Incidentally
1. I finished reading Swann's Way. What a life of pleasure I'm leading! It was exquisite.
2. There's a part in the story where Swann's love for Odette just gets switched off. It happens gradually, as Swann phases through different stages of anguish and comes to various revelations about Odette's character. But to the reader, it's almost as if Swann wakes up one day and stops loving her - because for us, it's the difference of a few pages. Within this short space, Odette goes on a trip and is away for a year, and in her absence Swann detoxes from his habit of seeing her. There's a fulcrum - "to the diminution of his love there corresponded a simultaneous diminution in his desire to remain in love - and on the other side of it, the chapter ends with Swann wondering, in a detached way, how funny it was that he suffered so much for a woman who was not even his type.
I mention this because tonight, I felt like I had a similar experience, of an obstinate obsession just being switched off. I'm referring, of course, to my 20-month love for Asshole #1, springing inexplicably out of a relationship that was really only a month long. I do have a fear that this might be but a temporary reprieve (which has happened more than once), and that tomorrow I'll wake up as wretched as I've always been. Nevertheless I hope that I may have found my way back home.
What happened tonight? Part of it is that I had such an amazing time hearing the Futureheads, it made me realize that a greater joy comes from within me than any that came from him. I saw a world that was purely me, that harmonized with my past and my tastes, that had nothing to do with him, and in which he would never quite fit in - and I loved it. In short, I discovered that the world that he opened up for me was less valuable than the one I had myself.
Though I refuse to admit it, I can't not introduce this possibility: that another reason is that Asshole #1 may be single again (I have stalkerish reasons to believe), and well, the heart is a perverse muscle. But I refuse to admit this as a factor in my switch-off because I've known this fact for over a day, and it didn't make me any less miserable yesterday. It actually made me feel more regretful, because my geography will probably never intersect with his again.
But the real epiphany that came tonight was this: I'm a different person than the one I thought I was, these past five years when I was living at school. Here in my SoCal skin, I'm back to being the shy, sensitive one - the persona I've always been growing up. Then something weird happened at school, and I blossomed into the vivacious, edgy person. I guess there's so much vivacity and edginess around here that I become positively demure by comparison. And the surprising thing is, I'm more comfortable like this. More socially awkward, maybe, but more relaxed.
Anyways, the point is that the SoCal me never would have fallen in love with Asshole #1; this me hates cocky men and loves the dreamy, thoughtful type. Somehow I was swept away by his insecure energy, his talkativeness, his brashness and his utter inability to interpret a person's feelings. Even now I'm trying to conjure up an image of my love for him; but when I look at these memories with my new, and calmer eyes, all I can see is a little boy, or a clown, or - to put it most cruelly - a buffoon. But I won't go that far; after all, I was madly in love with him, for whatever reason.
2. There's a part in the story where Swann's love for Odette just gets switched off. It happens gradually, as Swann phases through different stages of anguish and comes to various revelations about Odette's character. But to the reader, it's almost as if Swann wakes up one day and stops loving her - because for us, it's the difference of a few pages. Within this short space, Odette goes on a trip and is away for a year, and in her absence Swann detoxes from his habit of seeing her. There's a fulcrum - "to the diminution of his love there corresponded a simultaneous diminution in his desire to remain in love - and on the other side of it, the chapter ends with Swann wondering, in a detached way, how funny it was that he suffered so much for a woman who was not even his type.
I mention this because tonight, I felt like I had a similar experience, of an obstinate obsession just being switched off. I'm referring, of course, to my 20-month love for Asshole #1, springing inexplicably out of a relationship that was really only a month long. I do have a fear that this might be but a temporary reprieve (which has happened more than once), and that tomorrow I'll wake up as wretched as I've always been. Nevertheless I hope that I may have found my way back home.
What happened tonight? Part of it is that I had such an amazing time hearing the Futureheads, it made me realize that a greater joy comes from within me than any that came from him. I saw a world that was purely me, that harmonized with my past and my tastes, that had nothing to do with him, and in which he would never quite fit in - and I loved it. In short, I discovered that the world that he opened up for me was less valuable than the one I had myself.
Though I refuse to admit it, I can't not introduce this possibility: that another reason is that Asshole #1 may be single again (I have stalkerish reasons to believe), and well, the heart is a perverse muscle. But I refuse to admit this as a factor in my switch-off because I've known this fact for over a day, and it didn't make me any less miserable yesterday. It actually made me feel more regretful, because my geography will probably never intersect with his again.
But the real epiphany that came tonight was this: I'm a different person than the one I thought I was, these past five years when I was living at school. Here in my SoCal skin, I'm back to being the shy, sensitive one - the persona I've always been growing up. Then something weird happened at school, and I blossomed into the vivacious, edgy person. I guess there's so much vivacity and edginess around here that I become positively demure by comparison. And the surprising thing is, I'm more comfortable like this. More socially awkward, maybe, but more relaxed.
Anyways, the point is that the SoCal me never would have fallen in love with Asshole #1; this me hates cocky men and loves the dreamy, thoughtful type. Somehow I was swept away by his insecure energy, his talkativeness, his brashness and his utter inability to interpret a person's feelings. Even now I'm trying to conjure up an image of my love for him; but when I look at these memories with my new, and calmer eyes, all I can see is a little boy, or a clown, or - to put it most cruelly - a buffoon. But I won't go that far; after all, I was madly in love with him, for whatever reason.
posted by Rex at 1:12 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home