"I Myself Have Found A Real Rival In Myself"

I'm a rather oafish individual. I'm cumbersome, a clutz, given to tripping over my own feet (which my eyes never leave when I'm out walking). I hunch over, rolling my shoulders to protect myself from the world. I know I'm overweight, not really all that handsome in any sort of traditional sense of the world, and that my voice is nasally, whiney, and not suited to singing or even always talking (both of which I do anyway).

I try to make up for the grotesquories I see in my physical being by being an artist. I write. I draw. I make music. I tell stories and jokes. I attempt to entertain, amuse, and maybe touch a heart or two. I work at having charm, which is one of those things that's supposed to be a natural attribute. I want people to genuinely like me, or at least tolerate my existence in a congenial sort of way.

Beneath all that, however, is a huge desire to find someone to love. I'd like to find someone with all the traits I desire (an admittedly amorphous and subjective quasi-list that has only a few vaguely-defined certainties to it), and who loves me for who and what I am. In particular, there are/were about a half dozen girls I've known in my life whom I'd love to spend the rest of my existence with. Most of them are now taken in one form or another, or I've grown to understand that my relationship with them will never be more or less than it is now. And I've accepted that. But there's one girl...there's one girl I can't keep out of my head. She's never far from my thoughts. She treats me like dirt half the time, barely acknowledges my existence, and doubts me constantly.

You'd think that'd knock some sense into me. The thing is...the thing is, the other half of the time, she smiles at me. And when this girl smiles, the rest of the world just fades into a gray background around her. When she smiles, it's such a genuine expression, such a real revelation of her current mood, that it's hard for me to even think straight. She doesn't just smile or laugh with her mouth, but with her entire being. Not many people manage that. For too many people, a laugh is simply the expulsion of air and noise, and a smile something that only forces a few muscles in the mouth to contract. Not this girl. Never her.

That's why I put up with everything else, because I know deep down she really does care about me. The smile alone proves that to me, even if she weren't a genuinely decent person on top of that. And she is decent in the virtuous and beatific meaning of the word. She's genuinely good, and it's part of why I love her. That she also happens to think I'm a complete idiot because most of the time I'm unable to form words around my ideas when I'm with her or because I say really, really stupid things to her...well, that's just the effect she has on me, and I'll probably never be able to adequately express these facts to her. She doesn't even read this--why would she? This is all just the senseless ramblings of a man who thinks he knows what he's talking about and what he's doing. Why would she care (for that matter, why would anyone? But I know there are people out there who do read this. At least two of you. Maybe three, but I'm not gonna push my luck)?

Maybe this is all just the illness talking. Maybe I should stop listening to pop music (in the broad sense of the term "pop"--I'm not listening to Britney Spears or anything. You all should know better than that). Maybe I should try to tell her, but then again, I've never been able to get the words right so far; why would today be any different?

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Wilco, "Poor Places"