Saturday 30 October 2010

Dreamers - Jack Savoretti

A man I know wished to be a fighter pilot. He took flying lessons straight after medical school and wanted to get into the airforce. He learnt to fly. In between flying lessons and slogging it out at the hospital as the new young resident, he met an exceptional young woman. He fell more and more in love with her every day, but didn't know where it would lead, or even if she felt the same way.
The day before his flying exam when he was to finally earn his wings, she invited him to be her date at her brother's wedding. She told him she loved him too. He woke up the next morning and drove straight to her house to join her for the day - and ever after. And his flying instructor never heard from him again. He never told my mother what he had missed that day, and he only told me years and years later.
That one second's worth of 'I love you too', over some old phone line in my grandmother's house, and that tremendous leap of faith that only my father could have made, had made my life possible. It made my sister's life possible. It brought us into the lives of our friends and families. And it saved the lives of all those lives who were saved by my father's hands. And therefore brought happiness and grace to the lives of their friends, and families. And so on, rippling ever outward.
I think about that off and on, and feel all the strength, and all the fragility, of the things which make up destinies. And a lot, a lot, a lot, of love and gratitude.

Wednesday 27 October 2010

I am like one those screaming children you roll your eyes at in supermarkets.

When I was a child, I was one of those children. I wanted something I couldn't have. I worked myself into a passion in under five seconds. I screamed till my chest hurt. I kicked whoever tried to restrain me. I yelled from my soul upwards. I beat at closed shop doors with my tiny little fists and yelled at walls.

I am still doing it.

Sometimes I think about old loves - and one in particular - and wonder why I cannot learn a simple lesson: Shit Happens, Move On.

I never stop asking why-how-why-why-why-how-why. Even after I've reached an answer to those questions a long, long time ago.
I never stop wanting to go back and try again (even when I don't actually want to try again. If it worked, I'd still want to leave. A piece of profound, paradoxical nonsense that I would caution you against trying to decipher.)
I never stop feeling that strange pull in the depths of my chest that makes me make that half-smile-half-sad face that other people always label Bittersweet, and which to me feels only bitter, never sweet, not even a little bit.
Worst of all: I never want to stop being friends. Stop having a connection. And the thought that some (and one in particular) seems to want this - is killing.
If he was online on gtalk right now, I would probably not say a word.
But the fact that he never is. That is killing.

I just want too much.
All the time.
From everyone.

Sunday 24 October 2010

Bloody Hell.

I am.
We are.

Without the first, the second can never be.
With the first, the second can never become.

Whoever designed relationships, hearts, heartlessness and romantic love up in heaven (or further south - much further south) - could you please release Version 2.0 (with the same man, of course)?
Many thanks.