The other shoe drops...

You know, sometimes you wake up and some little bit of serendipity just tosses you a bone, and you're all right with the world. But then five minutes later, the other shoe drops and it all balances out. Case in point: on the one hand, I apparently have awesome credit, so much so that I need only wave a finger and I could have a twenty thousand dollar credit limit for the asking. They don't even hold my checks to clear, money just magically shows up on the appointed day ready for immediate (mis)use. On the other hand, how do I have cataracts at thirty? At thirty, I ask you? Short answer: funky contra-indicated drug interactions from my youth. Then again, thankfully I do not have glaucoma so that's always a plus.

Mexico...

My parents left this morning for Mexico on a mission trip for a week or so. I know media depictions of any given place are never as bad as they seem and indeed may be downright distorted, but I saw the last couple of episodes of E-Ring, and I played through Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, and I can't help feeling it's a bit of a dodgy place. It's a pity, really; I'm sure Zocalo Plaza and the Centro Historico in Mexico City are actually very nice places along with some nice colonial architecture in Chapultepec, but try telling that to Captain Scott Mitchell. I do hope they promote that poor guy at some point in the near future, talk about a real trooper. Six or seven games and counting, and still that man soldiers on. I salute you, Scott, a true watcher on the walls of freedom.

Every king needs a castle...

You know, the college where I work is quite an unusual place. It's a branch campus that is a bit out of the way, to put it mildly. Not exactly the middle of nowhere, but close enough that you might start to wonder. For example, when you drive up there, it's just as you start to get that nagging twitch in the back of your mind telling you that you must have missed the turn that boom! there it'll be on your left. Anyway, it seems to have attracted a number of the more eclectic programs for whatever reason. There's a farm setup where the vet techs get to practice their trade. There's a big dive tank where the underwater skills people can bob around and hopefully avoid the bends as they weld hull breaches or whatever it is they do down there. There's even a mock crime scene and mock courtroom for the police foundations and investigations people. I know, I know, that sounds cool, but I'm sure it is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like CSI in any way, shape, or form. I'm even told they used to bury cadavers out in the fields for forensics people to find in some macabre final exam. What, I wonder, happens if you find some body they DIDN'T put there? As I say, some interesting vocations...it's just too bad access to most of these places is strictly controlled for various really important reasons. After all, I might like to try a stint of forensic anthropology; just imagine how that would sound at dinner. "What do you do?" "Baby...CSI...C...S...I!!!" Well, around here I think it's CSU actually, but I'm splitting hairs.

Moving on...finally

A few weeks ago I finally divested myself of all the associated detritus (physical, emotional and otherwise) of a previous relationship that, needless to say, ended painfully on some very sour notes. You know the stuff: the cards, the gifts, the letters, etc. Now, it's not that I wistfully pored over this stuff every day with brimming eye and quivering lip (it was all just gathering dust in the back of my closet), but admittedly that stuff was still there. The physical part was not so hard, although it's surprising how what seemed like a lifetime of memories fit into such a relatively small physical space as a couple of bags of undying declarations of "forever" and all the assorted bric-a-brac of months of affection.

The compartments of the mind, however, are another story altogether. Unfortunately, until they invent a way to selectively gouge out the memories from your skull, I'm afraid you're stuck with them. You might be able to shelve them in the back or box them up in the attic, so to speak, but they're still there.

In such a situation, some of us might try to selectively edit out those portions of our past that we'd like to forget, as if our sum totality were not made up of its individual parts, but I think the persistence of memory survives, as long as there is someone to speak for us. However, for better or for worse, the aforementioned detritus is gone, for the most part. It is surprising to any impartial observer that I could have held on to such things for so long, especially given the ultimate futility of such toxic millstones.

The secret is that all of that stuff was not, in fact, part of the world you and I are familiar with. Rather, it was all part of this surreal alternate reality I've been inhabiting for far too long now. That world was not unlike our own; the sky was still blue most days, people lived and laughed and loved and died just as they do here. The difference was that that world contained the faint but ever-present hope that what happened to me was all some kind of feverish dream or horrible misunderstanding, along with the futile hopes of some kind of reconciliation. You go through the days wondering when you'll wake up and why you haven't yet. It's a world dominated by the frontal lobes of the brain, where obsessive thinking, worry, and inflexible behaviour rule. And it's not the prettiest place.

Had I seen that world with a more pragmatic eye long before now, I would have seen it for the ephemeral puff of fantasy that it always was. The truth is that she does not love me and in fact never did. Cold and harsh, perhaps, since if this is true then I was subject to some acting of the very highest caliber over an impressive period of time. Nonetheless, it is a very necessary stark reality that I've been unable to see before now. It is just sad that it took me this long to realize that, and that I have agonized unnecessarily over such a non-issue, wasting the years away along with the rivers of salt and regret.

After all, in her mind it was all long done with, a curious irrelevancy, a quaint historical footnote. What used to bother me the most is that not once in all the intervening time did I ever hear one word of compassion or simple friendship, not a single tear of regret (even a crocodile one). Sigh of relief? Perhaps, but certainly no remorse. Now, love me or love me not; that is one thing. But I think you do have some kind of responsibility towards the lives you impact, towards the people you take into your own life (not to mention into your heart, into your bed, etc.), and it is wrong on so many levels to simply toss them aside and pretend that nothing happened, hoping it will all just go away when it becomes inconvenient or uncomfortable to deal with. Dress it up and spin it any way you like, but that is what happened. Were not the slightest bit of those feelings real at all?

So why do I keep mentioning this now, after all this time? No names or salient details are necessary or appropriate; all parties concerned know what they did and what happened, perhaps even better than I. This isn't about being vindictive or seeking vengeance or continuing to wallow in self-pity, all things I might have done in that other world of the frontal lobe. There will be justice someday and all wrongs will be redressed, but that time is not for us here to decide. There is a time and a place for everything under the sun, or so Ecclesiastes would have me believe, and that will do for now.

What this is about is the persistence of memory. It is about somebody somewhere speaking on my behalf and marking what others might find convenient to forget. I remember a wrong, not in hatred or anger anymore but simply for what it is: the essential truth of some very traumatic events that did happen. Their impact on my life will henceforth define how I approach the life to come ahead of me. In the absence of anyone to speak in my defense, this will serve to bear witness. Further, it is a cautionary tale to remind and to warn myself against the dangers of investing an excess of myself in someone who ultimately is not worth it if it's not completely mutual. I gave my heart too quickly to someone who couldn't give me hers in return. We do all deserve to be loved by somebody as much as we love them; in that she is correct. If it's not all there, then there really isn't any point. Now, that it hurt people I do still care about in order to learn that is indeed unfortunate, but that's how it is.

So I can forgive, and forget to a degree. Thousands of miles of distance helps to a certain extent, although it's unfortunate that I wasn't closer, since then my continued presence would have been an illustration of the consequences of this entire ill-advised scenario, one that would had to have to have been dealt with in one way or another. She walked away when I was not even there, and not having to deal with that, to not have to do me the courtesy of telling me why to my face seems like an easy out, a cheap cop-out on some level. I was callously dismissed out of hand as if I was nothing and always was nothing. It's quite a bit easier, I think, to cast someone aside when you're reasonably assured that you'll not likely ever see them again and have to deal with the very real, living consequences of your decision.

But no matter: the point is that finally letting go affords me a certain degree of closure, that frankly I could have had years ago, had I eyes to see. I'm writing this all down because it's therapeutic in some ways, but what's important is that I move on now and not waste any more time in useless self-pity and remorse. I am too valuable for that, and I thank her for showing me that. I am a man of letters with enough pride and dignity left to imagine that what I have to offer might one day be worth as much to someone else as I once thought it meant to another. Chalk it up to a learning experience and things to avoid next time (should there be one).

One of the most unfortunate bits of fallout from this particular episode in my life is that I focused on her to such a degree that all my other human relationships essentially atrophied. I need to get back in touch with humanity in general (not just the fairer half), to start making some new and better memories to replace the ones I have. In that vein, I am now taking applications, as it appears that I have several openings in my new barcada. Contact me if you wish to join.