Wednesday, April 26, 2006

The (real) end


Is that what you call a getaway? Tell me what you got away with. I've seen more spine in jellyfish, I've seen more guts in 11 year old kids

On the good news front, my "potential hypothetical crisis" (which, honestly, had way too many conditional words to actually have been something I should have been worrying about) has been essentially solved, seeing as the determining factor refused to take a stance.

On the bad news front, apparently this solution is not the one I had been hoping for. Until I got my answer I honestly wasn't sure what I wanted, what I was secretly wishing, but this awful feeling of disappointment and heartache seems to give me a good idea about how I wanted the outcome to be.

While the heavy fog of uncertainty has been lifted, I'm not entirely sure it's better this way. Now that my crisis-that-was-not is solved and I have gagued my reaction, I am only more painfully aware of how unfair I am being to certain people in my life.
I told you I'm a bad person. You just never believed me.

Also on the good news front, you probably won't be bored with vague entries anymore dealing with my inner woes about this subject, barely masked behind inspecific terms and generalizations. Now that this chapter can be closed I can mourn the loss of possibility in peace without the poisonous "what ifs" tearing me apart.

Good day.

Not Again,
Catherine

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Suicide man


The only difference between martyrdom and suicide is press coverage

I watched a man die today.

Last night I was rubbing elbows with rock stars and this morning I bore witness to death. If this is what city living is like then I'm not sure I want to be living in the fast lane. I don't know if you've ever seen someone die, I know I never had, but it was the most horrific experience of my life to date. I'm still not over it.

It would have been cinematic, picturesque, artsy, ironic even, if it had not been a real man giving up on his very real life. A solitary figure in a business suit standing out against a backdrop of morning sunlight on skyscrapers, angrily tossing his cell phone into the still green Chicago River, and then jumping from the bridge down into the water.
I wonder what he was thinking in that minute when he was treading in place. Was he reconsidering his actions? Or was he reliving every awful memory that had driven him to this, reaffirming this decision, this crime? Whatever it was, the lungfuls of water he purposely started gulping down spoke louder than words his willingness to die.

Today was just another day, a continuation of my fairly mundane life, yet today was the day a man decided to end his. I can't close my eyes without seeing that splash and I can't let my mind wander without remembering that horrible feeling that settled in the pit of my stomach when the rescue boat came but the man never came back up.

I don't understand and I'm not sure I ever entirely will.

Towel,
Cathy

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Mental Blitzkrieg


You're not dead! You don't need barriers like coffins to tell you what to do!

Does having a conscience really make me a good person, or is it just the final barrier to break down before I forfeit my right to respect?

Some people think with their heads and others with their hearts, some with a combination of both. My heart dictates my time-to-thought allocation but it's the thought which dictates my actions. This in mind, would it be worse for me to deny my heart free reign, or to let it wreck havoc upon the lives of those who captivate it? This is where the conscience comes in.

What is it, really, this little nagging voice which lives in the pit of my stomach? That static, white noise which crackles and whispers "You little fuck up, you stupid shit" when you double-cross it, but never purrs in contentment when you obey, merely lies in wait with poison claws, feeding you "what ifs". Is it the voice of reason or is it nothing more than the Flight to your heart's Fight?

Obviously, I'm having a conflict of interest, and currently it feels like the most important decision I will ever have to make. Moral, societal, personal, and potential barriers block off every single path I can envision which leaves me suspended in this awful fog where no option feels like the definitively right thing to do.

Blitzkrieg,
Thrine

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Ethical questions


Is this all you have to say? This broken boy will hang on every word. You tell me that you need me while I slowly fall apart.

What if I was keeping a secret from you, would you like to know?

Would you like to know that I'm having second thoughts? That due to circumstances beyond either of our control I'm thinking of withdrawing? Or would ignorance be bliss?

Or what if you are the only thing I can think about, day and night and all points in between wakefullness and sleep? If every time you spoke to me, looked at me, my entire world stands still and crumbles the instant our connection is broken? Is that something you would like to hear?

How about if I feel that I'm better off without you? That you make my life impossibly complicated and I am and would be grateful if you just left me alone? Would that be too hard for you to accept?

Or do you just want to hear the good secrets? That every time I listen to Saves the Day I think of you? That when I try to describe the feeling of an instant connection, of people who are meant to be in each other's lives I tell a story about you? That when you look me in the eyes and smile I feel like I don't deserve you?

What if I had no secrets from you? If I told you everything I felt, thought, and contemplated in regard to you, the good and the bad. Would you still want to know me? Be with me? Hang out with me? Be a part of my life? Is the disclosure of private information an asset or a destructive force?

Maybe.

Perhaps.

Hypothetical moral crisis,
Cathi

Sunday, April 9, 2006

Left in the lurch


Be gentle with me, I'd never willingly do you harm

In the movies (not that movies are in any way related to reality) when a protagonist is in love with someone other than their current partner, we wait with bated breath for the lovers to end up together and give little thought to the parter left in the lurch. True love prevails, right?

I am never more profoundly sad during chick flicks than when the heorine leaves the lesser man at the altar. We all cheered when Mary Jane abandoned her wedding to find Peter Parker to tell him she is with him hell or high water, but what about her astronaut? He was a good man. He loved her, and he was good to her and for her.

The problem was that while Mary Jane loved him, he wasn't Peter, and never would be. She was just occupying herself with the astronaut so that she could forget that Peter stood her up during her plays, or that he kept denying his love for her. We applaud her decision because we know they are meant to be together. I applaud her decision because it takes a great amount of courage to realize what is best for yourself, and then to follow through, even if the decision will devestate someone.

Perhaps this is selfish, to sacrifice someone else's feelings in order to pursue your own happiness, but I think that we give so much of ourselves over to making other people happy that it is a greater act of bravery to make a conscious decision to hurt someone very badly. We sacrifice ourselves in so many things, most of the time in our relationships, to avoid hurting the other person.

We think we are being noble and brave, letting ourselves be unhappy for the benefit of others, but I think we forget that this is easy. Everyone does it, and we do it all the time. I bet if you examine your life that you can think of at least one person from whom you are keeping something, whether it is your true feelings about them or information you know would make your life easier but would hurt them if they knew. Now imagine how hard, how incredibly, perhaps impossibly hard it would be to break that. To tell him that you're using him, to tell her that you kissed her boyfriend, to let them know how no one actually cares. You can't, you won't, because it's easier to live in self-inficted misery.

Give some thought to the astronaut in your life, and try to do something about him before you're at the altar, okay?

Safety dance,
Cathy

Thursday, April 6, 2006

Person 8


8.

I actually wrote a "letter of confession" (term copyright BJB 2005) to you a little while ago but felt ridiculous afterwards so I deleted it. Now that some time has passed and I have a slightly more objective outlook I feel ready to say everything to you, anonymously, that I think I need to. Ready? Me neither.

I cut you out of my life over the past few months. I'm not sure if you've noticed or not, but I have. I deleted your number from my cell phone, I took your screen name off my buddy list, I removed myself from a Facebook group regarding you, I even made sure that the one day a week we would have to see each other that I would be elsewhere. It's not that I hate you, or think you even wronged me in any significant way. It's that I don't think I can handle being near you. For some reason I cannot explain I am drawn to you so strongly, and I get all emo just thinking about how awkward I have made our situation to be for me. Sorry about that, truly. For all I know you really did want to be friends and here I go, avoiding you like biology homework.

I think you are fun, interesting, cute, and hilarious and I apologize for any rudeness. I wish I wasn't a crazy female and that we could actually be friends. You seem like an amazing person to be friends with, and I am sincerely sorry that I can't deal with you. To be fair, you were kind of a big jerk, but everyone is from time to time and I don't hold it against you. Really. Best of luck with your children's stories and debatably good music. Maybe next year we can be acquaintences. Who knows.