--with a cherry on top

I read a poem once that explained that we contain all our years at once. That when we turn 5 we are really just 5, 4, 3, 2, and 1 all at once. So the older you are, the more you are in terms of person, emotion, understanding, experience--and it goes on and on and on.

It's why you can be so mature and then have something small happen and feel completely defeated. It's why sometimes you get stupid again---you make mistakes big girls don't make, you cry when you shouldn't, you pout when you don't when you don't get your way.

Think of yourself as a sundae. Can you imagine 19 toppings on a sundae. It's overwhelming. Today I thought about how simplistic life was. When all I had was rainbow sprinkles, whip cream, a cherry on top, and a smile on my face, I had no concern or fear or sense of relation to that bowl. I was just living because that's what I was and I was just eating because someone placed it in front of me. When you're little you don't understand.

But I also realize that for everything I add, something is taken away. I know that I no longer have the innocence I once did. Things have become more messy and more murky in clarity. Ambiguity reigns supreme in Life's sundae.

Now. Life has given me 19 toppings. I'm not always sure what I'm supposed to do with this bowl in front of me, but I know I want it in front of me. I know that I've picked my toppings well. I know that anything contained with in that bowl is something I'm proud of, even if I shouldn't be. Because even moments I've regreted have made me. I've assembled myself. You know what....I'm a kick-ass sundae.

If I ever get overwhelmed, my bowl still contains the rainbow sprinkles, whip cream, and a cherry on top.

--and when I see my reflection, there's a smile on my face.

I smile...even when logic says to frown...I smile

So--I bought a whole bunch of york peppermint patties today, and I thought about you for the first time in a long time. Which is weird because you are hanging above my computer in two pictures....nestled in the life I used to know and beside people I still love and care deeply for.

I thought it was weird how as soon as my hand touched the crinkled foil, I thought of you. I could see you eating one of them in my memory and how excited you got. I also think that it was strange, to say in the least, that it was that glint of a moment that sprang to my mind. How the world seemed to stop while I was watching you eat that york in all of your eccentricities, with a grin on your face and some rock band playing in the background. I hope that the next time I touch a york something else comes to mind

Like how my mom and I used to eat them when we were pulling out of the gas station. Those gas stations of the past that were labeled $1.26/gal unleaded. I would rather that memory because yours holds less value to me than the past price of gas.

I also thought it was interesting that only in the analysis do I feel any bitterness. That when the memory occurred I didn't feel anything, I just saw you eating chocolate with a slowed grin...it was complete indifference. I didn't acknowledge the moment, I didn't think about what led us here, and I certainly didn't think about how things would have been if things hadn't been and hadn't happened.

so thanks for the memories---even if they weren't that good *the yorks nestled in a closed drawer

I wouldn't have it any other way :) We've moved on...I'll open the drawer and eat them sometime--I'll think of my mom instead and if my thoughts turn to you, they'll be thoughts of indifference, just like the last...We've moved on

I'm sitting here alone in silence with the exception of my thoughts. With the exceptions of these words and the clacks of the keys as I apply understanding through letters. I'm trying to learn from the world. I'm learning from you, I'm learning from her, I'm learning from him. I read it in a book, I saw it on TV, I heard it through the grapevine. I'm not leaving, but I'm not staying. Damned if I know where I'm going or where I'll end up but....

I'm going with my music blaring and the top down....and as we pass---you know a smile will be on my face. Because that's what happy people do.

We smile for no reason.....and at the same time

We smile for all reason

.....as we pass among ourselves

Sometimes I look at the world, and I really think "All of this is mine to make what I wish". Then other times I think "Shit, what am I making".

You hope that...somehow when its all said and done--someone will be better for it.

But who is this someone? This strange person you have yet to meet. The person who will become your best friend. The person you'll hate at first but grow to like. The person you've hated from the beginning. Who are you? What are you about?

Can I trust you, can I trust myself, can I be loyal to you? How will things end up?

Okay

first, breathe in and out and in and out---and do this so many times until you forget the difference in the exchange. Forget you're breathing. Forget that you're functioning or taking action and just do. Be a machine for one second of your day and allow yourself to work without thinking.

Don't open your mouth--just listen. Listen to the world. The world that has been speaking for so long---the scuttle of squirrels feet as they run past you, below you, above you. Listen to words being generated as they walk by. Listen to silence. Listen to your body, listen to your needs, listen to your wants.

There are so many other wonderful lives around us that we simply walk past. We don't acknowledge them and they return the favor. We drift by each other already cut-off. Already separated by the tiles between us. Smile. Smile at them. Make yourself known---acknowledge that there are lives outside yourself. We know they are there---but to actually recognize them as more than just living--to understand that they have thoughts, however different from your own, that rush across their minds. They have instincts and impulses that they deprive or indulge. They have regrets. They have successes.

To realize that they too are carving out a place for themselves in the now that becomes history....they are making decisions---discovering things about themselves---and maybe, if you're lucky...they are wondering about you.

And maybe that will be the only impact you have on them....maybe you will be their epiphany by simply existing. Perhaps you will be nameless, perhaps you will be that guy on the red bike who changed my life forever. And, yet again, perhaps you won't. Perhaps we'll continue to walk by each other in silence...

just dots on the pages of history will pass between us

........

but we'll always have perhaps and maybe. And in those words lays a potential energy; an energy as malleable as the world we are walking in. We can shape them....just as they shape ourselves.

........