Posts tagged with "hope"

Making A Difference

Over the last while, I’ve been receiv­ing some very nice let­ters and com­ments.

Two, in par­tic­u­lar, touched me. This one:

I stum­bled upon your blog a few days ago. I’m read­ing all your archives right now.

One of your entries moved me so much I had to pass it to my best, most initi­mate, most sensitive/sensual girl­friends. It was­n’t a big group, but a group I felt could hear what you were say­ing in your entry. It was about find­ing the spot on a woman that should be kissed.

I read your blog every day because I can’t believe there is a man out in the uni­verse who is this intu­itive, in tune, so aware of him­self emo­tion­al­ly and phys­i­cal­ly. I wish you had gone to my col­lege — you would have been so loved and admired.

So this entry dis­tress­es me, and I don’t even know you. I under­stand lon­li­ness — I’ve nev­er had inti­ma­cy, or rather, I’m very afraid of it. I don’t even know why I’m telling you all this because you don’t know me either and you won’t care, but this entry hurts. You must know by now that some­one thinks of you every­day. Maybe it is your mom, maybe an ex-lover or girl­friend or male friend or co work­er.

I think I’m more in shock that you can write so hon­est­ly and open­ly. I’m jeal­ous of that.

well, I just want­ed to let you know that. And that I have a crush on your blog. Can a per­son crush on a blog?

Please take care,
Zaira

And this from a few months ago:

Hi Jeff,

you don’t know me and we will prob­a­bly nev­er meet. It’s sort of inter­est­ing the way the inter­net has changed the way we can know some­one.

Allow me to intro­duce myself, since you have already bore your soul in a very real way that has moved me to write to a com­plete stranger-some­thing i have nev­er done.

I am a 30 yr old inte­ri­or design­er, a born and bred new york­er cur­rent­ly liv­ing in brook­lyn. It’s been slow at work late­ly, so to pass the time I have tak­en to read­ing blogs most­ly design relat­ed, but some­how i read a com­ment that you had made on a ran­dom blog, look­ing back i can’t remem­ber which one unfor­tu­nate­ly, and it led me back to your per­son­al blog some­how.

you see I am not like you at all. I feel sim­i­lar feel­ings, and even have sim­i­lar beliefs, but I don’t have the guts to put myself out there in that way. I dont even have a blog, and i can bare­ly talk to my friends about the way im feel­ing. so for me your blog is very ther­a­peu­tic and refresh­ing.

like most peo­ple who blog, im sure, you won­der if any­one out there is read­ing. Well just want­ed to let you know that I real­ly like your blog and will con­tin­ue to read it.

I have added you as a flickr con­tact and i see that you have reciprocated-*armadilliz* I am not a stalk­er / crazy per­son, or any­thing like that, just a fan, so rest easy.

Take care,

-Liz

And while peo­ple tell me how much they appre­ci­ate me being open and shar­ing myself, it’s noth­ing com­pared to what they share of them­selves in these let­ters. I don’t know what com­pels some­one to write to a total stranger, but it’s a warm­ing ges­ture, some­thing that inspires me when I’m feel­ing closed and self-con­scious.

So I want to say thank you.

Thank you to the peo­ple who’ve writ­ten me. Thank you to the peo­ple who share their own prob­lems and issues and lives. Thank you to the peo­ple who let me know that I’ve inspired them to start their own jour­nals. Thank you for sup­port­ing me when we’ve nev­er even spo­ken.

It’s your words that make me feel like I’m not so alone when I’m sit­ting in my house, won­der­ing what to do with myself. It’s your kind­ness that gives me strength when the world is falling down around me. It’s know­ing that I’ve been able to make a dif­fer­ence that keeps me going.

Thank you.

Sarah and Louise

Sarah and Louise kiss

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.

Continue read­ing “Sarah and Louise”…

Therapy in 140 Characters or Less

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.

  1. It made me real­ize I need some­one else to tell me cer­tain things, because I can’t see them for myself. I hate the fact that I can’t be strong enough for myself. I prob­a­bly should­n’t. It just means there’s some­thing else about which I’m being too hard on myself, which I’ll have to tell my psy­chol­o­gist about any­way. [↩]

Winter Window

Thumbnail: A winter scene out my window

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?

Letters From A Prisoner

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.