Twenty-two ~ Pleasantries

Dear B-----,

       Thought I'd drop you a quick note, I'm in class and the lecture's a bit dry today, I need something else to hold the remainder of my attention.

       In general my classes are going well, nothing too difficult, but interesting enough...

       I'm not good at small-talk, I can occasionally get some pleasant banter going, but I can't enjoy it, I need something more which is probably why I don't socialize very well. People want pleasantries, not to have to think, the moment you start thinking, you start questioning, and the ego is so rarely sturdy enough to stand the blows of inquisition and doubt. If you start to see both sides of an issue, how do you know yours is really right? There is not only bliss by strength in ignorance.

       Do you remember back in high school, where the biggest concerns were passing Chemistry and who was dating who, and there I was, merrily describing how I'd love a revolution, to see society as a whole fall apart at the seams, all its intricate and inbred faults, just crumble and fall away, much to your discomfort. I'm sure you'd much rather a bright, cheery letter to the convoluted meanderings of my mind, but...

       Much as I scared you, you remained friends with me, through all of my varied phases.

       Thank you.

       It's raining today, that always sense my thoughts off in strange directions... usually nothing more disastrous than a pleasant, quiet sort of almost-melancholy. but today, it's got me wrapped in memory...

       Do you still miss high school at all? I don't miss the early mornings, the hall monitors and long days, but... I miss the people. Despite all the melodramatic tendencies of the social climate, there was an ever-present bond between friends, somewhere between the closeness born of shared hardships and the warmth and affection of family's long acquiantance. I suppose the friendships I have now are more fulfilling in most respects - how many people I hung around with in high school could I have had an honest and open discussion about sexuality or religion with?

       ...but how many people here would know what to get me for Christmas?

       It's a trade-off between the stimulation of the intellect and the comfort of affection... only we need both...

       "Make new friends, but keep the old; one is silver and the other's gold..." A song I learned in Girl Scouts, sometime in elementary school - I loved it enough then that it's the only one I still remember, and the words have only gotten more true. Hallmark-sentimentality, yeah, but even the most over-wrought sentiment has its roots in something real.

       But it's so easy to lose friendships... not even so much lose them, but let them fade away, your heart not even realizing it's being slowly drained... not until it begins one day to ache, and you won't know why. Quaint as my letter-writing habit might be, I need it. I need this connection I feel to you right now, tenuous as it is. I can feel my heart reaching through the pen and ink, settling into the paper you'll hold in a few days and read, my words still reaching you, no more than a slight temporal distance between my self in this moment and your self, reading these words...

       I need to know that you're still with me, I need to know I'm not alone, that there's someone there who cares...

       Maybe that's why I felt so much stronger, so much more confident, in high school. I had these basic needs met, I knew I was known and cared about, so I had no cause to worry about it. I knew I was important in myself. I could keep the artist's distance between myself and the world, I could poke fun at the lovey-dovey shite, I could case aside the need for all of that, I could be bigger than it all. I could care about the world because I myself was already cared for.

       I'm glad I'm learning to be more loving, I'm glad my heart is so much more real to me now, that passion binds itself in emotion instead of the intellect... but the girl I was won't quite leave me alone. I feel so much weaker, there are times I can't walk unafraid...

       And I don't know where to find an answer, I don't know how to repair the holes in the dam which burst, spilling everything in my heart out into the cold, so vulnerable...

       And now I've probably scared you in the opposite direction as I did back then! I'm sorry, please, don't worry, I'll be alright. I apologize for dragging you through all this, don't feel you need to answer it all - just telling you has helped. That's the other aspect of all of these letters - they're a journalling of sorts for me, they're a way for all my scrambled thoughts to be forced into some sort of coherence.

       I intellectualize the emotion I was so proud of just a moment ago! Here I go yet again, into the endless vortex of contradiction that bounds my existence. For all philosophy intrigues me, I could never fully pursue it, I can't think in straight enough lines. Philosophy's a huge tangle - which is why I know you loathe it, and I enjoy it - but you've got to be able to cut straight paths through it. You could, but I can't.

       In spite of the dull class lecture today, I feel alright now... I can't quite say what, or if, I've learned anything, but it seems I might have.