momentary update: i went to the party and it turned out great, the mean boy apologized early on, seemingly sincere but who knows as he's not the nicest person, but was thereafter very friendly and that's all I'm asking.

And now to the media room. Football season is drawing to a close - the thing about that is not only do I love football for it's own sake, the only time I have any social fun is August to December. I laughingly said this weekend, I rarely ever drink at all except during that time period and I know in August my poor liver says, "Oh, hell, here we go again." So, this is really a mournful period right now - there is only one home game left and it's a weekend that I don't think I'll be able to go although I'm not sure. It's drawing to a close - like it's perpetually Sunday night (I have ALWAYS found Sunday nights monumentally depressing). Now it's a return to being isolated and alone - and no, that isn't redundant.

I know what you're thinking. you're thinking that I need to find community and fulfillment outside of football season theatrics to add a social aspect to my life ... blah, blah, blah. But it's not as easy as it sounds. Making friends has never been easy for me - I can make an acquaintance easily enough, but not friends.

and is it a relationship that I need instead? Oy, i don't know about that. I don't like the idea of being responsible for someone else's well being and it turns into that too often. it's also stifling and various other terms with negative connotations. and we fuss over love, or the idea of it so much. we exalt it as the epitome of life's meaningful experiences - until the idea of it is completely unrealistic and so whimsical it can't be taken seriously. And where does that leave me?

i know nothing of love. i don't know what it is supposed to be, look or feel like. outside of romantic notions, i can assure you that i love the people in my life, especially those of my own choosing, far more deeply and with more loyalty than they love me in return. it was a fact i accepted long ago - it still stings occasionally but i think the fault therein, if there is fault, lies with me. other people can distance themselves in ways that I've never mastered. i don't love easily but once i do, it's fierce and borders on unconditional.

and romantic love? as i said, i'm not sure what one does with that. there are two lines in Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah (hands down favorite song of all time) that says, "love is not a victory march, it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah" and also, "maybe there's a god above, but all I ever learned from love, was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you. and it's not a cry that you hear at night, it's not somebody who's seen the light, it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah" these really are the kind of images love brings to mind for me.

b/c even at its best, it's terribly fragile, isn't it? it takes perpetual tending and forethought. one of the most brutal aspects of life i've seen is that no matter how long two people have been in romantic love, they can never, not ever, exhale. so many 15 and 20 year relationships i've seen end and i think, "really, you can't ever stop and take a deep breath?" how can that be?

so, i listen to these thoughts in my head and think that maybe it's not that i know nothing of it, but that i'm afraid to know it. cowardice rears its ugly head and i hate cowardly people. is it fear that makes me feel so easily smothered? if so, fear of what? am i afraid of exhaling years later to find that i am unable to take another breath? b/c breathing is difficult enough now, and i haven't been ripped to shreds in a while.

i don't know really but i feel like i'm running out of time to figure things out. there is a line in a kris delmhorst song that compares life to a batting machine and asks what if it stops throwing pitches before i hit one clean. i have a child, so my biological clock isn't ticking, but is there a clock for figuring out what you want and then obtaining it, and isn't the latter a more impossible objective, standing alone?

and still on my periphery, there is always the solution dancing that i can just end all of this. the clocks will all stop ticking, no matter their origin or purpose. the inability or unwillingness to let that go completely and surrender to life and give it back control -that's something I know i'll never master. ironically, there are times that it's the only thing that keeps me breathing.

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