1667 10/18

brandil79

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October 18, 2015

Knowing myself like I do, I know that something’s not quite right. There’s a bit of an offness in the internal dialogue. I can’t put my finger on it, it’s just a wrong that’s seeping around the edges. Like light under a door. There’s a quality of lightness; you know that somewhere on the other side a lamp has been left on. You can’t pinpoint where it’s coming from. It’s too vague. Maybe is the sun coming up in another more windowed room and the light is creeping into your darkened bedroom knocking on your brain to get the fuck up and greet the day. Maybe it’s still 3 am and the light is trickling in from the bathroom; left on when your bladder knocked and you had to drag yourself in and did you leave the water running? Is the light on because someone else is awake and if you got up now to go turn it off youd run into your roommate taking a piss and playing Candy Crush and it’d be awkward and now you’ll have to buy coffee out because you need to leave early enough to avoid seeing her so you don’t relive the awkwardness of seeing her with her pants sound her ankles in the middle of the night.

That’s the quality of off in my brain right now. There’s a light begging to be identified but at the same time it’s really not something I want to poke at. If I get up and go looking I might find all sorts of sources to the off and it might be so overwhelmingly blinding that I lose track of the things that are actually in the right. The offness may just be perception. It could be that it’s not off at all, and the rest of what I’m perceiving as right and on is the actual wrong and off. And then what? 

It’s not terrifying. I’m not concerned that whatever has changed is changing things in a way that’s going to lead to an overhaul of the fundamental goodness that I’ve rooted around. But this little seeping different has allowed me to see things I wasn’t even aware existed. Chances and opportunities and what ifs.

Rambling through this morning to the smell of pancakes and maple syrup. Something’s not quite right. Or maybe it’s exactly right. I know myself. I know myself. I know.

dreams

brandil79

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October 17, 2015

She had strange dreams in his bed. Not nightmares, but dreams full of tension and hurt that didn’t belong to her. He’d feel her shifting in the night, tangled in the sheets and he’d pull her into his side, cradling her body against his. She’d sigh. They’d drift apart and the dreamswould start all over. He didn’t understand it. Why she slept so restlessly next to him was a mystery. Painful. 

In the morning he’d watch her waking and gently move her close to him again. She’d wrap her arms around him. Her fingers would trace sleepy lines along his back, up his shoulder, find the place on his neck that sent shivers through his entire being. Her hands would wander through his hair as she fought the day. She fit so perfectly against him; not like anything he’d ever had before. They’d slowly drift apart again. She’d roll over and he’d roll over and they’d both pretend that the night and it’s gentle waking hadn’t happened. But he knew she had strange dreams in his bed.

Fridays

brandil79

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October 16, 2015

Friday is the worst.  Thinking about that drive, waiting to hear what I already knew. The feeling of having to be “okay” because no one needed to know. The feeling that maybe it was going to be okay because I hadn’t heard. Then knowing it was over. I really think Fridays are the worst. Another week living with that empty.

Walk away

brandil79

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October 15, 2015

He was pushing her away. He did that. She wasn’t having it. It was difficult to convince him that she wasn’t like the others. She didn’t want to own him or change him or make him into something he had no desire to be. She wanted him the way he was when she’d met him; flawed and trying, a little angry, a lot funny.  He’d been curled up reading in his chair all afternoon, ignoring her as she quietly finished a crossword in her own corner of the den. Sun fell through the slatted blinds and dust motes danced in the beams of light. Part of her desperately wanted to cross the room, close the gap between them in a few quick strides and lift his face to hers; place a gentle  kiss on his mouth. The other part of her wanted to pull him from the chair and down to the floor and take him into her and fuck him until he had to pay attention to her again. Instead she sat and just watched him turn the pages in the worn paperback he’d been reading all day. She must have sighed, because he looked up and their eyes locked. Anger was poorly hidden and she knew it wasn’t anger at her, but anger at himself because he saw her as another mistake waiting to be made, rather than what she was; a safe place to rest his worries. She got up and hesitated, then crossed the room. His eyes never left hers and the anger slowly gave way to sadness. He was resigned that they’d make the mistakes he imagined, but she was resolved to leave him whole. She touched his face and closed his book. Bent close to look him right in the eye, inhaling the scent of him, clean and fresh and man. She touched her lips to his forehead. He touched her hands as they cradled his face and she felt him giving in. She stood up, and for both of them, she turned and walked away.

3:14

brandil79

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October 14, 2015

It’s after midnight, closerto 1:00 am and I’m sitting in the dark full of thoughts about how loss is all around us all the time. It’s not a great way to wake up. I can’t see a time when this won’t be who I am. I think about tomorrow (today) and try to plan ways to stay busy and distracted but I’m running out of ideas.

Before the alarms start sounding I’m fully aware that grief is where this is rooted. And that when the sun comes up, a new day will likely be just what I need to be a step closer to being on the other side of this. But in the quiet house and the dark rooms and the exhaustion, this feels like me. That’s all.
Edit to add: sometimes the right thing happens at the right moment, and then it seems okay again.

Not quite 1667

brandil79

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October 14, 2015

he struggled for weeks to figure out exactly  when it happened. Even when he looked back for the moment when they stopped being friends and she came to his bed, he couldn’t pinpoint the switch. It just was. She was completely remaking him and he was both terrified and exhilarated by the prospect. 

Each time he looked up and saw her sitting in his chair, legs tucked up, sketching in her notebook, he was taken by surprise. She was still there despite his best efforts to rid her of him. He’d done everything he thought would extricate her from his life. Pushed back, been cruel, been distant. He’d made fun of her politics, her naivety, her inability to make a plan and stick to it. But the truth was there whenever he was near her; he was addicted to her. To the change she was. To the way she smelled and the laugh that came so easily. She’d seen the cruelty and darkness for what it was; shelter from rejection. A way to protect himself from what she offered.

He thought of that moment. Still unable to figure out how he’d suddenly seen her and seen all the beauty in the flaws. The sudden moment when she was standing close while they worked and he caught a whiff of her hair and she smelled like campfire and vanilla and a promise of something he wanted. He’d had to use every ounce of willpower he had to keep from pushing her up against the wall and putting his mouth over hers right then.

Weeks later, sitting in the front seat of his car, coffee in her hand, she looked over at him and he saw it. She was where he was. The want was clearly written all over her face. He took the cup from her and placed it in the holder. Reached out and pulled her face to his. The feel of their lips meeting was everything. She climbed across the seat and they had sex right there in the parking lot. Her skirt hiked up over her hips, top 40 on the radio, his hands on her skin that first time,the way it felt to finally bury himself inside her; that was heaven, he’d decided. That’s where he’d go when he died.

Wade 

brandil79

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October 13, 2015

Im trying not to wade into political debates this year. I’ve decided that my politics are just that; my politics. And to be quite frank, I don’t really have any hard and fast alignments other than “don’t be a dick” and “be a good neighbor”. I consider those pretty easy to do at the personal level, community level and, rosy glasses, national level. Call me naive cuz sticks and stones. 

I have many friends and relatives whose political alignments are so far afield where I sit that sometimes it surprises me. Sometimes I surprise them. I get thrown into camps based on simple statements and that baffles me. Humanity has managed to create incredibly complex systems of government and economics and to assume that a species capable of creating such complexities will then proceed to produce citizens who neatly fit into one box or another is fairly baffling.  In just this single nation we can claim a plethora of cultural backgrounds, nationalities and personalities that are so diverse it makes my head spin at times. And so to be thrown in as a “liberal” or “conservative” based on a statement or an idea I have, just doesn’t sit with me. If we are being completely honest, if you asked me to pick a political party Id likely tell you to go eff yourself or declare myself a “Catatarian” because who wouldn’t want to support a party whose platform is “naps for all”?

You’re probably reading this waiting for me to say something you can latch onto and either love or hate me for. Sorry. See above. This is just me complaining that I have to choose. I don’t always see eye to eye with either of the big groups. And my ideals and goals for my community, state, nation, whatever, border on insanity, idiocy, idealism. Or some combination of those three. 

As we wade deeper into what is shaping up to be an ugly, angry, ridiculously redundant campaign season, I’d just ask that if we are going to talk politics, let’s do it face to face. If you want to hear my views please be ready to disagree and know that the disagreement does not need to end our friendship. We can be civil and still hold to our views. We can agree to disagree. In fact, I’d prefer my circle of friends not always see eye to eye on every detail. How boring that would be? How little personal growth that would encourage. But as you go, however deep you choose to engage; remember that there is a human behind every thought. A real live person (for the most part) behind each tweet and like. If you disagree so vehemently that you are driven to rage, there are convenient block/unfollow buttons all over social media. If an idea scares you, upsets your status quo or otherwise challenges you, push yourself to step outside your own experience and see the other side. Sit down with someone and know them before you dive in to judging them.

And with that. Good day.

brandil79

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October 12, 2015

When wanting to know a person is the scariest thing you’ve ever experienced. And then you know them and the scariest thing is losing them. And then you lose them and the scariest thing is having to go on without knowing who they become without you.

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