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how did it come to this
Dec. 28th, 2002 02:31 pmI realized the other night that it has been just over two years since I started my livejournal, bored and restless in my office late in the final days of dotcom excess. This is the longest single span in my life that I have kept a journal of any kind, and I think much of that has to do with the ease of typing and the pleasure of formatting it nicely into html pages. The fascination in reading other journals may also contribute.
I am twenty two years old, though sometimes I forget and have to count backwards. I have a degree in Czech, and a half dozen pairs of shoes, and still no job. I have seen The Two Towers four times so far, and I'm certainly going again at least once of twice before the year falls past. I can not count the number of times I have seen Fellowship of the Ring, but I find myself caught each and every time. It's been a good year for movies, The Piano Teacher being a notable exception.
The year is winding down, and I have a love-hate relationship with this part of the year. It is my darkest and brightest hour, because while the days are often short, winter in Texas is more often than not a bittersweet affair, days of endless sky and chill sunshine on the grass. It is this season that imprints itseslf most clearly on my mind, because I always seemed to fall in love in the wintertime, or to realize I was in love.
In this year, I fell in love, and it was such a liberating thing to realize I could be in love without having to give up myself. Or even to do anything really.
I think I fell for him walking in the streets of Prague, but it was not until we were having lunch together and drinking coffee and buying wine late at night in the grocery store that I knew for certain. He's quite possibly one of the most intelligent people on this planet. The mix of darkness and light in a person creates a shifting blend of color, and in Gene it's something like the way the sun looks at seven in the morning on an empty Prague street, sharp and clear and sliding over old stone. I don't think I will ever meet anyone else quite like this, like recognizing something from a dream.
There was another, as well. I have a friend who has grown from an acquaintance and email address to one of the few people I feel the desire to be utterly honest with about the words in my head. She makes me want, and dream, and I wish she would hurry and become King of the World so I can be her general and command armies to drive those who would stand against us into the sea. Because we should live in worlds that cross over into this one, and a thousand lives would not be enough. Reive is luminous, and I don't think I know anyone else so brave and foolish as to put caps on her cats' nails.
So many lives intersect here, and I have grown to know many of you here much better in the past year. These friendships I am glad to have, even if I have never touched your hand, or seen you only briefly during my travels.
I find it darkly amusing to know I had to fly thousands of miles this summer to realize how much I loved the people close to me.
My degree should arrive anyday in the mail, this piece of paper that says I know something. My entire life, from those earliest days of reading and wonder, has been aimed at this single desire, and now that I have it I am somewhat at a loss. I do not know what I want now. Or rather, I want so much that I can not see my path.
That is something I struggle with every day, and has only grow clearer in recent years. I want far more than one person is allowed, I want a hundred lives to live over and through, all the choices and permuatations of the soul to be mine to explore. The stories in the back of my mind take their own lives and drift in my dreaming, everything I have been and could be.
In the past year, I have seen so many things. I make more of an effort now to focus on the joys, great and small. The night we bought a grill and made steaks at midnight, drinking wine and listening to music until we fell asleep on my bed at six in the morning. Driving to Houston in the dark with the windows rolled down, talking and singing into the night. Hours in a dim coffee shop where all my loves have passed through, playing cards and writing unsent letters in notebooks, a hundred cigarettes balanced on my fingers. The beauty of the Czech country, tall trees and stone, and cathedrals soaring up from centuries. That moment in the airport when I knew I was home. The smile on my professor's face, the relief when that damned play ended and the curtains closed on us. Visiting the Little House and sitting in the hot tub talking and feeling like growing up might not be so bad after all. Walking blocks and blocks, sitting on the steps of the Met in New York City, and marveling at the fact that I was sitting in the Richard Rogers watching a play. The taste of ice cream in different cities, the smiles of friends old and new, airplanes and cars and just being alive.
I am twenty two years old, though sometimes I forget and have to count backwards. I have a degree in Czech, and a half dozen pairs of shoes, and still no job. I have seen The Two Towers four times so far, and I'm certainly going again at least once of twice before the year falls past. I can not count the number of times I have seen Fellowship of the Ring, but I find myself caught each and every time. It's been a good year for movies, The Piano Teacher being a notable exception.
The year is winding down, and I have a love-hate relationship with this part of the year. It is my darkest and brightest hour, because while the days are often short, winter in Texas is more often than not a bittersweet affair, days of endless sky and chill sunshine on the grass. It is this season that imprints itseslf most clearly on my mind, because I always seemed to fall in love in the wintertime, or to realize I was in love.
In this year, I fell in love, and it was such a liberating thing to realize I could be in love without having to give up myself. Or even to do anything really.
I think I fell for him walking in the streets of Prague, but it was not until we were having lunch together and drinking coffee and buying wine late at night in the grocery store that I knew for certain. He's quite possibly one of the most intelligent people on this planet. The mix of darkness and light in a person creates a shifting blend of color, and in Gene it's something like the way the sun looks at seven in the morning on an empty Prague street, sharp and clear and sliding over old stone. I don't think I will ever meet anyone else quite like this, like recognizing something from a dream.
There was another, as well. I have a friend who has grown from an acquaintance and email address to one of the few people I feel the desire to be utterly honest with about the words in my head. She makes me want, and dream, and I wish she would hurry and become King of the World so I can be her general and command armies to drive those who would stand against us into the sea. Because we should live in worlds that cross over into this one, and a thousand lives would not be enough. Reive is luminous, and I don't think I know anyone else so brave and foolish as to put caps on her cats' nails.
So many lives intersect here, and I have grown to know many of you here much better in the past year. These friendships I am glad to have, even if I have never touched your hand, or seen you only briefly during my travels.
I find it darkly amusing to know I had to fly thousands of miles this summer to realize how much I loved the people close to me.
My degree should arrive anyday in the mail, this piece of paper that says I know something. My entire life, from those earliest days of reading and wonder, has been aimed at this single desire, and now that I have it I am somewhat at a loss. I do not know what I want now. Or rather, I want so much that I can not see my path.
That is something I struggle with every day, and has only grow clearer in recent years. I want far more than one person is allowed, I want a hundred lives to live over and through, all the choices and permuatations of the soul to be mine to explore. The stories in the back of my mind take their own lives and drift in my dreaming, everything I have been and could be.
In the past year, I have seen so many things. I make more of an effort now to focus on the joys, great and small. The night we bought a grill and made steaks at midnight, drinking wine and listening to music until we fell asleep on my bed at six in the morning. Driving to Houston in the dark with the windows rolled down, talking and singing into the night. Hours in a dim coffee shop where all my loves have passed through, playing cards and writing unsent letters in notebooks, a hundred cigarettes balanced on my fingers. The beauty of the Czech country, tall trees and stone, and cathedrals soaring up from centuries. That moment in the airport when I knew I was home. The smile on my professor's face, the relief when that damned play ended and the curtains closed on us. Visiting the Little House and sitting in the hot tub talking and feeling like growing up might not be so bad after all. Walking blocks and blocks, sitting on the steps of the Met in New York City, and marveling at the fact that I was sitting in the Richard Rogers watching a play. The taste of ice cream in different cities, the smiles of friends old and new, airplanes and cars and just being alive.