I'm struggling to start this email today, so I'll start with a few details about the here and now.
I am sitting in Agora, the Greek coffeehouse in Montrose. I am drinking a cappuccino (which is too foamy today) and eating a blueberry muffin. I'm wearing blacks and browns and blues, a girl-next-door ensemble, and small gold earrings. Tree pollen is very high today, so I am sneezing a lot, too.
I'm thirty minutes out from a meeting with a possible nanny family (who, if all goes well, I'll start working for mid-July). I'm also a little tired from staying out til 1AM last night photographing, and I'm procrastinating reading for my psych exam due at 11:59PM today. Thus, like always, I decided I'd use this spare time to write.
That's a decent start. Now, let's get to our topic: we'll start by reviewing the events of yesterday.
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Yesterday was a bit of a wild day. I had a philosophy essay exam (Kant, Mill, Plato, Aristotle) which went decently, and ran into an old acquaintance beforehand. We'll call her Anna. Anna and I chatted for a bit, then inevitably couldn't think of what to say -- it had been a while since I'd really seen her, much less had a conversation. So, we defaulted to where we used to go: conversations about The Scene.
The Scene (as in, the Houston Music Indie Underground DIY Punk-and-Other-Genres Scene) is where me and this girl met, almost two years ago (god, that's a long time). At the time, I was dabbling in concert photography. I was also, as life goes, very lonely; I spent those concert nights trying to make new, kind, and interesting friends. I met interesting people (to a decent extent), but most of them did not turn out to be very kind. Still, Anna and I had always been on good terms. She's just a fairly normal and decent person; amiable, undramatic, and good for casual conversation. To clarify: Anna is, to me, the type of person you keep on your private stories, even though you never really talked that much.
Anna and I used to see each other at concerts and laugh together, drinking beers and not actually watching the bands. The noise always hurt my ears, even with earbuds, and the crowd made me deeply anxious. I mostly went to the shows just to chat with people and nurse my fanatic need to make new friends. Anna is one of the people I met who I never had a "falling out" with -- almost everyone else I failed miserably to keep around. And so, at the end of the summer, I gave up and left The Scene as I found it: clique-ish, performative, cool, and secret. Still, some people like Anna and I still chat when we see each other, and that feels good. Like I didn't entirely fail (of course, my lack of fitting in isn't a real failure, and I know that; it just feels that way sometimes).
Anna told me The Scene was falling apart, to some extent. I wasn't really surprised. It always felt like a living, capricious beast of a social venue. A car with a driver who drives 120, just because they want to crash into something. She said some parts are okay, but that there's lots of drama; again, not surprising -- there was lots when I tried to be involved in it, too. And apparently, my ex still runs in that crowd; she told me that he frequently gets belligerently drunk and tries to drive his little sports car home. Luckily, enough people know and adore him to confiscate his keys before he can actually go. Again, not surprising, but crazy to hear about from the outside.
The "outside" -- I find myself there a lot. I've talked about it before, so we can't be that surprised. But after writing that email, I felt a lot more calm about it. Maybe my own paranoia (and deep-rooted desperation) is what makes it such a challenge for me to make lasting friendships. Especially when I get really ambitious about making new friends. I used to try a lot harder, and more anxiously. Now, when I meet new people, I make friendly conversation out of am interest in getting to know people to wave "hi" to, rather than someone to be best friends with for ever and ever! And yes, that really is the type of way I found myself going about things, all those summers ago in The Scene.
Upon reflection, really the best friends I have I became close with over freeform, long-term interactions without pressure. Even my current romantic relationship sort of became so important to me because I approached it that way: if it happens, it happens. Que sera, sera.
Isn't that interesting, though? Desperation and ambition. When I write it all out like this, it's pretty easy to see how that temperament is maybe not the most conducive to social environments. How to resolve it is the next question. But how to start? Maybe I'll leave that for another day.
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I promised myself I would finish this essay today (it's been sitting in my drafts for a week -- which is somewhat unlike me), but I am feeling quite overwhelmed by life and a lot of things. Busy weeks, busy days, busy life life life. Ahhhh alas. I get myself into these things though, don't I?
Today is a week from the start of this email. I am once again at Agora, trying (with half-hearted determination) to get myself out of my writing slump. I suppose, we could say, I have been a little depressed. Onwards we persevere.
Desperation and ambition. Maybe we should spell Ambition, capital "A" - punctuated. Formal. Intrusive? Maybe. "A strong desire to achieve something," blah blah blah (as Google says). A "strong desire for distinction," too. Not just achievement, which I would call a sort of victory, but distinction. I might call that notoriety. I accomplished this, so I am special, I am distinct. I am good, I am great, et cetera, et cetera. Why my mind attaches this sort of thinking to relationships is a mystery as of yet. We'll dive a little deeper though, won't we?
I think I'll also talk more, now, about what I briefly landed on earlier: my current romantic relationship, and the "if it happens, it happens" mentality that got me started there. We met on Bumble, if you can believe it. The Sadie Hawkins dance of dating apps -- girls message first! Girl power, whatever! Chit chat, bumble, take it easy or go for the gold! So strange how apps like that market themselves. But that's how I met Kyle. He lived in College Station at the time, which I didn't realize was so far away, and drove all the way to Montrose, Houston, to meet me (a meeting which only lasted an hour, as I got tired and wanted to go home -- sorry, past Kyle).
I've been forgetting that the mindset that helped me have such a healthy romantic attachment in the first place was so easygoing. We've moved in together, now, and I've been getting scared. Scared of both options: stay together OR break up.
If we stay together, I'll never be truly alone again, which is fucking terrifying. And if we break up, maybe that's even worse, right? As much as I miss being superficial and wild (the two probably most defining characteristics of my single life), what would it mean to lose Kyle? I realized that yesterday, really. I was looking into his eyes and we were having this big talk and I just kept saying over and over, "I'm so scared, I'm so scared." It was treacherous. He was so kind; he always is. Isn't it crazy? I get so scared that I forget that all the time: the depth of his patience and goodness.
He always reminds me. I just have to look into his eyes. Touch his hair. Wrap my fingers around in his wiry beard. And then, suddenly, aha! I remember. I don't know why when I'm alone with my thoughts I make-believe that I could just let that go. It wouldn't be easy like that. I wouldn't be freer, I wouldn't be wilder. What is stopping me from being me, while Kyle is Kyle? The two offenders: Desperation. Ambition. Be less afraid, be less striving, and things will get better. Maybe. That's what Kyle tries to tell me, at least. I believe him.
I want to stop thinking of friendships and relationships as boxes -- checkboxes -- tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. They're alive, they're not something to accomplish. They move. I can move, too. I just have to remember that I'm not the only one.
Maybe this essay didn't make any sense. I don't know if I mind that today, though. It meant a lot to me. Maybe that's why it took me so long to write. Alas!
Next essay will be written by my friend Diego, who recently went to Italy. I expect that he's returning a smoker and a writer and an artist. Until then.