Shadows

From an old journal

Sometimes the past comes back, not in a hurtful way, not in a manner of sublime sadness, or even in a way of longing. It just comes back when you don’t expect it and says hello. I imagine myself opening the door to my apartment looking outside and seeing my old house in Maryland or a sandy trail in Jersey, or a frozen bridge in tabernacle. It’s not that it’s surprising necessarily. just definitely unexpected.

How can I explain some people in my life? Years go by and rather than get less important, some individuals seem to get bigger, more full of meaning and relevancy. Old yearnings transform into complex criteria for future relationships and the most painful moments become the most valued. In this, still, there are fires burning deep inside that warm me to my core where once they burned me deeply. Is it the same when a beaten child finds a sense of comfort in it?

So the past wrote me, as it was. Soft underbelly… When I think back, I can’t remember more than two times that I ever found weakness in those eyes. Perhaps that was one of my early faults. I’ve become a much stronger person since, but even so, it’s nice to be offered a sign of weakness. It’s comforting.

So I’m an addict born of my early pains. I’d like to think we all are, but that’s wishful thinking and I’m anything but an optimist. I will talk to her, and she will lose something for that. Maybe I will help her and she will get something from it, or maybe life will take a direction I don’t foresee. I’d like to believe that can happen in a good way.

The crux of it is that my life is defined by people. A very short list of people. And at the top of that list is one person who, through no fault of her own, I find both intoxicating and nauseating. The best mental image in my mind is of her smile, and yet I’ve never known such pain as that very same moment. It is these complex feelings that make up me, as James at least. As for the rest of me, well… that’s a whole different post altogether, and one I don’t expect will come out anytime soon.