forgive me if I want to chew out your eyes

[foxtongue]

Photo from Underground
Originally uploaded by Frankie Roberto.

Yesterday was a long test of my breaking points, from every trying direction. An exercise in self immolation. I had put all my energy into preparing to put Matthew on a plane, I had nothing more. The bomb blast in London was not as shattering an event as it's perpetrators were perhaps hoping for, (nice of them to choose a date which makes sense both sides of the water, I thought, very considerate), but they have managed to wash our increasingly small world with justified concern.

At work I checked my e-mail, the early morning having been spent on a death grip attempt to hold onto my last vestiges of restful sleep then by airport checks, is this going to delay his flight? Change his flight? and was informed that an old friend had died. A pilot from Hope had a heart attack and didn't make it. He was a good man, watching out for Marrissa and I when we were much younger and more liable to sneak off to the other end of the airfield at night to watch the stars fall down and sip at Chetan's family stash of Sweet Cherabim apple cider. I've been absent there for a long time, several years now, but I'd known him since I was ten.

The next letter was worse, a discovery of trust violated. There were other things in my in-box, a few girlish letters I was happy about, I'm pen-pal-ing someone like I promised, and that's pleasant, but they were all overwhelmed by one tiny note. I had to excuse myself, leave my desk and sit instead on the floor of the lavatory with my head on my knees. The day I put my love on the plane should not be the day my trust base is assassinated, but it was.

This was where I began to be disturbed at my ability for composure, at how quickly I'm able to simply eat what's hurting me and continue, as the day before was less than great as well. In fact, every week lined up since the beginning of May has had tiny shattering disasters scattered about within it. I'm half as worried about myself as what's been going on, because I've no clue what to do with stress. I've no one I may talk with, no hobby that vents anything. No outlet. At first it was tucked away in small corners of my mind, goading me to cry when I was tired and alone, then I began to find it in my body, I would tap on things and flick my fingers, pressing my hands into fists and releasing them over and over. Now, I don't even know now. My teeth are stones, my tongue contains acid, and I am so very careful not to let it show. Someone said the other day that I'm going to die of machismo, and they might be right, but I don't know any other way. I only want my hands to stop shaking.

I was controlled by the time Sandi came to pick me from work. We made small talk successfully in the car on our way to Matthew and I even managed to laugh a little when we arrived. He was packed, his entire life in a giant black suitcase open in the middle of the floor. The rest of the apartment looked exactly as it always does, a hotel room set-up with a futon instead of a bed, all the personal touches looking committee approved. Even under the crushing weight of Matthew's departure, I was glad to leave.

The airport was simply that. A hiatus place, where the food is merely something to do until enough time has passed and the people aren't real, but props with which to make meaningless conversation. I've kissed three people goodbye there now, though never when I myself was leaving, only when I was being left behind while they continued their lives without me. he's been here too Part of the reason why I haven't applied for my passport again is that I know if I have one, I won't say goodbye and leave through the doors, instead I will walk up to a counter, any counter, and buy the cheapest ticket possible rather than return to Vancouver proper. That's dangerous behaviour and it's good to have a yoke for it.

A baggage handler smiled at me fondly when I saw Matthew off. He looked over and you could read in his face that he thought we were sweet, our kisses seen with nostalgia. I wanted to hit him, but instead I turned away. I found something to take with me from the kiosks, a tradition of mine to keep balance, a mental koan of departure, and caught buses back to the office.

After that was my first day of work at the chocolate shop.

I was half an hour late but my supervisor decided to mark me down as on time anyway, my co-workers are the most friendly people I've ever worked with, (if a shop were to be run by the people who stay at global backpackers hostels, that might be similar), I must have had a quarter pound of chocolate and a half pint of ice-cream and gelati, rounding it off on my way home with a frozen chocolate dipped nanimo bar, and I still came home depressed.

The next five weeks are going to be long.
I wish I knew how to let people be nice to me.

Comments

[cantstoptharock.livejournal.com]

that was lovely and bittersweet and invoked memories of my one time i had a good bye at an airport.
i was the leaver then, and in tears, while he stood by strong, smiling and encouraging me to go.
he didn't have the guts to ask me to stay.
for years, i'd lie awake at night and wish he had.

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

I told someone to go once, and I had to stand and smile, and that was just right, but there was another time when someone else was leaving, where they were the one smiling, and that bothered me for weeks afterward.

[cantstoptharock.livejournal.com]

He confessed to me later that he'd broken down on the way home from the airport - had to pull over to control the sorrow, cars slowing to peer at him as he cried at the steering wheel. He'd wanted to ask, but thought it improper. I'd looked to excited to go he said.

It ate both of us alive, for so long.

I hope the pretenses of him going away are better than mine had been.

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

We're fairly clean of pretense, both of us the sort of people who chafe dreadfully under such ideals. Respect, yes, false faces, not so much.

I hope it worked out between you to eventually.

[mad-and-crazy.livejournal.com]

I wish I knew how to let people be nice to me.

Umm, you just did?

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

That Chris finds me crying a pretty thing sort of takes away form the comfort just a wee bit.

[mad-and-crazy.livejournal.com]

... eeeeeeeeeeeeeh.

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

ah country mouse, you're so easy to break.

[mad-and-crazy.livejournal.com]

The country mouse is not broken. Merely squicked.

Anyhow, isn't there a point in this story where the town mouse is supposed to come out to the country and be chased by Owls?

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

See Also: my childhood.

[mad-and-crazy.livejournal.com]

I'd forgotten about that - you're actually more of a country mouse than I am.

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

Oh certainly not, but I've certainly had my visit.

[mad-and-crazy.livejournal.com]

Hah!

Country Mouse did Gothic Dance for 20 minutes in Beacon Hill Park today with mysterious Russian woman with boombox. Country Mouse got lip bitten off shortly thereafter, and was left slightly stunned. Country Mouse also saw two men puking up large quantities of blood on the street today, all over the pavement, then running off with no comment.

Country Mouse so fuckin' wins.

[mad-and-crazy.livejournal.com]

(country mouse is clearly channelling somebody, and is going to go drink more coffee now.)

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

I do apologise. I didn't mean to be so memetic.

[mad-and-crazy.livejournal.com]

All is forgiven.

[naekkae.livejournal.com]

i went through a series of long distance relationships, like i couldn't handle anyone too close for too long, and my memories of these years are filled with random airports and train stations and tearful goodbyes. long distance phone calls and incredibly long emails and sleeping alone at night.

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

Somehow, by accident, I'm so used to long distance relationships now that even now, when I'm with somebody who lives in Vancouver, it's like I expect them to be inaccessable as soon as they're out of eye-sight. They catch a bus and it's like they left town. On some level it was a relief to put them on a plane, because now all my reaactions are valid again.

[naekkae.livejournal.com]

i'm still fiercely independant. my husband and i have lived together for 3 years now and he has learned to give me A LOT of breathing room. ocassionally i will get in the car and run away and have time to myself to breath and think. i always feel so much better afterwards. it's hard on doug, but he knows it's just one of my things.

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

That would be hard, yes. I'm glad you've found someone who understands such urges. I myself don't tend to have them. Rather, I have times when I simply can't be left alone, when in spite of how badly the timing, I have to be social lest I go squirrely. I don't like that I haven't been able to flick the relationship switch properly with Matthew, how we're always on hiatus. I'm hoping that when he returns, my subconscious will understand that he's back.

[naekkae.livejournal.com]

how long till you see him again?

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

Five weeks.

It doesn't seem like a very long time at all, until you attempt to hold your breath for longer than three minutes.

[naekkae.livejournal.com]

i always found that anything longer than a month felt like eternity.

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

I've done three, but I found myself feeling unsubstantial on my walks home from being out, like if the wind were to pick up, I twould blow me away.

[childofcrow.livejournal.com]

Airports are some of the happiest and saddest places in the world.

I don't do airports. Just like I don't do funerals.

I'm never very good at saying goodbye. Temporarily or permanently.

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

I think the trick to remember is that they're always happy for someone though funerals most certainly are not.