Spread Hope Like Fire

Hi. I’ve missed you. July 17, 2010

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.