2011年9月18日 Being wrong

I realized I was wrong about something after the other day's post about music. And no, the music didn't help, it just made things much worse, even though I like the music I posted.

No, it's not about the puzzle. But I was wrong about something.



I have often said "I do not like it when I am right." in regards to deep issues which could cause grief or worse. This time, albeit sadly in some awkward way, I am wrong and happy about it.

So blame this post on music.

It started several several months ago after sending a short story to someone (Fig). Fig replied back to me with all kinds of commentary and quibbles about the character and the character's relationship with a woman. At the time I more or less disagreed, since I empathized with the character to some extent. As I should, since I wrote it. The point is that what Fig was trying to point out was that more can be done, it's not just a story that sucks, even though realistic to some extent, but rather a higher degree of growth could happen.

Here's the story:
***************
& that's why I couldn't share mine or "A whisper of truth"

She lived with me for several years before she knew I never would love her.
She threw things at me.
Words, feelings, and books she loved.
And I saw the pictures she took,
the ones she invested her heart in,
broken against the wall.
It wasn't a game to her, but she somehow started playing it anyway.
Plates she bought with a smile, broken on the floor.
She came crashing down in front of me,

She seemed to feel everything.

The pots she made in her evening classes, broken.
Flowers, which I didn't know at the time, also broken. Her disguises were broken.
When there was nothing left to break, she broke herself.

It wasn't a body. It wasn't flesh. It wasn't anything I was familiar with.
She stopped. The movement of her before, during, and until this point. It was over.
She stopped moving.
She stopped her heart.

I watched her for an hour.
Not the whole time,
but long enough to finish my after-work cocktail.
Digesting the familiarity of the bourbon and the situation,
I began to slump on the arm of the chair.
The only time I felt anything meaningful towards her was at that moment.
She stood up and said we were done.

I did not break her, the way she broke herself.
She couldn't break what already was,
or what I already was.

She called me cold, unreal, inhuman, nothing, worthless, and everything.
She called me names. She said I was without feelings, uncaring.
She said she'd be anything do anything for me.
She said she didn't care about my success or my career.
She said she didn't care about what her friends thought about me.
All she wanted was for me to love her.

She called me a miserable broken man.

It was when it stopped, and I began thinking about that time long ago.
Some woman far away from me now, I looked up at her.
I looked beyond the words and the name calling.

"Since that time long ago when she broke me like you break yourself now,
outside of periodic misery,
I have always been a broken man."

She stopped, she knew she couldn't stay.
She and I knew why I wouldn't let her.

I watched her clean up her mess in the kitchen.
Her mumbling made me wonder if there was another refrigerator in there that I didn't know about.

When she finished the kitchen,
She came out with two drinks.

Her composure regained as she sat adjacent from me on the couch.
"Do you know why she broke your heart?"
I wasn't able to say more than "No." after drinking of course.
"Why can't you love me?
Why are you breaking my heart?
I love you.
Why can't you love me?"
And though her tumbler didn't have much ice anyhow, I could see that she had already finished half.
"Unlike what this room, and what the kitchen looks like now, I never knew where to begin.
You know why I ca-
I can't love you."
I watched her die in the rest of her drink.
I watched her wonder how to live again.
She couldn't understand me, or rather she didn't want to.
I could see it was the first time she felt like dying, and letting go.

I never experienced that like her. I always felt like dying.
I always felt like letting it go. I always felt.

And know you know why I cannot share love with you.
And others will know why as well, if they knew.
But I will never know why the woman from long ago couldn't love me,
the woman who showed me my life and how to live.

It wasn't her on the couch in front of me.
It was another, the one
still with my heart from long ago.

And that's why.

********************

Not until after I completed 2011年9月12日 Puzzling did I even realize that Figs was right.

Points from Fig (with my present-day commentary points in orange),

I didn't like it because it's cruel. That's the point.Why would she be there in the first place? You're asking me to explain how women think?Why would he let her in? Sometimes people need a warm body. Look how far the sun is, and yet people still love it.[Love] changes when you fall in love with someone new. What if you're already with someone?

These questions and answers went on and on when they first happened, and not just from Fig, but even myself! So surprise there. During that time nothing was solved.

Being a friend and harbinger of challenges, I thought he was just disagreeing due to a difference in feelings. Though up until Puzzling I didn't realize what Fig said had not only tangible merit, but a personal merit as well. I don't think I would have realized this without going back to those emails and looking them over. It also helped to discuss these issues with my cabinet members, even though Fig is one of them. Conclusion: Fig was right on a critical issue, when the expectation to be right was (at the original time was to be) open to interpretation.

Now all I can think about is paying some sort of ritualistic - no pagan, see no homo - tribute in honor of such.

I'm sure I will think of something, whatever it is, I'll make sure I get video of it.

In terms of tagging.
I used to think that the "You" category was reserved for my feelings towards ex-flames only. Now I know that it genuinely represents a lot more than that. That's twice I've been wrong. But I am right about one thing, and that's what I posted at the end of my first "You" section:

Maybe when I think of you, it's as if I'm "reaching for a taste that's not really there." 

Even if I walked a mile - not for a camel - I'd find something, but it probably wouldn't be you.

Emphasis mine.

Sometimes we lose our desire for a certain taste.

And, no, I didn't find any of those old-flames nor did they find me.

And in actuality, I'm happy I didn't.

I have more** today, I see clearly (with contacts of course).

What did I learn? It helps to eat figs, which are good for blood pressure. 

[...][F]or the blood is the life[...], Deuteronomy 12:23 (Etz Hayim). 

Therefore, figs can help with pressures of life.

Interesting.
** Pick either more for Jews or derivatives, or more for atheists.