Please make me feel alive, again, again, again

Thumbnail: Jairus and Audra

It’s been an emo­tion­al time. I’m in anti-social mode, but I force myself to get out when the oppor­tu­ni­ty comes along.

One day, we hit up a din­er around noon. I wore my flip-flops, and cruised west with the wind numb­ing my skin. My stereo gets loud­er as I accel­er­ate, and it only made me dri­ve as fast as I could to see how loud I could push Wild Gardens. For a moment, it filled me with serene bliss, and that was enough, among the steel and pave­ment and sum­mer heat in spring, to give me hope.

It’s that feel­ing I’ve been crav­ing. To be the only liv­ing boy in New York.

Thumbnail: Avocado chicken sandwich

Audra tells me I smell nice when I haven’t left the house for days. Gives me the breath-steal­ing hugs. And the fact that she’s so sen­si­tive about cross­ing my bound­aries makes her the sweet­est red­head I know. It’s hard not to believe in myself when she believes in me so well.

Thumbnail: Ryan

I find it fun­ny that I have exact­ly the same lifestyle now as I did five years ago, with the only dif­fer­ence being Tai Chi sub­sti­tut­ing for table ten­nis. It’s almost like I’ve regressed to the time I was still liv­ing in an apart­ment with two room­mates, and had a brand new career.

Am I hap­pi­er? Not real­ly1. But I’m not sad­der either. I can only say that I feel like I’m a bet­ter per­son. Stronger, wis­er, and at a bet­ter place in life. I can’t ask for more.

Thumbnail: Flower

Every fresh flower is a reminder. I sup­pose she became a habit and I’m still going through with­draw­al, a symp­tom that man­i­fests itself as such tremen­dous long­ing.

It’s for this rea­son that I’ve been avoid­ing roman­tic movies. I watched Adventureland, and I real­ly should­n’t have. It’s this Hollywood hope that makes it hard, because you can’t help but see your­self in every sit­u­a­tion and won­der why it did­n’t work out for you. Maybe I’m just too cyn­i­cal now, and the cyn­i­cism ruins every hap­py end­ing, because I can’t believe in them any­more.

People still ask me how she’s doing, still tell me I’m good with her. So much for res­o­lu­tion. So much for leav­ing the past behind. But as the book says, we may be through with the past, but the past ain’t through with us.

Thumbnail: Maple syrup ham

For Easter, I had a some home-cooked, maple-baked ham, and some bril­liant con­ver­sa­tion over din­ner. In one night, all these lit­tle bits of life came togeth­er that I don’t get to expe­ri­ence often; bach­e­lor­hood isn’t con­ducive to big meals and fam­i­ly gath­er­ings. I take in as much as I can, because I nev­er know when these moments will come again.

  1. Admittedly, that was a pret­ty hap­py time in my life. []

5 comments

  1. Hey, the 1st one looks a bit like a Normal rock­well poster :)

    • Interesting. I’ve been play­ing around with colours late­ly, and try­ing to mim­ic the look of old film and vin­tage paint­ings. It’s hard for me to tell it’s work­ing though, because I have the bias of what the scene looked like in nor­mal colour, so it’s good to have some­one give me some insight into this.

    • Oops. I meant Norman Rockwell.

  2. This has noth­ing to do with your post oth­er than that for no rea­son late­ly I’ve felt so iso­lat­ed and lone­ly, even though I live with my SoulMate and best friend.

    But that’s beside my point. The pic­ture of the child. I know most peo­ple would find him adorable in most cir­cum­stances, but the wide angle of your lens makes his beau­ti­ful blue eyes look enlarged and oth­er-world­ly…

    and it only brings me back to my fear and ter­ror of chil­dren. He looks curi­ous, but he also looks like he is con­tem­plat­ing some­thing seri­ous.

    After hear­ing about the bul­ly­ing cas­es in New England that caused that beau­ti­ful Irish girl to kill her­self, it only reminds me that chil­dren are all ruth­less, and it scares me to no end. Especially now that I’m mar­ried, every­one expects me to pop out the kids and keep telling me about it: “You’re going to be a moth­er of four.” I want to tell my father in law that he can fuck off. There is no way in hell I’m spend­ing $1M on a bunch of brats I can’t take back to the store.

    On anoth­er note, as always your pho­tographs are amaz­ing.

    • I have the exact same trep­i­da­tion about hav­ing kids myself. We’re led to believe that we’re sup­posed to have uncon­di­tion­al love for our kids. What if they just hap­pen to be a bad egg, even though you show so much love and atten­tion and “do every­thing right”? How could I love my child if he/she was a mur­der­er? The thought does scare me.

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