Things you may not know and a world of maybe

For recent stories about my life, check out the China blog (www.dimsumseeker.blogspot.com). For now, this is kinda the final poem from the chapter in my life that became closed at the end of July this summer. One final poem about her...

You used to hold poetry in your words
And in your eyes
Even though you never knew it
Or maybe you did but never shared that awareness
With me

And you also didn't know
That you became my muse
In all the struggles we faced
And in the turmoil I could feel
Living underneath your skin

You were my biggest challenge
And my biggest triumph
And for so many of those early months I considered the fact
That maybe I was reaching beyond my world

 As Icarus, you were my sun
And maybe now I am simply plunging into the ocean
If the tale were true

But I'm starting to understand
That such tales are merely dreams of fiction
And not reality
No matter how much welled up inside me
You were not all there was 

A gleaming star for a time, but not the only star in my skies
And maybe I dreamed you to be something else
When I looked at you
Which led to this inevitable fall
Or maybe I'm just getting caught up
In all my romantic tendencies
As an attempt to immortalize our story

The attempt remains fruitless
As we've proved that we were mortal
We lived. We died.

Maybe we embraced excitement and passion
Before we began to live in a banal world
And the appeal I held for you early on
Melted away as I embraced my inner pragmatist
Maybe you fell out of love with me long before I knew I lost you

I used to consider it my biggest failure
That I could not find and give you 
What you truly sought
I was only able to provide
The things you asked for over the years
Thinking they'd be the balm to soothe
All your anxious unhappiness

Still, I knew that all these things
Wouldn't lead the way to happiness
Or satisfaction
Or simple contentment
But that didn't destroy my hope of maybe

Not at that moment, anyway

Since then there has been calm, then storm, then distance
Before resolute calm again
But the most recent torrents marooned us
On islands endlessly distant
So now we call across oceans in meager attempts
To salve what remains

What still exists in my mind is what I remember before
And it's those memories that I'll cling to 
As a way of salvaging what we were.
You are not what's to come, 
But you'll always be that piece of who I used to be.

T

Finding solid ground

I spend a lot of time thinking about the most recent 14 chunks hours in my life, as if in these small clumps of motion and emotion, all truth is to be found in one's character.... where it goes right and where it goes wrong and sometimes just about the fact that it goes. These moments are almost always filled with uncertainty or overwhelming triumphs or curiosities or crushing defeats or questions or frustrations or endless attempts to justify and rationalize and normalize and ratify... to condense, to tease out, to pull it all apart and to piece it all back together.

I'm in that very circle right now, replaying and analyzing the confusion of the past day, and I keep coming up with more questions and keep finding myself confused. This is a pretty common result, and it often ends with me being frustrated and uncertain of myself. Often I come to realize later that I completely overthought everything and I can move on, but sometimes it seems so easy to get tangled in the "why" of such periods of overly-paranoid moments (or moments that stretch into hours and days).

I'm being aloof (as I often am) for a number of reasons. Part of it is to protect my self, but also to maintain anonymity for others. But I just hate these moments of confused self-doubt... they throw me into an introspective and sometimes semi-miserable state and it takes me a little while to snap out of the funk. So many things that simply felt strange took place last night, and there were so many things that just didn't seem to conform to what I was expecting that I've been inside my head all day. In two days, I'm sure these things will be far from my mind (or at least more so than now), but for now, my mind is a big tangle of questions and old urges to try to rectify and justify the confusion... but I know where that road ends and it's not a good place. So, here I stand, attempting to find some solid ground for myself... breaking old habits and figuring out if I have control over the confusion of these nights gone by. Until then, my feet keep moving and I keep running to clear my head.

T

Long days

So, vacationing is a lot more work than I ever expect it to be. It's exhausting and taxing on an emotional sanity level. It's like there's always someone to see or something to do or some form of entertainment that you have to participate in so as to maximize the time. Every moment is filled with people and the off-switch only comes during sleep time, which is typically never long enough. I know I'm the only one to blame, but I am absolutely spent right now. Not even physically... just personally.

I realize that I shouldn't complain, but after 10 days in Vic, 2 in Vancouver, 3 in Kelowna, a week in Lethy followed by another family-filled week in Montana, I'm ready for a nap. A long nap. And maybe my own apartment again. I got pretty used to being social only 2 days a week. Now that I'm on a 4 week stretch of socializing and family time, I'm ready to melt away into nothing. I think I might be a hermit tonight. I have to find a way to save my sanity.

That being said, I've started the countdown to China. I have less than 2 weeks to go before my flight and I still have a bunch of stuff to do. I might just call it quits on a few of the more minor projects, but time will tell. More to come in coming days. For now, food and caffeine call.

T