february resolutions

two days ago i thought of you and half-considered sending you an email asking why you'd stopped replying. then i fast-forwarded through all the excuses you might have supplied. then i realized you'd never respond anyway. i'm glad i saved myself the wasted time and energy. some people really are born to disappear, as john mayer says. what i want to know is, why have i known so many of these people? i'd rather not. i just end up believing that most of humanity is that rude, which isn't true.

disappearing people, you give humanity a bad name. shape up and stop hurting people.
when you run, you're really only hurting yourself.
wait a few years . . . you'll see.
____________________

last night i caught a glimpse of your frame and something seemed familiar. i didn't realize until too late who you were. i skidded out the door, intent on the washroom down the hall. i avoided you. it wasn't that your presence hurt me. actually, it annoyed me. this was my turf. unfortunately it was also your turf. mutual turf. dangerous ground if there ever was any.
we kept our distance. you may not have even noticed me. but when i got up to sing, i'm sure you did. how could you have missed it? but here i was, my voice ringing in the room. you couldn't escape it now, could you?

the next time i looked up, you were gone.
the cowardice must run quite deep.
it makes sense that you'd disappear again.

after all, you pulled one of the most insulting, cowardly disappearing acts i've ever seen four years ago. the greatest thing? i don't care anymore. what a fantastic feeling. it's not the angry, bitter, i-don't-care-but-i-really-do kind of not caring. it's just the complete emotional separation from a previously devastating event.

time may not heal all wounds, but i know for sure it at least heals some.
____________________

you, you're still with me. in spirit, at least. your non-presence keeps me up at night sometimes. i saw your boyfriend's car pull off onto a dark winding street three days ago. i don't think you were with him. it surprised me that you'd be apart. it made me wonder if you two aren't the perfectly happy couple you pretend to be. i asked myself if 24 hours a day of being in contact, either in person or over the phone, being inextricably entwined with every detail of each others' lives, gets old eventually.

human beings are meant for each other, yes. to be in relationship with another person, platonically and romantically both, is an exquisite, fascinating thing. and yet . . . i also believe that human beings are also meant for themselves, at least partially. if you have no personal internal space whatsoever, i think a part of you withers.

it makes sense, though. you check your parents' emails because you know their passwords. you learn things you were never meant to know about your family by reading their letters, hacking their accounts. since your parents pay all your expenses, down to every song you buy and put on your iPod, you have to have their email addresses to print purchase confirmations.

and yet --- if anyone, including your family, seeks after any personal information of yours, you bristle. you say, this is an invasion of my privacy. i'm an adult. i don't need you nosing around in my business.

now that is what makes no sense.but what really does?
too many things. too few things.
it's all too little too late too much too soon.
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snapshots of my inner life.
my past colliding with the present.
i will cultivate my future any way i can.
i will weave a sieve the size of my life and nothing malignant will be let through.
i promise myself this.