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The Death of Romance

9

Romance. It dies as we get older.

I’m not talk­ing about love. Love lasts for­ever if you’re doing it right. I’m talk­ing about the time when love is still mysterious.

It’s the mys­tery that makes romance what it is. The uncer­tainty. The ner­vous­ness. The risk.

Think of high-school. Over the bra, under the blouse, hop­ing to god your parent’s don’t walk in. When you’re explor­ing someone’s body with won­der. When you’re not sure how to act, how to inter­pret things, and you’re tear­ing your heart out cause you don’t know what’s going to hap­pen next.

You lose that as you live and you learn and you grow. Confidence takes that ner­vous­ness away because you speak your mind, you share your­self, and the uncer­tainty is gone.

Maybe I’m just feel­ing old. Maybe I’m just cling­ing to the past in a fit of nos­tal­gia, to the inno­cence of my youth when love was the only thing to worry about. Romance with­out prac­ti­cal­ity, bound­aries, type, or class.

Maybe my more recent rela­tion­ships just haven’t had that ner­vous­ness. There was always that imme­di­ate con­nec­tion that leaves lit­tle room for doubt. As fiery as they were, there was no mystery.

Maybe I’m just feel­ing numb again.

John still comes to me with girl advice every now and then, when he’s los­ing sleep and he’s writ­ing ter­ri­ble, hilar­i­ous poetry. He hates the uncer­tainty, but I tell him to think of when he’s older and mar­ried to the same per­son for forty years, how much he’ll miss those feelings.

I tell him to enjoy it. To lose him­self. He should be so lucky to feel so strongly about someone.

We all should at least once in our lives, before it’s too late and the romance dies.

Date  June 18, 2007
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Categories  Thoughts

A Crush

2

I met a girl across the sea
Her hair the gold that gold can be
Are you the teacher of the heart?
Yes, but not for thee

So I asked out Jenn.

I sup­pose it shouldn’t come as a sur­prise; Jenn’s been — per­haps unwit­tingly — a source of quixotic inspi­ra­tion as of late.

It was some­thing I approached del­i­cately, out of a sense of pro­pri­ety (if indeed, such a thing still exists), and the fact that Aaron and Karen are our close mutual friends. An avowal of such a nature, han­dled incor­rectly, always has the poten­tial to be a cause of awk­ward­ness at parties.

Not that I wasn’t already awk­ward enough around her.

Jenn’s pres­ence alone would make me flus­tered. When I could speak, it would often be a flour­ish of non­sen­si­cal words. Something that’s humourous in hind­sight, but rather frus­trat­ing in the moment.

To be so affected always took me by surprise.

I would tell myself, “This will pass. This is a phase, an infat­u­a­tion; time or luck will have me grow out of this.”

And it worked, for a while. I moved on, hav­ing con­vinced myself of such an idea, never telling any­one how I felt. Then one day, I real­ized that I was only fool­ing myself. It became obvi­ous when I’d think of her in the lyrics of every song. I couldn’t pre­tend I didn’t need to defend some part of myself from her. Until then, I never believed in love at first sight. I didn’t want to believe it. After all, how do you explain such an illog­i­cal, inef­fa­ble, irre­press­ible feel­ing? I grew, but not out of this, and in vain had I struggled.

She said no.

It’s funny to think that with the wis­dom I’ve gained, the expe­ri­ences I’ve had, I can still be reduced to such an ado­les­cent emo­tion. I don’t think any­one, myself included, would have imag­ined this would hap­pen to me again, not at this age, not with what I’ve been through.

I just won­der now, when we’re both at Aaron and Karen’s wed­ding, after giv­ing me her polite dec­li­na­tion, whether I’ll still feel the same. Sometimes you think you’ve moved on. You think you’re over some­one, until you do some­thing as sim­ple as see them again and your heart stops. Love, attrac­tion, infat­u­a­tion, they’re never so con­ven­tional as to be understood.

What a silly thing a crush is.

Date  May 2, 2007
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Categories  Random

Letter To An Ex-Girlfriend: Bronwen

12

I love you too much baby
For you to be with me
I love you too much baby
I gotta set you free

—Shea Seger, I Love You Too Much

You were the clos­est I’ve ever come to per­fect in a girl­friend. In fact, you raised the bar. Now I know there are girls out there who are funny, intel­li­gent, open-minded, car­ing, sane, and I’ll always be look­ing for the same now.

Making love to you was fun because you’re so damn cute. I loved to look into your eyes, though I wish you’d be able to keep yours open.

In so many ways, we worked. My love of dark choco­late and your love of milk choco­late meant that we’d never have a prob­lem fin­ish­ing off an assorted box. You’re so easy-going, while I’m so uptight. All the lit­tle things, like puz­zle pieces made of clay.

Even though it’s been months since we’ve bro­ken up, our video is still by far the most played item on my iTunes playlist. It’s such a beat­i­ful mem­ory, and I’ll always cher­ish it.

I still miss those notes you used to leave me about what you did dur­ing the day and when you’d be back. Those times we’d take the bus, and you’d rest your head on my shoul­der. Those times we’d wres­tle and fall asleep in a pile, right there, from exhaustion.

I miss all these things, but the fact is that it didn’t feel right, and it wouldn’t be fair to either of us to keep going. You deserve to be with some­one bet­ter. Someone who will fully appre­ci­ate you and the things you do.

I know I never said it in our rela­tion­ship, but I loved you.

And I still do.

The Letter To An Ex-Girlfriend series

  1. Introduction
  2. Ashley
  3. Michele
  4. Christie
  5. Jackie
  6. Louise
  7. Bronwen
Date  April 20, 2007
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Categories  Random

Don't Let Me Lose This Feeling

10

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I still stag­ger and fall. Of course I have that, it hap­pens to me all the time, you just have to get very care­ful about it, because it’s inap­pro­pri­ate for an elderly chap to reg­is­ter authen­ti­cally his feel­ings, you know, because they really could be inter­preted, so you really have to get quite covert as you get older or you have to find some avun­cu­lar way of respond­ing, but still, you just, really are just, you’re wounded, you stag­ger, and you fall.

—Leonard Cohen at 72

In 50 years, will I look at love with the same starry-eyed mys­ti­cism as I do now?

Will I be sat­is­fied, hav­ing loved enough, requited and not?

In my dotage, will I be proud to say that I was adored once, too?

When my friends are gone and my hair is grey, and I ache in the places where I used to play, will I still stagger?

Will I still fall?

Date  March 30, 2007
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Categories  Thoughts

Jealousy As Insecurity As Love

5

Hey Pat,

I don’t know how seri­ous you thought I was about being the best man or MC if you ever get mar­ried. I know it may sound crazy, but you get­ting mar­ried is as impor­tant to me as it is to you. I love you, and I know I don’t tell you that enough. You are a true friend to me, and you know that I don’t have many.

I see this as a great oppor­tu­nity to do some­thing for you, because you’ve already done so much for me. Let me take on the respon­si­bil­ity and sup­port you, to be there for you on one of the most impor­tant days of your life. I eas­ily put aside the dif­fer­ences I’ve had with any poten­tial peo­ple you may invite (I think that we’re smart enough to be open and dis­cuss this), because it’s about you, not me.

These things are usu­ally planned pretty well in advance though, so I won’t be sur­prised if you have some­one else in mind. I under­stand that we’re talk­ing about YOUR big day, so you should have the peo­ple YOU want involved in YOUR wed­ding. To be hon­est, I’ll be happy with what­ever deci­sion you make, because I’m happy if you’re happy. Bottom line.

In any case, let me know when you pop the ques­tion, and WE WILL FEAST.

  —Jeff

I wrote this two years ago.

Pat pro­posed to Jen a cou­ple of months later. Several months after that, they bought a house, delay­ing the wed­ding until this year.

Last week, Pat asked me to be a grooms­man and co–MC.

When I found out that Jason would be best man (as well as the other MC) there was a tinge of jeal­ousy in my heart, fol­lowed by an over­whelm­ing sense of guilt about this jealousy.

To feel this way was a bit of a sur­prise. Jealously has never been one of my promi­nent emo­tions. It made me real­ize that I’m a lit­tle inse­cure in my rela­tion­ship with Pat. There’s so much good in him, com­pared to the hatred, dark­ness, and weak­ness in me. He’s not my oppo­site, but he’s the per­son I’m con­stantly striv­ing to become. Just being around him makes me feel elated and relaxed.

The frus­trat­ing thing is that I know it’s his wed­ding. He should be able to do what­ever he wants. There’s no rivalry between Jason and me. As studier of peo­ple, I have every bit of faith in Pat’s deci­sion. The logic has finally kicked in, and I feel a sense of warmth and secu­rity about being up there with Pat, a group exclu­sive to a hand­ful of peo­ple out of a seem­ingly end­less number.

It’s only now that I real­ize how self­ish and inap­pro­pri­ate it was of me to ask. Running around, mak­ing sure every­one is hav­ing a good time, giv­ing toasts, host­ing games, the duty of MC isn’t even some­thing I nor­mally want to do. I only asked because it was a way that I could show how much Pat has done for me, a respon­si­bil­ity I’d take on gladly.

I’m scared that I made him feel obliged, and I’m ashamed of being jeal­ous for that split-second.

Maybe that’s what love is.

Unfounded inse­cu­rity. Jealousy with­out reason.

A feel­ing that over­whelms logic.

Date  February 2, 2007
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Categories  Daily Life Thoughts

The Beginning To The End

27

This was the week­end we first met.

The first time we kissed. The first time we held each other. The first time we slept with arms entwined, bod­ies bare and buried under the covers.

It was before the snow melted on the verge of spring, when I would open the win­dows to dry the sweat from our skin.

I put on a song that made me cry, because she said that it turned her on, and with the tears welling up in my lids, we stared into each oth­ers’ eyes.

From the moment we touched, there was never any awk­ward­ness. Only a com­plete trust, a com­fort­ing famil­iar­ity, as if we’d known each other for years, a gen­tle nuz­zle of the nose from my baby-faced doll.

And now it’s over.

Someone who saw this video sent me this very touch­ing let­ter about her story of rape and recovery.

Date  September 4, 2006
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Categories  Daily Life Popular Video

It's Over

5

There’s no room for con­fu­sion or regret. One can only thrust one­self for­ward, never look­ing back, never ques­tion­ing what was once said. To learn from these mis­takes is the only sav­ing grace. Busyness is sim­ply self-distraction, and to believe oth­er­wise is self-delusion.

So do you fuck him harder, to bury the love you once had, to drown the guilt with fer­vent voices? To con­vince your­self that it’s over, and that this is bet­ter anyway?

And do you try to love him more, because you can’t love me?

Date  December 14, 2005
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Categories  Thoughts

Thrice = Love: The Rush

0

I want to take the bul­let,
The one aimed straight for your heart.
I want to meet the wolves halfway
And let them tear me apart,
But that’s not the way they do it here.

I want to lay on the tracks,
Feel hot steel scream­ing at me.
Expose the bones on my back,
Let me show you what I mean.

Yeah, it’s a dif­fer­ent kind of love.
I want to climb barbed wire fences
And warm our hands in blood.

And this is my gift
Asking you to fix my ruined hands.
And it’s a gift that keeps on giv­ing,
And right now it’s all I have to give.

I want to write the per­fect song,
And play it just for you,
While you are tan­gled up in sleep.
I need you more than I’ll ever know.
Until I stop breath­ing,
My lungs will take you for granted.

—Thrice, In Years To Come

I remem­ber a time in my life when I was scared about love. A set of rather ado­les­cent expe­ri­ences in high school, of which I only now find myself com­fort­able speak­ing frankly, had caused me to cling to an unat­tain­able ideal. In Lolita, Humbert Humbert well describes such a hap­pen­stance that sim­i­larly “made of it a per­ma­nent obsta­cle to any fur­ther romance through­out the cold years of my youth. The spir­i­tual and the phys­i­cal had been blended in us with a per­fec­tion that must remain incom­pre­hen­si­ble to the matter-of-fact, crude, standard-brained young­sters of today”.

Eventually, I had given up my ideal, but still felt for­ever tainted, regret­fully break­ing more than enough hearts in the process.

It only took an ardent, extremely brief sum­mer romance to free me, and a jour­ney of 12500 kilo­me­tres to real­ize it.

And as fleet­ing as the entire expe­ri­ence was, it still enough to gal­va­nize, to make me want to take that bul­let, or let the wolves tear me apart. Being tan­gled up in that mad love, the love that goes against rea­son or bet­ter judge­ment, soft­ened the stone in my chest, and it felt like I was finally alive.

Gimmie a girl who can make me feel this way.

The Thrice = Love Series

  1. Introduction
  2. The Journey
  3. As The Crucible
  4. Rock It
  5. The Rush
  6. Far From The End
Date  October 30, 2005
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Categories  Thoughts
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