jump to navigation

Changing my relationship status on Facebook gave me goosebumps. April 30, 2012

Posted by Jordan in Thoughts.
Tags: , , ,
add a comment

I continue to be unable to force this. It has to happen organically, free of pressure. But, for the first time in four years, I am officially spoken for, and I want to try to write about what that feels like.

I have never done this before. It would be silly and inaccurate for me to sit here and write as if I have all of the answers, because I don’t. I have not been in a relationship before in which you are not able to see your significant other every day, if you wish. Or hug them every day, or kiss them every day. This is uncharted terrain. An alien landscape.

Thinking about this, and about her, is so amazing to me. You really never do know what direction life’s winds will move you in. Hither, thither and yon, indeed. Just a few months ago, I could have in no way visualized this or seen it coming.

Usually, however, the simple, beautiful truth is that we just don’t get to tell our heart who or what it wants. And I’m pretty sure that I’m glad of that. I’m glad that the feelings are bigger than that, bigger than our whims.

I am glad that we somehow managed to find one another again, after so many years. I am glad that I get the opportunity to do everything I can to make her happy, and I am bound and determined to not screw it up.

This is active, not passive.
This is not clairvoyance.
This is the weathering of storms together.
This is reverence.
This is not insignificant.
This is the unholy alliance of ecstasy and torture.
This is worth it. She is worth it. All of the pain brought on by separation and distance. Because, my dear, we are bigger than that. I’m in this with you, all the way, as long as you’ll have me.

A Romance By The Wings Of Icarus April 25, 2011

Posted by Jordan in Music, Quotes.
Tags: , , , , ,
1 comment so far

“As the flame of the candle stands still in the biting air, and the silhouettes of a broken man crash to the floor, he rues the day he flew too close to the sun, recalling her smile, as his wings melted and he descended to the depths below. She had spoken of things all too impossible for hearts to behold. Her beauty beckoning his soul, defenseless he fell enamored by her intoxicating charm. She had spoken of things, which he began to believe. This was not supposed to be, screamed the temptress. Empathy being her only vice she constructed a heart shaped tomb, there she swore she would lie and perish, with his wings charred and the pieces of his heart lying in ruins on the floor. She had spoken of things all too impossible for hearts to behold.
He dreams of a day when the candle would begin to flicker in the cold night air, perhaps then he would fly again. He will fly again…”

An outcry. March 7, 2011

Posted by Jordan in Thoughts.
Tags: , , , , ,
1 comment so far

Dear Soulmate,

Please, come save me. Just come take me away. You are everything wonderful and pure and warm and beautiful, and I want to be with you and you alone.

Love without limits,
Jordan

For the mental. October 20, 2010

Posted by Jordan in Books, Quotes.
Tags: , , ,
2 comments

Excerpt from The End Of Faith, by Sam Harris – Chapter One, pages 11 and 12

The young man boards the bus as it leaves the terminal. He wears an overcoat. Beneath his overcoat, he is wearing a bomb. His pockets are filled with nails, ball bearings, and rat poison.

The bus is crowded and headed for the heart of the city. The young man takes his seat beside a middle-aged couple. He will wait for the bus to reach its next stop. The couple at his side appears to be shopping for a new refrigerator. The woman has decided on a model, but her husband worries that it will be too expensive. He indicates another one in a brochure that lies open on her lap. The next stop comes into view. The bus doors swing. The woman observes that the model her husband has selected will not fit in the space underneath their cabinets. New passengers have taken the last remaining seats and begun gathering in the aisle. The bus is now full. The young man smiles. With the press of a button he destroys himself, the couple at his side, and twenty others on the bus. The nails, ball bearings, and rat poison ensure further casualties on the street and in the surrounding cars. All has gone according to plan.

The young man’s parents soon learn of his fate. Although saddened to have lost a son, they feel tremendous pride at his accomplishment. They know that he has gone to heaven and prepared the way for them to follow. He has also sent his victims to hell for eternity. It is a double victory. The neighbors find the event a great cause for celebration and honor the young man’s parents by giving them gifts of food and money.

These are the facts. This is all we know for certain about the young man. Is there anything else that we can infer about him on the basis of his behavior? Was he popular in school? Was he rich or was he poor? Was he of low or high intelligence? His actions leave no clue at all. Did he have a college education? Did he have a bright future as a mechanical engineer? His behavior is simply mute on questions of this sort, and hundreds like them. Why is it so easy, then, so trivially easy — you-could-almost-bet-your-life-on-it-easy — to guess the young man’s religion?

I don’t know what to title this. October 8, 2010

Posted by Jordan in Thoughts.
Tags: , , ,
4 comments

It’s happening, right now. I can feel it. The struggle, the rise, the fall, the beautiful, and the terrible. Rarely do I ever feel the fight more than I am right now, and I don’t know which way the pendulum should swing. It hurts.

——————–

Holy cow. Oh my goodness. My heart is RACING. Like, right now. As I type. I’m live-blogging, mind you. Saving as I go. And I’m in the thick of it. I just left battle. I *acted*. I *went with it*. That, you must understand, is *tremendously* significant to me. WOW. That was AMAZING! I can’t even process my thoughts, really, such is the dizzying effect it had. I mean, you’re reading my best attempt to process my thoughts! This is it! This is me, trying to figure it out! I left, felt like I was coming apart at the seams, went straight to my nearest safe zone – a bookstore, naturally – sat down, and continued this.

——————–

Okay. Settle down, Jordan. Whew. I need to try to get this out. You, in all likelihood, are wondering what on Earth I’m heart-vomiting about. I’m getting there. Trying to, anyway. Just bear with me. Again – there’s no facade here. No trickery. No deception. This is real time, as I’m thinking, and right now, I can’t tell which is greater: my feeling of elation or my feeling of terror.

——————–

It’s now a couple of hours later. My heartbeat has slowed, but only a slight amount. Here’s the deal. Actually, I’d be curious to hear your opinion on this. What should I do when specific strong feelings I have about what I should do, if acted upon, might come into conflict with the general way I try to live my life? Which should take precedence over the other? If, on the one hand, you have these acute emotions about certain people or situations that you feel the desire to act on, and on the other hand, you have the sort of person you try to be, and the two seem, in certain situations, to be mutually exclusive – which way? Do you work as best you can to suppress your feelings, for the sake of being the person you seek to be, or do you go with it and express/act on those feelings, because to choose not to would be to deny yourself what your heart most desires?

——————–

Tonight, after pacing for an indeterminate length of time, I said “screw it” and went with it. I didn’t fully express myself, but I at least said *something*. I have a precious jewel of a friend who makes my heart ache, for reasons more numerous than I can really go into right now. Tonight, I went to her and told her, against all my worrying and indecision, that she is *wonderful* and truly deserves to be happy, and that I hope she never forgets that. Her smile, in response, and the tears she seemed to have to hold back nearly took me apart, right there. And then … a hug. Ecstasy.

——————–

Remember, in Love Actually, immediately after the postcard scene, after Keira Knightley runs after the dude and kisses him, when he’s walking away, Silent Night-playing-boombox in hand? The vibe of that exact moment? That was me, tonight.

Adapted from a Twitter heart vomit. I seek to be both everywhere and nowhere. August 9, 2010

Posted by Jordan in Thoughts.
Tags: , , , , , , , ,
add a comment

I lurk in the dark, under cover of shadows. Be forewarned – I am armed. Not with any firearm or lethal weapon, but one no less as potentially dangerous. I am armed with the overwhelming desire to make people – like the lonely girl you see at the mall, dressed in black – see themselves as I do. As beauty. As who they really are and deserve to be. So, I move. I move against the winds of preconceived notion and of popular opinion. The winds and the other elements of strife do not chill or hinder me, either, for I am forever warmed by my heart’s conviction that all of what I feel – all of what breaks me into pieces with every breathe I take – *means something*, and to ignore it would be ignoring the one thing that always serves as a port amongst the storm for me. With time, it has become increasingly apparent that this part of me is not just a part of me – it IS me. I AM this, for better or for worse, and I will not stop. I refuse to, even directly in the face of all others. Even if that means standing alone. I will be the moon when the sun takes it’s leave. So, keep a sharp eye. I move, just beyond the light’s grasp of the shadows, as a light in darkness. Always and forever.

Minutiae July 20, 2010

Posted by Jordan in Thoughts.
Tags: , , ,
1 comment so far

Some nights, looking at myself scares me, because I can’t be sure of what my eyes might hold. So, because I loathe so tremendously the thought of putting someone else through something that I don’t want to go through, I sometimes wear sunglasses when I go out driving, even in the middle of the night. That way, others don’t have to look at my eyes, either.

Hi. I’ve missed you. July 17, 2010

Posted by Jordan in Thoughts.
Tags: , , , , ,
3 comments

It’s been a while. If you’re reading this and that matters to you, I apologize. I can only say that I can’t force this. I’ve never been able to, and that has never been what this blog is about for me. What it was started as, over two years ago now (whoa) – and what it remains, today – is a safe haven for my head and for my heart. A place that my thoughts can go to and feel unafraid.

Right now, I’m in my room. Sitting on the edge of the bed, door cracked, light off. The only light is coming from my phone’s screen, which I am typing this out on.

At this point, I think I’ve decided that there are three different parts of attraction that draw us to one another. The first part is the least discriminatory. It is that instinctual, primal, sexual desire we all possess to be touched, held, caressed, kissed, and wanted. It’s been bred into us for hundreds of generations, and it’s always there, in varying degrees. The second part is pure physical attraction. To be in lust, not in love. To see someone and to not have your first thought be “I wonder if he/she is having a pleasant day?”, or “I would love to take him/her out to dinner sometime!”, but “MMMMM – I wanna be all OVER that.” It’s, in some respects, quite similar to part one, just more focused, more defined, more acute, and aimed at a specific person. Now, part three. Part three is the only part out of the three that love can germinate out of. It is real, foundational emotional attraction – the sort that keeps you up at night, just wanting to be with him/her, or hear what’s on their mind, or make sure they’re ok.

Here’s what I think I have discovered. Actually, wait … discovered is a bad word. Confirmed is better. I’ve been fairly sure of the essential nature of Part Three to me in order for me to be able to let myself be involved with someone, but, recently, that has been … yeah, confirmed. If the three parts were each a different scent of cologne, then there is a massive, bottomless bottle of Eau De Part Three in my heart that scents out into me with every heartbeat. I am permeated with it, and with my desire and hope for it, and I don’t think there’s any changing that. I’m bound to this, forever and ever. I’m in lockstep with it.

Don’t get me wrong – it SUCKS, sometimes. It can be horrid. I mean – what I’m sort of doing is telling my millennia-old physical instincts “NO”. How could that *not* mess with my head, you know? It wrecks me, sometimes – trying to reconcile everything. And, at this point, I figure that I have to be cognizant of the possibility that all of this – all of me – is just as likely to hold potential partners away as it is to draw them in. It might be years before I can be in another relationship. How could THAT not mess with my head? The idea that my hope is so strong that it might actually be prohibitive? It’s terrifying, but it’s possible.

I don’t know what the curtain call is anymore. I don’t know what my endgame is. All I know to say is the following paragraph – it’s also on my Facebook page.

Those that I most identify with and those that do my soul the most good are the romantics, the dreamers, the freethinkers, the tender, the hope-bringers, the care givers, the peace-spreaders, the fire-hearted, and those who keep warm in a cold world by inhaling hate and exhaling love. You all are the single biggest reason that my feet stay on the ground, my eyes keep opening, and my heart keeps beating. I stand in unshakeable solidarity with you, directly in the face of the outside world, always and forever.

THIS – perhaps more than anything else I’ve ever wrote – is who I am. February 19, 2010

Posted by Jordan in Thoughts.
Tags:
7 comments

I don’t know if there’s a comprehensible way to introduce this. This moment, this feeling, this love, this anger, this sadness, this shock, these tears. What IS this, even? Is this what I’ve been reduced to? A middle-of-the-night silent cry for help, with the silence only broken by sobs?

Actually, here’s what I think it means, to say that this is what I’ve been reduced to. I feel like I’m breaking. More specifically, I feel like every single non-essential piece of me is breaking apart and falling away, only leaving behind who I am right this second. This – this moment – is me. This is who I am. This is who I have always been, and who I will always be. If you could see me right now, you would see my heart, completely exposed and vulnerable, all manner of facade, armor, and protection stripped away. That’s it. THIS is it. Me being reduced to this means that this is everything. This is the beginning, middle, and end. This is all that matters. What this moment is – what I am, what my essence, spirit, and soul all are – is enough feeling – enough emotion, and enough desire to CARE, and to FEEL – to turn a desert of apathy into an ocean of love. LOVE.

It hurts me so much – I want to scream – but I can’t bear the thought of not knowing how this feels. I don’t ever want to not know, or to forget. I don’t ever want to grow cold or unfamiliar to this. I don’t ever want to be unable to go here – to go to this place. What I want is to print this out, keep it next to my bed, and read it first thing in the morning, every day. I don’t ever want this to go away. If that means having a heavy heart every day for the rest of my life, or having to excuse myself at work and lock myself in the bathroom and just cry because I can’t take it any longer, then so be it.

I think I know the reason why it’s always been difficult for me to answer questions about having my heart broken. The reason is that I can’t think of having my heart broken in terms of individual instances. The reason for THAT is because my heart is broken every day. It’s never NOT broken. It’s in a perpetual state of attempting to heal itself, only to be broken again. My heart breaks every time I see a girl who I want more desperately than I can explain to just wrap up in a warm hug and tell her that it’s all going to be alright. My heart breaks every time I see a girl who makes me wonder when the last time was that she had a guy give her a genuine smile and remind her of how beautiful she is. There are more instances of this same nature than I could list in a lifetime, and each of them destroys me, every time.

I only know this to ask. Please – I beg you – be cognizant, and extraordinarily so, of those moments that remind you of how truly beautiful life can be, and of how precious they are. Be aware, and extraordinarily so, of the profound and prodigious ability that you – that’s right, YOU – have to LOVE, and to be loved. I love you. I do. More than I know how to explain. Don’t read this and let yourself think that you’re exempt, or that this somehow doesn’t apply to you. It does. I promise you that. And please – don’t ever let go. Never. You’re too amazing, and have too much good – and too much love – inside of you to let that happen.