I missed Amanda tonight. I'm not sure what I missed, actually... I watched Spidey 3 tonight after I got home (or, rather, the 2nd half), and I remembered that the first Spider-man movie came out the summer I broke up with her.
I saw it twice in the theatre. Neither time was with her. I saw it with a big group from work. And I saw it with Destiny, the ex before Amanda. Nothing ever became of that... I had changed too much, and she hadn't changed enough. But that's another story.
It's a little strange living and interacting with people so young all the time. Everyone's world is so wide open with opportunity. There's such joy in almost everything. I mean, yes, people bitch all the time... people are people. But I can't remember the last time I talked to someone and actually got a real sense of cynicism.
Actually met someone like me.
I like that. But it might be the catalyst for thinking about old relationships. Especially the one where I was last like that. Where I was wide open with expectation and wide eyed with amazement. When being in a relationship with someone was new in every respect...
I'm not sure that I miss it, actually. Or her. I do miss being that way.
I don't think I'm going to learn it here. I don't think that any of these little girls can do any more than remind me of the boy I once was. I lose myself, perhaps, for a few minutes here and there, but it's just a fun game.
Which sort of begs the question, can I actually love again? Can I give my all like Amanda got? Can I have the faith that Laura squandered?
It makes me sad to say it, but I don't think I can.
I say that I value intelligence in a date/mate/counterpart above all else. I don't know if that's true anymore. In a world where your wife is your best friend, where she becomes a part of you, where that "one flesh" business is actually true, then I hold "her" to the same measure I hold myself to -- which is, to say, she has to work at being perfect. Pretty much constantly.
But it's not. No woman could ever be all of those things. No one could. And no matter what some guy named Paul said, in today's world, I have no business putting faith in some girl. One flesh? Humph. That just means sex without a condom and falling asleep in coitus. Intimate, wonderful, and probably the single most content any man can ever feel, but really, nothing all that hard to accomplish.
Nothing all that special.
I wish I could have it back. I wish I felt it when I took these little girls out. But they're no different than any of the other silly girls. They just haven't moved to the city yet. Heh. The funny part is that I'm actually serious. The last date I went on? Her plan after graduation is to move to San Francisco.
Sigh. So, what then?
I read something recently about three levels of peace. I think it was during some research I was doing for my class on Islamic thought. (I'd try to go find it, but I haven't the foggiest on what keywords to search for -- I only remember my paraphrased version, and that's spotty.) In the first, people find pleasure/respite/purpose in some activity or thing. The example given was sports, but it could be anything -- from chess to mountain biking. One finds pleasure in the act of doing and purpose in the refinement of that act. My skating, dancing, and basketball have all fulfilled that for me. So has work, and even, , to a certain extent, dating women.
The second level is investment in a person or persons. Apparently, people find pleasure and purpose in giving themselves to another person -- a wife, and later, children.
No comment.
I'm pretty sure the last one was god. Or, rather, "God". Devotion to something greater than yourself, giving back to the community, etc., were in there, too, I think, but basically, it was about submitting and contributing.
I don't really remember the last one all that well. It wasn't pertinent to my paper and I was on a mission. Besides, I kinda snorted at the second paragraph and lost interest. Heh.
So, basically, since I don't believe in a god and I don't believe in people, I guess I better start making a list of goals I want to accomplish in the next century.
'cause that's about all I got.
--
So I kinda lost the point of the 3 levels of purpose. I think that I miss Amanda so much because it was the last time I was anywhere near that second level. Maybe the only time.
And I'm still looking for that, aren't I?
No matter how much I repeat this little exercise of telling myself I don't have hope, that no woman is worthy of faith, that this is the way the world works, so just deal...
I'm not trying to teach anybody. I'm trying to convince myself.
It would be easier, I think. I'd be a little dead inside, sure, but that part of me has been beaten up for years anyway -- the death would be a respite from the turmoil. And then I could just have fun... there wouldn't be as much of a chip on my shoulder. There wouldn't be any ulterior motives other than having fun and having sex, which are so much easier to accomplish than "being happy".
The problem with squashed hope, you see, is that it hurts like hell. And I always hope... even if it's only just a little bit. I tell myself it's stupid every time I feel it -- so yes, 326 times every day -- but it's still there. Lingering. Pestering. Annoying.
Painful.
--
I emailed Amanda the other day. She has a new boy. Or maybe not a new boy. I don't know. She said he was new, so I'll assume it's not that old. Whatever.
She sent me photos of them. He's a good looking guy. They -- or rather, she -- looked peaceful with him. Not with the stars in her eyes I imagine when I see photos of us from years ago, nor the posing I remember from her solo photos. Guess she aged some, too. Heh.
I wonder what happened to those photos she and I took on that cruise ship. We paid a lot for those as I recall. I don't remember them at all... I just remember taking them with her. And how mad at her I was. I don't remember what about, specifically, but I remember looking at her with disdain when we shot those.
Maybe Amanda saw that in those photos and that's why she kept them. Or tossed them.
Weird. I haven't thought about that trip in five years. I do remember that we were dressed to the nines, though. We must have looked amazing. I wish I could remember.
--
Anne -- my date the other night, who is about as fun as a glass of water (gift from heaven at certain times, but overall not that interesting) -- talked about Disneyland for a minute over dinner. She talked about going there while in high school. I remember thinking "I fell in love there once" while she talked about cutting in line on Space Mountain.
I didn't feel old. Not envious. I didn't miss anybody. I just noticed. I suppose that I vaguely wondered how Anne would react if I said that, but that was mostly just self-amusement.
--
Wow. Talk about Peter Pan complex, huh? I so don't want to grow up that I packed up my shit and moved away from everything I knew just so I could pretend.
I am a fucking nutball.
Too bad it's too late. I'm fucking old. I don't get angry much, I have experience all over the place, I've lost whatever faith I ever had, and I know how to eat pussy.
I'm sorry. What am I supposed to do now? Don't normal people marry the chick they always knew they would and get saddled up with a mortgage around this point?
What do people do at my age when they don't have those options? I mean, aside from going back to college so they can hit on 19 year olds, of course.
Well?
--
There's this one little ache I have. In the section just above, I referred to "marrying the chick they always knew they would".
That really bothers me. Because I have no candidates. Everybody I know who is married knew the girl for years before it happened. Maybe they didn't always know, but there was always something.
And I don't have one of those. (Unless you count Alicia. And that's not bloody likely.)
Maybe it's one of my ex GFs. Maybe one of them will come back into my life someday and it will just click. Let's see... Jeanette probably still smokes, so she looks 40 by now. Des has to be crackin' 200 by this point. Amanda... well. I don't wonder about her at 4 in the morning for nothing. Chrissy... kinduv a long shot there. Laura is, and ever shall be, Slutbag. Crazy Lauren disappeared off the planet.
Ok. One of the short-termers, then? Alicia? Sarah? Tejas Lauren? Jill? Jamie?
Yeah... not so much. Guess I have to relive my 20s after all. Heh.
No comments:
Post a Comment