200 miles just to learn

The only time Rob and I ever had a pri­vate con­ver­sa­tion was the night before Aaron’s wed­ding, when we were the last ones up out of the grooms­men stay­ing at my house. Aside from that, I was­n’t sure if I’ve ever con­nect­ed with him on a per­son­al lev­el; I’ve been dis­cov­er­ing how dif­fer­ent­ly some behave when oth­ers are around, and with Aaron or Mel in the mix, he’s got even more to prove than usu­al.

But I could always tell that under­neath the brash and indomitable impres­sion he gives the world is a wis­dom not shared by many. It was exact­ly that kind of aware­ness I was look­ing to be in the com­pa­ny of, so I took the chance to vis­it when it would be just the two of us. Even though we’re so dif­fer­ent in so many ways, it turns out the things we have in com­mon are more sig­nif­i­cant, and I dis­cov­ered he’s exact­ly the kind of friend I need right now.

photo montage

The man-cave most­ly fea­tures posters of com­ic book heroes and car­toon fig­urines, the only pic­tures being found in a lit­tle frame next to the com­put­er. It was strange to see two of myself in there next to one of him suck­ing back a beer with Trevor. That was back when I rocked my hair with a part down the mid­dle and occa­sion­al­ly some sol­id colour, though I don’t remem­ber any­thing about it oth­er­wise — a strange anom­aly in a per­son with a pho­to­graph­ic mem­o­ry. Lost the hood­ie, still have the coat, won’t be caught wear­ing those glass­es again.

The only oth­er peo­ple who have a pic­ture of me in their homes are Aaron and Alex. I always take those pho­tographs as a telling sign of your rela­tion­ship with some­one. It means they care enough to want you around even when you’re not there. I guess that’s why each of them have more pho­tos of me than both my par­ents com­bined, and why Rob calls me broth­er.

changing dressings

The nurse comes every day to change the dress­ings and keep an eye out for infec­tion. Aside from the list­ing hob­ble, you’d nev­er have an idea of the pun­ish­ment this body has borne under­neath, until a wince when the tube drags against his shirt. That and the fact that there isn’t a bot­tle of Blue in his hand. Otherwise, the acci­dent did­n’t change Rob at all. He’s still the hap­py-go-lucky, take-it-on-the-chin kind of guy. To him, the world has always been sim­ple, an equa­tion that can be solved with mus­cle and mass, and he car­ries both answers in spades.

Under any oth­er cir­cum­stance, I’d hate him. He’s obnox­ious, stub­born, and proud; a type I don’t get along with. But I’m also on his good side, which means he’s loy­al and lov­ing unlike any oth­er, and he shows this every time he squeezes the breath out of my chest until I’m weak and com­ing up for air. Through him, I’m learn­ing to under­stand and accept the peo­ple I’d oth­er­wise turn away from.

let us have our tongues

It’s not that I don’t want to write about how things are slow­ly chang­ing, I just nev­er seem to have the chance. Nowadays, my pri­or­i­ties are sur­vival else­where, and the writ­ten word isn’t the out­let I need any­more.

Besides, every time I try to get a thought on a page, I get lost in the scope. My think­ing con­stant­ly goes fur­ther and fur­ther, as my under­stand­ing of the world moves beyond the things that affect only me. It’s made me a more patient, com­pas­sion­ate, and empa­thet­ic per­son. But by the time I fig­ure some­thing out, the feel­ing is gone, and words are no longer rel­e­vant.

slider

I’ve been try­ing to leave my cam­era at home too, a way of forc­ing myself to savour each expe­ri­ence. It’s a del­i­cate bal­ance between that and my ever-present need to doc­u­ment every­thing. I’m dis­cov­er­ing that mem­o­ries aren’t as vivid as pho­tographs, but they live longer in the implic­it part of the mind, and both are food to an intro­vert nonethe­less.

Days with­out a way to cap­ture the world around me are nev­er easy. I want to take pic­tures of sun­light and sum­mer and sweat and sex, but life has­n’t been so much about events as the reg­u­lar­i­ty. The moments I share every day with the peo­ple I need, or the time between when I’m recharg­ing and heal­ing. The things worth appre­ci­at­ing are more fre­quent, but all the more fleet­ing too.

terminal velocity

The jour­ney lasts an hour, by turns mov­ing and bit­ter­sweet, a mix­tape with­out a name that’s pos­si­bly the most thought­ful col­lec­tion of music any­one has ever giv­en to me. It’s the addic­tion I’ve been wait­ing for. Proof that I can still be under­stood when a feel­ing is shared if not a his­to­ry.

Yet new songs on repeat don’t define this moment, cause I can’t tell when one moment ends and the next begins any­more. There’s no sense of per­ma­nence in any­thing. I don’t know whether to be scared or relieved to know that every­thing will inevitably change.

view of Mississauga, Ontario

Shawn thinks I’m plum­met­ing towards rock bot­tom cause I need to prove to myself that I can pull myself out. The idea was on the very tip of my con­scious­ness, and it’s get­ting hard­er to deny how right he is. I’ve always been a per­son who needs to explore the lim­its of the pos­si­ble. I just won­der whether I’ll sur­vive the fall.

the loving dominant

My rela­tion­ships func­tion best in a one-on-one con­text, when I’m giv­ing a sin­gle per­son my full atten­tion or vice ver­sa. I see myself as the dom­i­nant most of the time. But pow­er flows from the bot­tom up and I’m a pleas­er too, so I fre­quent­ly assume the sub­mis­sive role cause I enjoy it (need it?) so much. Knowing that I can make peo­ple hap­py is some­thing I thrive on.

At heart though, I’m a very dom­i­nant per­son, and I nev­er real­ized I was miss­ing an out­let for those ten­den­cies until Shawn hand­ed me the remote as we were about to watch Game of Thrones. He read me well enough to know that I enjoy tak­ing care of lit­tle details, and he’s even more of a pleas­er than I am, so he gave me con­trol, even though I rec­og­nize that he’s the more dom­i­nant per­son1.

Over time, I’ve become the one to do the talk­ing, to decide what we do, to make the small choic­es that remind me I have wants and needs as much as any­one else. Shawn’s a per­son I respect, and he’s nat­u­ral­ly “bet­ter” in the ways that are impor­tant to me, so being in con­trol when we hang out has been real­ly ful­fill­ing. I’m get­ting bet­ter at speak­ing out about things that both­er me and think­ing of myself and being stronger in gen­er­al.

  1. I high­ly val­ue intel­li­gence, so it’s nat­ur­al for me to sub­mit to more intel­li­gent peo­ple, and he’s way more intel­li­gent than me. He’s also a lot stronger of char­ac­ter. [↩]

a quiet moment

I took a break from gui­tar. Not a con­scious deci­sion, just days that were busy enough that I did­n’t think of pick­ing her up, which means I don’t even know how long I’d stopped. All I know is that it was long, cause I feel the strings vibrat­ing through every piece of wood that touch­es my body now, one of those sen­sa­tions you stop notic­ing after enough time.

I haven’t had much to say either. Nothing seems impor­tant. At the same time, I’m try­ing to move away from this social media over­load, where so many peo­ple speak only cause the pow­er to do makes them believe they should. It’s mak­ing the gaps between my entries longer and longer, and I won­der if I’ll even­tu­al­ly stop writ­ing alto­geth­er.

getting dressed

All I have are mem­o­ries of lives I lived so long ago that I feel like I’m watch­ing them in 8mm. The friends and the lovers, the love and the hate, the cycles and the pat­terns. I’m only now sort­ing out the mean­ing of each one, maybe cause I’ve final­ly grown enough to under­stand myself and my rela­tion­ship with the world at large. It’s com­fort­ing to see how far I’ve come when com­par­ing the per­son I am now to each per­son I used to be.

But such progress came at the cost of my inno­cence; we aren’t always ready to learn the hard­er lessons, and sur­viv­ing some­times means we change in ways that pre­vent us from becom­ing the peo­ple we’re meant to be. I’m try­ing to take back that inno­cence now, cause I know my hap­pi­ness is at stake.