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Monday, May. 26, 2003 / 2:48 p.m. ~On the Journaler's Questions~ What have we done? What have we said? What went wrong? And do we want to tell the world? Do we want to be intimate with strangers? Do we want to lay our pasts on tables for all to see, for all to walk by and gasp or giggle and leave a comment here and there? The past is for stories, and we choose how much to tell. I can leave out all the bad, I don't want to be judged too harshly. I will tell it so that I look the martyr, and I will tell it so that I seem in the right. But there were more people there, the past is filled with people who must tell their own stories. Best left there, in the past. The past is for dark nights, late at night on dark nights, new moon nights, for nights with so much dreaming no rest is felt. For nights when no sleep comes. When we lie awake looking at ceilings, or out windows, trying to see the light. It's gone, it can't be changed, and is dredging through it really the best thing? Have I moved on? I don't remember anything anymore, anything that happened. I think I wrote it all, for myself, I think it's on pieces of paper folded together, or bound in books, I think I wrote it and left it for some unknown 'later' that hopefully never comes. Now is all there is. There is nothing else, the past is over, it's done, it cannot be altered, not in any way. The future is unknowable. You can die tomorrow. You can slip in the shower while you're reaching for the soap that fell to the drain, you can fall and hit your head, suffer a hematoma that swells and bursts and kills you in a matter of hours, minutes. Now is all there is. Now is me typing on this keyboard, and I hit the backspace key so fast each time I make an error. Because I do make errors. I type fast, I make an error, backspace, backspace, keep moving, forward, forward, just typing what I'm thinking. And the past isn't even in question, it's so far behind me now. I did remember a Memorial Day when D and I had bought grill food, hot dogs and ground beef for hamburgers, but with just us two it was too much food. And we had nothing to talk about at times, so we ate and sat, or ate and played Clue, because we loved to play games. Clue, Monopoly, Cribbage, Backgammon, we played games because we loved to compete, but we didn't share our minds, our souls. It was empty. But why even think of it? It was a flash of memory, I only thought for a brief moment that we ate hot dogs and hamburgers and we had too much food, as always, because we loved to eat, we loved to cook, but there were only two of us. Move on. Keep going, hit the backspace key if you need to, but this is all there is. And the next moment and the next. What will I do....... in the...... NEXT moment? Take a sip of coffee. Sing "Starry Starry Night" as I admire the Van Gogh design on my mug. Look at the rug, the toy Gladys brought me last night still lying there. Briefly worry about feline mammary tumors. Briefly consider the mortality of my cats. Backspace, type, backspace, look at screen, 'Your buddy list' is in orange. Things, little things, and what comes NEXT. That's it. Maybe the analysis I've done has been in my own head. Maybe it comes naturally to me to do it that way. Maybe I don't turn to others to figure out my problems. Maybe I sought counseling once in my life because it was bigger than me. The hurt was bigger and I couldn't fix it and I got scared. But a few sessions later I questioned myself, I could do it on my own, I could write and write all night, I could drink wine and smoke marijuana and type on that word processor, sitting at the gateleg table under the ceiling fan, listening to music, feeling the breeze come in from the French doors, and all I felt was then transferred to paper. There was no Interweb for me then. There were no strangers to tell, no people judging me. Maybe writing online is detrimental. Maybe some people use it as a means to connect, but once you've aired all your dirty little secrets maybe you've lost any hope of connecting, you've said too much. But they're not dirty to you, they're certainly not little, and why should they be secrets? But if you don't see it, you never will, and you've turned to the wrong people, you're only there because you don't have to look them in the eye, and they can't look into yours. It's now. It's only now. And what comes next. And I feel free. Cost of the War in Iraq
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