Philosophical Conversations with my friends on Twitter (Vol. 1)

I was reminiscing about our very brief session of middle school drinking games on Thursday night, in which a very good friend of mine asked me why my ex and I broke up. And I sighed and I told her exactly what happened, and then I let her comment on how ridiculous it was, and then I delved a little deeper into what I think we did wrong as individuals trying to be a couple. And contrary to when I clung onto T for dear life immediately after we broke up, or when cried into the phone during all of M's lunch break, or when it felt like K was the only glue holding me together, or every single thing I blogged for the next month...it didn't hurt to talk about this. I wasn't actively suppressing any emotions. There was no choking up. I didn't want to cry; in fact, if someone had suggested that this might be too difficult for me to talk about, I would have laughed at them. And I don't think it was just because I was a little drunk.

So, thinking out loud, I tweeted:

It's weird when you're totally over a situation. Last night, [Choosing Pancakes] asked me about something that had me torn to pieces over the summer, and

I could just lay out the facts like it was something that had happened to someone else. I'm not that person who was so hurt anymore. #growth

 And she responded:

@SuchAnAfroholic In one way, that's comforting, but in another way, it worries me that everything becomes ... less meaningful?

And I replied:

I don't think I could function if everything that ever happened to me retained its original meaning throughout time and space.

Could there be "moving on"? Could I "get over it"? I feel like distancing oneself is a necessary component of development and growth.

She said:

but then that makes me feel stupid for feeling things so intensely now, like i'm exaggerating.

And that is so totally, completely, and thoroughly the opposite of how I ever want to make anyone feel that I had to try to remedy it. 

I think that feeling things intensely in the moment is incredibly important. Those kinds of rushes and losing ourselves in things are

the moments we feel most alive and like what we're experiencing matters. It's like we're artists, and those moments are when we're

painting. We get lost in the colors and the strokes and in creating this glorious thing. But when we're done and it's hanging on a

wall somewhere, we have to be able to step back and say, I could have done this differently or next time I'll do this instead. We can

still be proud of our work, but if we stay in that fever of creation forever, will we ever grow as artists? I'm dubious.

 I took a short break to confirm that my extended metaphor was working, then continued:

Then I'll say that, to the best of my understanding, most brilliant art arises out of intensity. But art is expression

in the moment, and an opportunity for communication and reflection once the moment has passed. I don't think it loses significance

from the intense-creative-expressive period to the thinking-reflection period; on the contrary, without a period in which we can view

it somewhat objectively and understand the process and plan what to do next, why would the intensity matter at all? It would be

giving and giving and giving OF ourselves without ever giving back TO ourselves.

She liked my metaphor. I do too, a lot, so I figured I'd share. Also, I would like to formally retract a statement I made when I was still anti-Twitter about 160 characters not being enough to drop knowledge. 

"Playing friends well"

That's what K said after he observed our interaction, that my ex and I are "playing friends well." It was a couple hours ago, but I keep turning that little phrase over and over in my head. I guess he just meant we're playing nice, being quite cordial--friendly is probably a better word, actually--to one another. When everything first went down, we said we were going to do this. I wanted to do this. 

But then suddenly I didn't anymore. Suddenly the thought of him made me uncomfortable and I wished I didn't have to see him and if I knew anything, I knew that I didn't want to try to be friends. When K and I were on our way to party Saturday night, I knew I was going to see him, and this made me anxious enough to want to make sure liquid courage could get me through the night. 


But it wasn't terrible. "It's nice to see you" wasn't exactly the truth, but it was neither particularly awkward or painful in the least, and was a more socially acceptable statement than "I'm pleasantly surprised by how anticlimactic it is to see you." 


When he came to the Black Student Union event I was at this afternoon, I was surprised that he was there for entirely separate reasons, but generally planned to ignore his presence. Then he came up to say hey to K and I, and we had a very brief (probably only about a minute long) but altogether pleasant conversation. This is when K made his point, and I came to the startling realization that I didn't really feel like I was playing. There was no internal monologue being rude/snarky while I was being nice. I wasn't looking for an excuse to get out of there or wishing I could be anywhere else. My lack of negativity even internally surprises me. 


This might not be as bad as previously projected. Stay tuned.

"The jig is up," my mother said.

"This time next year you'll be off starting your own life hopefully somewhere far away, and that means that it's time for you to start getting rid of your junk. All the stuff in you and your sister's room, in the basement--go through it, figure out what you want to keep, what's trash, what can go to Goodwill." 

Translation: you don't live here anymore. 

I've been saying that to myself for a while now, jokingly calling myself a houseguest when I go home, but evidently the time to make that a legitimate reality is fast approaching. My mother wants me to move out of her house. 

I think this is the single most intimidating thing anyone has ever said to me. Nothing really says you're not a kid anymore like your mom wants her closet space back.

I'm claiming the GRE as an excuse to not start this project until the next time I'm home on break, but I'm already freaking out a little. I'm sure this is going to be a huge emotional rollercoaster, as I will literally be digging through the remains of my childhood and seeing most of it go out the door. 

The clothes I don't wear anymore: First, I will let my sister rifle through them. We're basically the same size and she kind of considers anything I leave in the room while I'm at school to be her property anyway. My less over-the-top semi-formal/formal dresses that still fit, I will probably keep in hopes that owning such dresses will inspire me to have a life that involves cocktail parties, fancy dates, and ridiculous birthday outings. I've been meaning to sell the others on ebay for a while now. I have a very large collection of heels, most of which still fit, but are in varying degrees of wear. I will see which of these seem most like they need to be part of my adult life, and the rest will go in the Goodwill bags.

That may be the only clearly definable category. Other random stuff I'm expecting to find: old CDs that I might try to sell at the Princeton Record Exchange for a few bucks, a ridiculous number of books that I should mail in small amounts to my friend Krystal who is teaching English in Alabama somewhere and has an absolute dearth of material for her 7th graders, nick-knacks and souvenirs from places I went on school trips in elementary school, remnants from my Magick phase, old photographs, gifts given to me by friends I barely speak to anymore. A memory box to which I've lost the key. Broken jewelry and earrings that are missing their other halves. 

What from that cornucopia of miscellany deserves salvaging? Is any of it worth bringing with me as I move forward into the rest of my life? If the remnants of the first 18 years of my life can be divided into trash bags and trash-bags-that-are-going-to-Goodwill, with the exception of two teddy bears, a couple of decorative pillows, and maybe a few pairs of shoes...where has the important stuff from my life gone? I know my mom isn't wrong when she calls it all "junk," but...it's the junk that made me. But when the junk that made you no longer defines you, you have to let it go, right?

The stuff that's in my dorm (okay, well right now is in various closets in my house waiting to go back to my dorm) is way more relevant to my last-year-of-undergrad self than anything in my bedroom is. That's scary, but it's the truth. I've grown up. It's time for that which I lay claim to to grow up too.

Yep, that's pretty accurate.

Reblogged from On the Bright Side

‘Forgetting does not mean we are forgotten. Forgetting is an active fading, a process that says we are losing, but we are also fighting back.’

Reblogged from The Good Men Project

In light of yesterday's cathartic post...

Reblogged from Too Good to be True

Finding the good in goodbye:

Before y'all start giving me hella side-eye, I want to explain that this doesn't just relate to becoming-less-recent events. This also relates to a certain old almost-relationship from high school that I find myself sometimes still wondering about, and to friendships that have died, and to every. single. time. I lay around longing for yesteryear "when things were simple and we could just be _________". Hell, when things were simple and we could just BE! 


But the next time I want something I can never go back to, I will remember this:

Reblogged from Too Good to be True

I hate when friends tell you to "get over it".

As if it's that simple, just a conscious decision you can make. As if you're not trying. As if all this pain and fear and worry and drama are things you're keeping around because they make you happy. As if your feelings are trivial and insignificant, when in reality you feel like the David to your feelings' Goliath the Hercules to your feelings' that-monster-where-when-he-cuts-off-one-head-three-more-grow-to-replace-it.

See, friend, even if you think I'm being ridiculous, you are still supposed to be there for me. You are still supposed to listen. You are still supposed put some effort into trying to understand how I'm feeling, instead of just discounting it. I am supposed to be able to feel like I matter when I start talking to you about a problem I'm having. My other friend, once she listened, thought I had "reason to be concerned". That little bit of validation and feeling like I'm not going crazy is all I was looking for. I've never done this before, remember? I'm not going to apologize for being scared of being constantly reminded of the hurt I've spent so much time trying to put behind me. I think it is a legitimate fear. I'm not going to apologize for not being Beyonce, who as far as I can tell from her songs about her breakups, has never actually cared about a single man in her life and just keeps them around until they "show their asses" and then tells them to go "to the left, to the left" and then sits around later laughing at their misfortune. I'm not going to apologize for not being jaded just yet. I'm not going to apologize for trying to prepare myself for this--pretending it's going to be rainbows and butterflies is just going to make it worse when it feels like a punch to the stomach. I just...I don't appreciate not being taken seriously.

Some things don't change

Like the fact that this is good advice:

 I wasn't being calm about love for entirely different reasons when I ordered this about two and a a half weeks ago. [insert sordid details of what went down here] When it came in the mail last week, part of me wanted to chuck it right into the recycling bin at the student center and keep it moving. But something stopped me, and ever since then it's been sitting on the far corner of the desk in my room taunting me to figure out why I kept it [besides the fact that I spent $8 on it]. And today it kind of hit me: when I bought this, I saw it as a way to remind myself that I was going to get through Situation A and everything was going to be okay. There's no reason the same reminder can't be applied to the current Situation B or future Situations C-Z and beyond. Since I live according to the inalienable rights of love, liberty, and the pursuits of happiness and nappyness, this is solid life advice. A brave little footsoldier, my heart can never go into hiding. I care too much about everything, okay...but that's me and I don't really want to change it, even if it hurts. It's my philosophy that transience is no reason not to enjoy something--to the contrary, it's more of a reason to give yourself entirely to things, because you may not always have the luxury. So I will keep using the l-word liberally, with an understanding of its many varied levels, and continue to live with my heart wide open. Above everything else, everything that happened here showed me how dangerous it is to not actually be open about my feelings in real-time. So cheers to love and carrying on with it.  

Confessions:

Small font because I'm whispering this:the hardest part about not hating him is that I have no reason not to still like him.

There. I said it. I know I'm not supposed to. I know this isn't a positive step forward in the healing process. I [think I] know it's a waste of my time. I know all my hardcore feminist friends are shaking their fists and lamenting my lack of pride right now. But silly hearts, they don't listen to heads very well. And my silly heart keeps wondering exactly how wrong it is to continue to be lovers if you aren't in love. K says married people do it all the time. Idk which option is sadder.

But then I remember that everyone deserves relationships that are equal partnerships, in which each partner is getting as much as s/he is giving and visa versa. Everyone deserves equal rankings in the priorities hierarchy. So even though right now I almost feel like if we had just a) listened to each other and b) been straightforward with each other from the beginning, we might have been on the same page the whole time, you can't go from trying to reach grown-person concepts like love and devotion to just trying to have fun and enjoy each other's company. #Lifedoesn'tworklikethat #That'sjustnothealthy

But [insert womp-womps here] #Knowingthatdoesn'tchangehowIfeel  

More songs because music makes the world go round:

 #WhatI'mtryingtobeabletomeanwhenIsayit

(I just mean the goodbye part. He's kind of intense.)

#ExceptmaybeIshouldbesayingthis

#AndwhatIactuallymeanisthis

Even smaller font because I don't even like admitting this to myself: It was easy to say that even if I knew then what I know now, I would do this again. That's still true. It's a lot harder to say that knowing what I know about everything that happened here, I'd still rather not let this go. But, silly little heart, you a) have to stop being selfish, and b) can't always get what you want. 

Continuing the confessions that are really hard to make: I'd never been treated so well in my whole life. That will be the hardest thing to let go of, I think. 

30 Day Letter Challenge--Day Twenty: To the person who broke your heart the hardest

Dear *****,

They say the first one is always the worst, right? No one understood how I could be so crushed after a week-long relationship, but our relationship wasn't really like that, was it? I've known you since the day you were born, and we [pretend] started a family of our own in kindergarten. And now, now I had to work up the courage to text you to wish you a happy birthday this year. Sometimes life fucking sucks.

And I knew that. I've known that for most of my life. I just never expected you to be one of the reasons it sucked. I expected you to never let ******* play Daddy. I expected you to write silly rap songs for me. I expected you to keep all those old home videos. I expected you to be the first person to really hold me. I expected that the feeling of your arm around my waist would become ordinary. Hell, after we were too old to take baths together anymore, I expected that a day would come when I'd see you naked again. But sometimes life falls short of our expectations, right?

Like after you raised me higher than I've ever been on a bridge of air, then made me look down and watched me fall, you expected that three years later I'd still be hanging there, waiting for you. You expected me to open my arms and take you back into my life as willingly as I did all the other times we were apart. Granted, you expected me to be angry...if I recall, you said the next time I saw you you'd spread your legs and give me a fair shot, because you know you deserve it. But you had all these expectations of being able to walk right back into that soft spot in my heart like nothing had ever happened.


And though it nearly killed me to do it, I didn't let you. I was stronger than that. I cried for days about it afterward, but eh, that was nothing compared to what I was when you destroyed me. Because that's what you did. I'm still not sure you realize that. And looking back now, I think you're the reason I pushed all my friends away, and you're probably the reason for *. If I couldn't trust you, then I couldn't trust anyone, and I could only be involved with someone I knew I couldn't love, because my heart hadn't figured out how to put itself back together again. So I said no, we couldn't try again. I said you had your chance, and you fucked it up, and that was on you. I said, however, that I missed you and wanted us to stay in contact, be friends, and you agreed.


I suppose it was silly of me to believe you. I suppose it's silly of me to have any expectations of you at all anymore, because though you were the first person who ever really knew me, we're strangers to one another now. Strangers with a long and sordid history, but strangers nonetheless. I suppose it's silly of me to want that to change. I've changed too much, and you'd probably have to, unless you have too. I'd settle for something as simple as you showing up on my News Feed on Facebook every once in a while; it seems somehow unfair not to know you.


If nothing else ever changes, I want you to know that I finally un-Humpty-Dumpty'd my heart, and while it sometimes still hurts to think about you, and it sometimes still pisses me off, I'm ready to try again...just not with you.

-The one you let get away, you silly silly boy