Thursday, August 18, 2011

the middle ground

"I'm moving", he says to me, "for sure". My heart sinks in my chest. He's been talking about it for weeks now, but I can never really be sure with him, untill he's sure. This man that I love is so different from me, in so many ways, but somehow we seem to compliment each other well. He thinks aloud, casually trying on each idea in the space around his ears, acutely aware of the plethera of options open to him. His struggle is chosing only one avenue. On the other hand I am less likely to know that I have choices in any given situation. I deliberate silently, sometimes for days, before I'm willing to hear what an idea sounds like once vocalized.I'm prone to feeling trapped and without options in the back of my mind. My world is so black and white.
He's headed out the door and there's nothing more to say. Holding on at this point is like when you're in a lucid dream and you know it's an illusion. You're torn between the desire to hold tight to some fleeting sweetness, and the need to emerge to the real world, to see where you're actually left standing when the dust settles. I ask how long you'll satay gone and you reply glibly 'who cares?' Well, that would be me baby, I'm the one with the unfortunate curse of caring. Fuck you and your careless ass. It must be so simple to walk away whaen you cant allow yourself to care either way. Sometimes I wish I didn't, but then I'd be you, and today I'd rather be me. Me, I can hang on the porch with your childhood friends, or visit for hours with your grandparents, tattoos covered, perched respectfully at the edge of that floral print couch. I can bond with your mom, and drive you home when you've had too much to drink, and still love you at the end of a rough day. I can pretend that these things mean anything. I can entertain the fantasy that you care, and that there is some sort of future for us. When it's time, I can let you go, and put on an equally convincing performance that none of it ever mattered to me, and that I never gave a second thought to tomorrow.
The scenarios play out in my mind with equal vitality. I feel all the anger and helplessness, followed swiftly by sadness and love, but the truth is that neither of these extremes are true, or perhaps they are both true. Either way, the path of best action lies between the two, somewhere in the middle ground, and somewhere in the gray. Somewhere almost incomprehensible to me today. I suppose that's why we take it one day at a time.

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