"Letters From The Wasteland"

I was cleaning up the apartment this afternoon, going through boxes and figuring out what was in them, when I came across a metal box that I keep sentimental stuff and keepsakes and the like in. It has photos of old friends, old letters and notes, newspaper clippings, things of that nature. So, because I'm easily distracted from what I'm supposed to be doing (cleaning so mom doesn't have a heart attack when she comes to visit tomorrow), I stopped and read some of the stuff in the box.

And what I found was interesting, and something I had almost forgotten about. Most of the letters and notes and whatnot in the box are written by one of two people--either myself, or Wen, though some of the notes are us gibbering at each other back and forth. It was an interesting read, and I felt rather nostalgic for a good bit. I'm a sentimental person by nature, and this was hitting me write in the sentimentality bone, if there is such a thing (work with me here, folks).

The letters and poems reminded me of things and feelings I hadn't paid heed to in years. It all brought back a flood of memories--late night phone conversations, whispered in the dark under the covers; making up stuff about going to the library so we could really go out and park the car and make out (we were kinda innocent, it never went any further than kissing); writing letters and poems back and forth to one another professing undying love and affection until the sun was extinguished. We were so serious about all of it, and it took me a long time to get over the fact that she didn't want to spend the rest of her life with me like that. I've since come to terms with it, and we're still the best of friends, and I can't wait to see her in February and to meet her boyfriend, Tim. But I think I've been trying to find someone like her ever since, which probably isn't fair to her or to other women. But as a person, she possesses so many of the qualities I look for in anyone, regardless of whether I want to date that person or not. At the risk of sounding cliche, she is one in a million, probably more. I've never met anyone quite like her, and I'm still trying to find someone who lives their life with as much energy and pure joy as she does. Even when things are hard, or not going her way, she is still more alive than nine of ten people you'll meet on the street. I think every creative endeavour I've embarked on has been inspired by her in some way or another, whether directly or indirectly. She challenged me to be better than I was, and only a few people since then have done that. I treasure those people, as I treasure all of my friends, but she is my muse, if you'll forgive the sappiness. I'm pretty sure she knows all this already, and I'm not even sure if she reads this or not.

I realize in typing all this that I've probably revealed more about myself and my past than I wanted to initially, but I'm not removing any of it. If I bare my soul here, and someone doesn't like what they read, that's their problem, not mine. Besides, this is supposed to be about self-expression, right?

One of the notes I wrote, sometime around when we were getting ready to graduate high school, struck me as slightly amusing in hindsight. I was detailing my beliefs regarding what makes us who we are, and I made the claim that we are the past. Everything that makes us who we are--our memories, our ideas and thoughts, the things we've done--they all exist in the past, and thus we are now made up of what we were then.

I had to chuckle a bit at this, because I don't believe that at all now. I think I actually believe something completely contradictory to that, really. I don't think we're made up of the past. We are not now who we were then. The past is a foreign country, one which you can't visit because you lost your passport. We have postcards of the past, and we call them memories. In many cases, we have photographic evidence of what we were, and these are rather like the vacation photos your parents take so many of and then stick in a photo album and never look at unless guests they don't like come to visit.

All joking aside, we are so much more than what we were. The past is a part of us, yes, but we are something different from that now. And we can't keep dwelling on who we were, or we lose who we are, and I'm just now figuring out who that is.

~chaos cricket

Song of the Moment: Mark Knopfler, "Speedway at Nazareth"