through my paperround last year i met a wonderful man. he used to walk his dog as i’d deliver papers and we started talking around the time i started writing this blog. i think he’s 82: he must have mentioned it a while back. and i’m afraid there’s nothing literary about him: his existence is one of uncouth coutesy.
i quit the paperround a while back now but i still see him every sunday. nine o’clock in the morning, like church. he’s my little christian connection: even S is nowhere near taking his place. he gave me a bible with a picture of him in his youth stuck at the back, so that i remember him. secretly, i think, he believes that it will help me find him in heaven: he believes i will go there after all.
to my friends, this man is “the old man”. to me, he is much more than that. it may be true that i meet him every sunday partly because i feel like it’s my obligation, but also because somewhere beneath my skin there’s a tendon that connects me to him.
his wife died last night. or the night before that. and there’s no more words because i’m hurting for him. because how can one even begin to describe his pain?
i had made them a card only this march: they celebrated their 60th wedding annivesary.
sometimes he told me he wondered if she ever loved him but i know that was only because he loved her more than anything else. ever.
and it’s a little late for him to tell her, but i hope she knew. i think she knew.
Posted in chapters of my life
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putting up with my chronic unhappiness must drive you mad, my love.
and though i want nothing more than for you to be happy always, sadness never near, as if you put a restraining order on it, don’t expect the same for me. truth is, i almost like being miserable. it’s like it’s my motivation to bring up every frustration at dinner time and know that very little of it really hurts me.
so sweet to taste victory after proclaiming defeat. and when you start winning, you want more. you always want more.
noone ever died from wanting too much
and that could be the soundtrack to my life, it really could.
the world is not enough
but it is such a perfect place to start, my love
but you don’t believe that do you?
you’re happy with the way we are, blissfully unaware of the way i hurt inside, thinking that you expect so much of me, the way every time i feel the burning need to give more and more, but seem able only to give less.
still, this is not the end.
i don’t believe there will be one, because i don’t want it to end. ever. but is that just me wanting too much again?
and right now i’m just not sure. yesterday hurt, if not you, then me. the conversation, the way you looked at me, the cold i felt eminating from the familiar warm mound of you on the bed there.
still, i’ll try to set the memories of our hurts alight, because really there aren’t that many. because i love you more than that.
if we can’t have it all
then nobody will
but, my love, i’m afraid i can’t do a thing about my chronic unhapiness.
it’s become a part of me. just like you.
Posted in chapters of my life
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glittering soot on her eyelashes 