a wreck right now; I am all over the map, from extreme to extreme, and I couldn’t be certain that what I wrote wouldn’t change a thousand percent by the next time I posted. Instead I am trying to talk it through; an old friend who might listen has been solicited, except she’s probably running like hell from the hurricane that’s about to plow through her new hometown; a new friend turns out to be in a similar situation, and listens patiently. That’s a start.

Yesterday as I drove home my iPod hit me with the one-two punch of “Speedway” and “Rain“. It has been an awfully long time since I related closely to either of these songs, and so I was surprised to find that they connected so solidly again.

Right now I think I know what the weekend will bring, and I am not looking forward to it. Doing the things that are right for you — well, that’s never a repercussionless decision. And that’s probably my biggest flaw; in my life, how many hand grenades have I dived on for the sake of those around me? Every time I tell myself it’s worth it. Every time I get up a little rustier than before. I have been holding myself together for too long with baling wire and duct tape, and the effort is becoming too great. If I don’t stop, one of these days I won’t get up at all.