I Got Nothing

I had the strangest dream about Matt this morning - that he'd come home, there was some weird stuff that I'm not telling about but I should remember the feather.

And then I got up and made coffee and read some blogs which mostly seemed to be telling me things I already know but apparantly my subconscious refuses to believe.

From Beaten to Death w/a Shovel...

The past couple of days I've been packing various and sundry things. Packing always seems to go slowly for me because I have to go through everything; I flip through books and reread favorite passages, I thumb through photo albums and laugh at my ridiculous history, but most of all, I sit down with my boxes of old letters and I reread them. They're like a portal to a different time, like reopening a path between the me I am now, the me I was then, who the sender was, and who the sender is now. Like we're all standing around a dim room having a cocktail, catching up on old times, whispering rememberances into one anothers' ears.

As I sat there in the floor rereading letters from the last two years, I wasn't just swept away on a sea of emotion; I was hammered by it, I slammed into it, I was smacked, stomped, bitten, scratched, punched, and spit upon by it. Endearments fade over time, and when you look at something with a view from a different room, you see that time and circumstance have made the words hollow.

And it was then I realized, and truly appreciated for the first time, that even if you can believe something you read, it's only true for that moment. After then, the meaning fades; I miss yous and I love yous and can't stop thinking about yous become mocking, lose their lustre, they fade like old photographs held close to a flame.

Don't believe everything you read.
The truth is mutable, not everlasting.

...and one of the latest postcards from PostSecret (what hurts more than losing you...is knowing you're not fighting to keep me).

And so, about 10 blogs through my blogrolls, I'm giving up before it gets any worse and going out to the porch to read a book.

Comments

[james]

ahh, jen. i know how this feels. i have all that crap at the start of my blog, and i'm forced to leave it there because i promised myself i would not self-censor or remove posts. and they're all like little tombstones, now. or maybe more like little epitaphs: "Hic jacet James, rex quondam"... all this reminds me of something i wrote. maybe i'll post it.

[The Captain of This Boat]

Here lies James, the once and future king?

You make me laugh. You should post it.

For me, it's hard to explain, how I feel these days. The best I can do is that it's a reconciliation between what I believe and how I feel and the understanding that he felt less / different / whatever.

After looking for so long for him, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to do it. I'm not sure that what that would do to *me* and my belief system would be worth it.

*sigh* That feels even less clear.

[james]

no, no. the whole King Arthur quote thingy is "hic jacet arturus, rex quondam, rex futuris". taking some liberties with latin, i would think what i said basically means, "here lies James who once was king". it wasn't really intended to be funny...but i won't argue with laughter.

[The Captain of This Boat]

silly, I wasn't laughing AT you.

[The Captain of This Boat]

and then this, as a note to me as well.

"You know though, all the things I wrote to Matt are as true now as they were then. I think that's what frightens me. What makes it so painful. Still."

Thanks yj.