There’s a tremendous bond between mother and daughter, something unmatched by fathers and sons, or even mixed-sex parental relationships. You can see it just from the way they interact.
As a male, I’ll probably never be able to fully understand, but being able to recognize it and knowing that such a wonderful thing still exists is enough to make me feel as if the world is in the right place.
A couple more pictures behind the cut.
Twice in one day? What?
Five years ago, I wrote that hope was the mindkiller. It can be a euphoric feeling, but as the result of several bad experiences, the potential for disappointment outweighed the gain.
My way of dealing with disappointment was to assume the worst. It made me comfortable. There was certainty, and I could move on.
So I had learned never to hope. This is how I changed. This is how I adapted. A defence mechanism I used to protect myself from being hurt. I had been fine with this, until today.
Perhaps it was having Julie tell me that I’m better than the attitude I have, or the life I lead1, but I’m filled with hope again. For once, I dare to dream of something greater.
I want it and hate it at the same time. It gives me courage, but throws my world into uncertainty, like I’m setting myself up to be hurt again.
But Julie’s strong enough to believe in me and stubborn enough not to give up, because I’m not capable of believing in myself.
And maybe that’s enough to break the cycle.
Turning over and over in the sky, length after length of whiteness unwound over the earth and shrouded it. The blizzard was alone in the world; it had no rival.
When he climbed down from the window sill Yura’s first impulse was to dress, run outside, and start doing something.
—Doctor Zhivago
When one looks outside their window and sees this, this blanket of purity, what else can one feel but serenity, contentment, and hope?
I’m not going to deny it anymore. It’s always been you. But I understand, you don’t need to explain, I get it. Work, our lives, we’re busy. You’re about to go off on a grand adventure. And I can see why you think that a relationship with me and that adventure are mutually exclusive but I just want to say my piece. Getting lost with each other could be the greatest adventure we’ve yet to embark on and I just want to say that if you want to get lost with me I’ll always be here perpetually lost without you.
I read his letters, some dated, some titled with expressions of forlorn hope. Familiar words that cut me to the bone.
They’re beautiful. I never knew he was capable of such poignancy, such emotion. It fills me with envy.
Sometimes I just want to be noticed. Not often, but sometimes late at night when I’m thinking about the “what-ifs” of the day. Being too obvious would be dangerous though and so I slink away, back to my cave to think, rather than do. Such a coward, I loathe myself. You’d say no, every rational scenario I’ve played out ends with that.
He’s trapped, perpetually lost in the thought of another. This time, I’m on the outside, looking in. It’s all new for him, and I can hear in his voice how much he detests it.
His angst is unbecoming. He’s not a writer, but he writes these letters, hoping the catharsis will save him. I’ve been here enough times to know that it’ll be alright, but that there’s also nothing I can do to help, so I resign myself to helplessness.
And now I’ll be pre-occupied and jealous for the rest of the weekend. Me, jealous and not trusting myself to speak, me. Not me, anymore. This love is like leprosy, pieces of myself are falling away. It’s ablative.
Yet his tone is so unfamiliar, so unlike him. Me, he writes, Not me, anymore. He doesn’t even believe it himself. The sanguine friend, reduced to an enfeebled state he wants desperately to cast aside. Even with the wisdom I’ve gained, it still surprises me how attraction, infatuation, love can make one so irrational.
In these letters he shares his feelings, wholly, as if to say, “Here is my heart. Please hold it gently”. The words would strip him bare if he spoke them to her, so he writes them where no one but me will read.
A prisoner, he lives in this cage, caught between the will and the risk of expressing to her how he feels.
Three pictures.
Patience is the greatest advantage. Time brings all answers. Knowing that the sun will rise again tomorrow puts the mind at ease.
Sometimes you just need to wait.