places

Dear k-

I have been thinking about airports. For the most part, I like airports. In this day and age I know that might sound strange. Most people equate airports with long lines, stress, bitter cups of overpriced coffee, lost baggage, headaches…And I am not denying that all those things certainly exist at airports. I think what I like about airports is that they are a limbo. I have always been drawn towards transitional spaces. At the airport no one is permanent, everyone is en route, even the people who work there never truly seem to be established. They constantly rotate, change shifts, wander between gates, never limited to one post. So whenever I have a flight planned I arrive 2-3 hours early, even when I have a very early morning departure. I love to sit, headphones snuggly tucked into my ears, and watch. I watch people bustle to and fro, a family trying to make sure everyone is accounted for, a twenty-something turned face-in on a bench of seats, trying to sneak in a nap. Staring out the windows I watch the metal behemoths lift soundlessly into the air, as if they are just floating away with hardly any effort and I almost forget their bellies are seeded with human beings.

I think I also like airports because they satisfy my restlessness. To be in an airport means I am going somewhere. There is something ahead to anticipate. Even if the final destination is not a pleasant one, such as a funeral, I still feel a guilty contentment from the journey. I’ve wondered if I was forced to travel more frequently, such as for work, and if I spent more time in airports if they would lose their appeal. Would they become the dusty, dingy, stressful places that most people see them as?

I hope that is never the case.

-k

like clockwork

Dear K-

You have nothing to feel ashamed of in this circumstance. People of our disposition fall in and out of love, even though many times we wish we could be in love, even if just to spare the feelings of the other person. I know I have debated with myself alone at the kitchen table over a cup of tea, asking why I no longer can feel as enthused, as mesmerized as I once was, and why I inevitably have to hurt anyone who dares to get close enough to me to care. The heavy chains of guilt are always there. The feeling is unavoidable. I blame myself for leading them on, even if it was inadvertent. I hate to be the source of pain for someone, especially when I don’t have a good excuse other than “I just don’t feel the same anymore”. It makes me nervous. Can I trust my own feelings at this point? When did I become so mercurial, that not even I can predict my sentiments in a month’s time anymore?

I think you made the right decision, if that means anything, coming from me. She doesn’t want you, she just doesn’t want to be alone. I don’t blame her; I’ve been in those uncomfortable shoes before and tried to waltz that same clumsy step. No one benefits.

You can find someone else to dote upon. You can find someone else to make smile. It’s one thing to find someone to elevate to be the center of your life, to admire and adore, but it’s another thing to find a Daisy Buchanan for which to waste your life away. Think about it. Daisy is Gatsby’s ideal, he falls in love with the idea of her, what she represents…but when you look a little deeper, Daisy is really an awful person. She’s a disappointment. Shallow and selfish, she gets by on her beauty and charisma, but she is barely a husk of a being once you scrape off those superficial layers. That was always the problem and the appeal of the Great Gatsby for me: Daisy didn’t seem worthy of the adoration awarded to her. As much as it frustrated me to see someone so hurtful and superficial be worshipped by a wealthy, love struck man for his entire life, it also seemed painfully realistic. Of course someone would throw everything away for her. Some people need that corporal source of light and purpose in their life, and Gatsby was one who needed a goddess, even one that he built up and embellished in his mind, in order to drive him. Don’t be fooled into thinking you need a Daisy Buchanan, K. Find yourself a powerful, eloquent women who not only appreciates your devotion but reciprocates in kind. Find someone who not only sparks the fire in your heart but douses it in gasoline and continues to stoke it with wood throughout the long years, after the initial fuel has long since burned off.

I know. Easier said than done.

I am probably a little more sympathetic than usual because I have also recently hurt a few men whose only offense was trying to love me. I have a heavy heart, K. Many men have tried to lift it and it has only ended in pain.

It’s spring. Try to think of the sun washed afternoons and the lingering cool twilights of summer to come.

Stay vigilant,
-k

Another

Dear K,

It's Spring and I feel guilty. I really tried to do the right thing. What I thought was the right thing. It gets hard to determine what that is sometimes. I was dating this woman, and we had a good time, however anytime it seemed as if the relationship would progress she would pump the brakes and say things like "maybe I shouldn't be dating you, I shouldn't be dating anybody right now, I should be single"

This was fine for a while. We had fun, things were casual. Then we started fighting, started getting distant from each other. We'd be in the same room and hardly talk. One day I said, "it seems like our dynamic has changed, maybe we should break up and just be friends". It seemed like what she wanted, what she kept telling me she needed.

The following week she said she wanted to get back together.

In that week I had realized that I had been spending a lot of time with her, or talking to her, and that this had taken up the focus of my life. I realized that I had spent the preceding months making things about her. I don't know if she ever felt this way, and maybe that's not even true, but it's how I feel about the relationship. Don't get me wrong I love doing that. I love doting on pretty women. It makes me feel good to hear them giggle and laugh and say nobody ever treated them so good. I like to be good, I like to do good things.

She's been sending me long text messages and asking to talk and trying to get back together ever since we broke up. I've been thinking about how I'm going to get to LA.

I still think she's a lovely lady. I still think she's funny and smart and cute. I just don't feel the way I used to about her, and that really hurts her feelings, and that makes me feel guilty.

I don't like it when anybody I care about is hurt. I'll usually try and do just about everything I can to make them feel better. I'll talk it through with them, I'll try and listen as best I can, I'll make jokes and dance around the room, I'll do anything, say anything to get them to stop crying. Sometimes though there's nothing you can do. It's not my job to make her feel better. I know that, but it doesn't stop me from feeling guilty because her feelings are hurt.

Anyways,

I hope everything's good with you,

K