Free Write Vol. 1

I have a blog post that I've been working on for some two days, but because I've been getting home so late, I'm having a hard time concentrating enough to write it. Thinking of the words I want to use is always so challenging, hopefully if I get maybe an hour or so to myself I can figure it out. But I still want to write, have the feeling to write. So instead I'll just free write, let a stream of consciousness flow from my head to my fingers to the keyboard to the screen and finally to your eyeballs. Who knows, maybe something will stick. At the very least it's the ultimate in navel gazing, almost like a live-blogging of my immediate thoughts, enjoy!

And for the next few weeks I spend my days and parts of my nights in an abandoned factory on the southside of Milwaukee, working and hoping desperately for an Obama win. I'm doing logistics, thought I would be doing recruiting, traveling across the state canvassing. Not that I mind, I stay warm, stay indoors, makes the long days a little easier. Besides I get considerable leeway.
Good to be back in Milwaukee, although as it turns out I'll barely get to see my family. I knew that it would be like that really, but it's an entirely different thing in practice. So close yet so far, even the cousin I'm staying with I don't see. She leaves before I wake up and I come in after she sleeps. Anything for a victory though.

We talked for almost an hour and ten minutes and for my money it was an hour and ten minutes well spent, after a long day all you want to do is hear that voice. Not the exapserated voice you sometimes hear when you messed up only you don't really know how. Not the tired voice you hear because you know that the conversation is going to be short. The sweet one, the content one, that's the one that warms your heart and that's the one that keeps you coming back to the phone hoping that the waves hitting your ears will prompt you to remember that it's all worth it. Because it is, when you smile and you hear her laugh, it really is.
Still trying to figure things out, why is love so hard you know? Well, it wasn't explicitly stated that we were "trying to figure things out," because that would be silly, that would be hurtful that would be? The TRUTH? I don't think it is, because I know my feelings, know what I want eventually. Sort of like you see the light at the end of the tunnel, or maybe the tall building out on the horizon. But there's this, other shit or rather there's a bunch of traps and snares on the unpaved road that you insisted on traveling because you KNOW that the end result is something that you'll be happy with for the rest of your life. So you figure out how to best make it happen because the last thing you want is for the light to grow dim, for the building you see in the horizon to collapse.
So you compromise, you make a compromise because you've both been through this before and you know how badly it can turn out and deep down you fear the worst. The best, you silently hope for- you wonder if your best efforts, the clothes, the plane tickets, the baseball game, the love, especially the love, in the end only the love. You wonder if the best you have to give will come up short- because you're messy, because you're distant, because absence, while making the heart grow fonder, also erodes the spirit, and makes you drift slowly away like a soggy piece of wood in the sea. You wonder if the best you have to give is good enough because there will be other Adonis' that aren't jerks, because that one guy wants to be a doctor too, because you know he's really nice, because deep down you want to save the world and everyone in it and yet you still have no clue what the most effective way to do that is, i.e., you only have the vaguest idea about what you want your life to be about while other people are already on their path to financial security.
And the thing is, it's the thought that's nerve wracking. The thought, of sex sure, the thought of her getting the kind of pleasure which by this time you think is your birthright to bestow upon her from someone else. But it's also the thought that you are slowly being replaced, the conversations you once had reserved for another. You learn in kindergarten to share and you know you might have to. And you're willing to swallow your pride in order to do it, a means to a more perfect ends. You think you are a mature person, and rationally this makes sense, but irrationality makes sense too.
But you also compromise because there's a little devil in you also; isn't there in everybody? You make a compromise because there's a girl eyeing you from the back of the bus or behind the counter at Starbucks or down the hall of your office and up until now you've been good at pushing them off. But what's a little slice of devil's pie? It's tempting, there for the taking. Remember, you've been good, remember, you're 22 in New York, it's only natural. And when those thoughts start to creep in, your inadequacies from the previous paragraph start to vanish and the good things about you come to the forefront as justification for any potential indiscretion. Yeah I'm good-looking, yeah I'm interesting and intelligent, yeah I've got a charming personality, it's not my fault, they're just attracted to me that's all. Besides, it's only sex and I'm able to disconnect the two. And that's the rub; you always think that somehow you're different from her. YOU are able to get your one-timer to understand while SHE will fall hard and mad. YOU will always come back to her SHE will move away with each passing day. Then you put yourself in her shoes. Think about it, somebody else, rubbing my back, kissing my lips, calling my name, having those discussions with me. Which one's really worse? Can you have the first ones with or without the last one? Everything is predicated on that, you think that you can. Most of the time you even think that she can. But nobody wants to make the first move, like two skillful checker players, eventually one of you have to get captured but you just hope that the other one makes the first mistake.
And suddenly you understand, again, that both of you are going through this, together. And you go back once again to the uneasy compromise because once again you don't want to lose her and you'll do anything to make sure that you don't. In the end you go back to being rational because you're both smart and four years is a long time. You have faith in how its all going to turn out, you just wish it was easier.