the great sharpener of knives

Dear K-

I am pleased for you. There’s a certain furious, panicked excitement in the uncertainty, the anticipation of a potential cataclysm, for better or worse. You don’t need me to wish you luck but I shall do it all the same because you asked me to do so. I can almost see you, sitting in a stuffy white room in a chair that feels well worn, smiling with such a casual sense of ease as you navigate through a field of inquiries, plucking the best queries out like a choice flower from a bouquet, to hold and examine delicately as your expound upon its qualities, before you gently tuck it back into place before the interviewer. Then you lean back with eyes sparkling, glittering with the fire of your soul while the coffee rushes through your veins like a cataract, and give them another one of your warm, enthusiastic smiles. You will do beautifully. I have no doubt.

I am the sharpener of knives. It is what I do best, is it not? I apologize if my knives have ever found their way to hurt you; I never meant to bury them within you. Sometimes knowing me is enough to guarantee collateral damage. My life isn’t that terrible. I know I should be thankful and happy with what I have. And in many ways, I am. I am so, so very thankful for the opportunities I have been afforded and the successes I have found. But sometimes the world just weighs you down. I’m in a valley at the moment, and when I try to scrap my way up the rocks to make my way to the top of the hill, the gravel gives way and I slide back down to where I started. At the moment, I’m trying to decide whether or not I should just stay in the valley for a little while. Perhaps I will end up liking it here. Perhaps I am just wasting effort trying to climb the hill to reach some unknown that may not make me any more content.

It is dangerous to know me. It is a mistake to get attached. I have a friend who I’ve known perhaps two to three years now, and we’ve seen each other at least once a week for those three years. Lately, we’ve been seeing more of each other through various group social outings. He is a good person. I think he is a very kind soul and has many good qualities. But I fear he is getting too fond of me. And as much as I think he is a great human, I know that I can only bring him unhappiness. A younger version of myself would have interpreted his attentions as reason to start a relationship: oh look, this gentleman is actually interested in me! This is unusual! I like how this feels when someone is keen on me, so I think I’ll start a relationship so I can enjoy this on a regular basis. But now, older, jaded, I know that I could never make such a relationship work. He would always love me more than I could ever love him. And that isn’t a slight to his personality or ability; I just know my heart isn’t there. At one point it may have been, but it isn’t. I could never make it work and I don’t want to try. I love him enough to know that I could never love him enough to make him happy.

A part of me thinks he’s just another lonely person, a little shy of twice my age, and he may think that we would make a good match for simply that reason: two lonely people who get along well enough in most contexts might be able to entertain each other enough to consistently enjoy each other’s company in perpetuity.

On a related note, this same friend sees a therapist. I found out while rummaging through his wallet to try to help him find a lost slip of ticket. The ticket stub was absent, but instead I found several reminder cards for appointments at a therapist. A very selfish, disgusting part of me later wondered if he ever brought me up at therapy. I have no idea what the purpose of the therapist is, and I doubt I would be ever mentioned at any meeting, but there’s still a part of me that is curious. Have you ever wondered that? Do you wonder if people bring you up in other conversations with people who have no idea who you are? It doesn’t have to be a therapist- take this correspondence for instance. Do you think this man would ever wonder if I talk about him to a third party? Am I the only selfish, self-centered thinking person in the world who secretly (now not so secretly) wonders if they’ve ever been the topic of a session? Of a late night phone call? Of an emotional break down? Of a song? Of an unprovoked thought?

Maybe that just makes me a terrible person. Either way, I think I should try to limit my social outings for a while until I’ve figured out what this valley is really about.

Tell me you got the job.

-k

Deer Heart Dear Heart Here Dart

Dear K,

I'm sitting in a Starbucks trying to psyche myself up for a job interview and simultaneously thinking about everything in my life and the panic of the coffee is starting to grip me but that might be a good thing over-caffeinated ramblings sometimes knock some truth loose especially if you let the fingers hit the keys at a fantastic rate and you don't stop to think or to punctuate. That's the ticket you know? Just to type and type and let your words flow. They come in eddies and they come in streams and you get caught up in the patterns of things. You let the rhythm sort itself out, you let the things you say stop mattering. You let the thoughts you think become smaller and smaller and smaller until there is only your fingers hitting the keys, and that is about as close as I have ever come to finding a sort of peace. The secret to life is to somehow be ok with how terrible and great the world is simultaneously. There is great pain and great joy. There is nothing you can do about either. There is nothing you can do about it, so just let go and let your fingers hit the keys, and walk your dog and ride the bus and go to work and come home and make a big pot of soup and listen to the radio and maybe they will play billie holiday and she'll sing about your anxiousness and your unease and your sorrow and your guilt and your pain and all the little sharp knives you grow inside and, I know this is hard to read, its because punctuation and editing are things that we use to make things easier to read, but at least I typed this out and didn't write it out by hand. It'd be a real nightmare then. You know? Sometimes I sit and think about you. I wonder about when you smile. I'd like to be there someday soon and see that smile of yours, and I'm not talking about the everyday smiles. I'm talking about the ones that shoot out of your heart unexpectedly. You know, like when you see a really good dog in the park doing a really great thing, like leaning forward, bowing almost, but wagging its tail the whole time, you know how dogs like to indicate that they're playing? I want to see you smile at something like that. I've been filling my soul with knives for a long time, it is very poky in there. You know? I know you know. You're the great knife sharpener. But I hope somebody throws some lovely pebbles in there and dulls the knives. I hope somebody throws some great big rocks into your soul and convinces you that you're great and lovely and deserve to smile like seeing a big shaggy dog. But now I need to go and interview for a job. Wish me luck, even if you wish it to me in the future it will still affect the past, because luck is quantum.

Thinking of you,

K

Not Dark But Light, Not Flies But Fires Soaring towards the heavens like love from our hearts

Dear K,

I was rusted into my armor. I got stuck in there, the damn thing rusted shut. Please accept this as my excuse for not writing back.

Oh my darling. So much has befallen you. I wish I could swoop down upon you and scoop you up in my arms. I wish I had been there for you. I wish you could have cried warm wet tears into my shirt while you apologized for getting your tears and snot all over my shirt. I wish I could have brushed your hair back and held you closer until you were all cried out. I wish then that I could have made you a chocolate shake with hot fudge and drawn you a hot bath with a big comfy robe. I wish that you would wake up every morning to joy and light and happiness.

I wish that you didn't feel trapped by everyday life. I know the feeling. My dove we are two birds sitting in cages states and states away singing to each other songs from our youth. Sad sweet songs that smell like the last blooms of a tree on a cold day in May.

I wish I could arrange for a band to play and sing your name. A big marching band, in uniforms, red with tasseled epalets, a hundred youth or more, singing at the top of their throats, singing glory glory glory, marching down a green field, shouting your name.

Although you'd hate that. I know you'd hate that. In fact I can't think of anything you would hate more.

So instead I'll arrange for a man to come from Eastern Europe. To whisper his love for you in your ear with his exotic tongue, even the word Goulash would sound seductive as dark chocolate and bitter black tea and annis flavored liquors coming screaming like lighting out of green glass bottles and sidewalk cafes and sharp short winds in winter and warm mulled wine and all the things of those smoky mysterious hills the hapsburgs used to claim.

But really I just want to tell you that I'm so proud of you. I know what you have been going through, and I'm so very proud of you. You have had a hard year, and it's not even half over, but you're strong, you're still standing, and you're in my thoughts and in my heart.

God Bless You And Keep You And Make His Face Shine Upon You,

K

west coast mind with an east coast mentality

Dear K-

You’ve forgotten your old friend again, it seems. I will continue to write, even if you aren’t actively writing back. It’s hard to say whether it is because I hold the hopes that eventually you will remember our correspondence and grace me with your witty replies, or if it is because I sometimes treat our correspondence more as a diary than a proper interaction. Perhaps it is simply because I don’t want to let go of what once was.

I am restless again. I wonder how much of my life will be spent trying to scheme ways to move back to Eastern Europe. And then if I ever accomplish that goal, will I finally be happy? Or will I start to miss the things I abandoned? Will the sacrifices I make to fulfill my desire be too dear?

I suppose I really shouldn’t be complaining, shouldn’t be sighing and looking across the ocean and thinking how nice it would be to be somewhere else. In fact, this is probably the most stable my life has been in the past 10 years. I have a steady source of employment (even if I hate it a bit), and I am making enough money to be fairly comfortable. I have a regular group of friends who I see at least weekly. Sometimes we go to events in the city together. But maybe that’s why I am getting so anxious. For the first time in my life, I don’t have any big change or anticipated shift in store for my future. From here on out all I see is the same old, same old, and it unnerves me. What do I look forward to? Is this really where I want to be? I am comfortable, but I’m not content.

What brought about this renewed agitation? Hard to say. Could be the recent return of warmer weather. Could also be the fact that I spent the weekend in Nashville with 8 other girls celebrating a hen night. It was the first time in my life I have done anything like that. It was actually a much more enjoyable experience than I had originally anticipated, but it left me questioning my current situation in life. I still can’t exactly put my finger on the reason why. I’ll continue to thumb through the index cards of my cortex and let you know if I come up with any answers.

I hope you are well. I hope you are managing to make it through each day appreciating the little things that bring us joy. I hope you haven’t felt the pain that comes with talking to B, or feeling her tug at your heartstrings as if they were threads of gossamer floss, ready to snap at any instant. I hope you are drinking martinis with friends and laughing that big, hearty chortle I remember. You know, the one that brings a smile to my lips without fail, because it is such an honest reaction. I don’t know if you could fake it if you tried.

I hope you are keeping your head above water.

Still treading,
-k

put the days away

Dear K-

My grandmother is dead. I received the message on a Saturday afternoon while I sat in an empty optometry office musing about how all my patients appeared to be cancelling or no-showing due to the recent blessing of warmer weather. It was one of those things where deep down I most likely knew it was coming, but I was trying to avoid it. Trying to think it would be pushed off for another year or two. Another close call.

I kept trying to send her an African Violet. She liked flowers, and I foolishly thought if I sent her something that would require her care and attention, maybe she could be persuaded to get better. But the florist could not fulfil my order, so instead I sent her the severed heads of assorted daisies and a stuffed giraffe tied to a crinkly balloon begging her to get well soon. It wasn’t enough. She told us herself; she didn’t want to live anymore. Between bouts of drug-induced sleep, she repeatedly asked my mother and her sister, “why can’t I just die?”

I wonder if I will ever reach that point in my life.

As morbid as the situation is, I am strangely comforted by the thought that she no longer wanted to hold on. I regret I couldn’t visit her this past year, before she had given up. I kept all the letters and birthday cards she sent me. I don’t know if she knew that. And that’s actually what makes me the saddest at current; the thought I won’t receive any more of her letters. I won’t hear any more about the weather in Minnesota, or how the squirrels have gotten into her tomatoes, or how Grandpa had a difficult time driving to the senior center to play cards due to the recent ice storm. I always smirked at the letters and tossed them in my desk drawer, usually scrawling some sort of reply and sending it her way. But now, faced with the realization that the letters will now cease, my heart sinks with acknowledgement that I enjoyed them more than I dared to admit. Even though the words may have seemed trivial, they were the only thing connecting me to a woman I haven’t seen in approximately 4 to 5 years.

So I spent a tidy sum purchasing the last ticket available for a flight out at 5:45am in order to make it in time for the funeral. You know, I’ve been feeling so run down lately that a part of me is actually looking forward to taking a day or two off, even if it is to attend a funeral. That seems somewhat selfish, but it is the truth. A part of me wishes I could’ve taken the whole week off. I just don’t feel like doing much of anything right now.

At least the weather is getting warmer.

On an unrelated note, finding medical quality syringes on short notice is more frustrating than I expected. I’m lucky the patient called to reschedule to next week. Buys me some time. Just throwing this out there for your information.

Un-reticently yours,
-k

needle in the hay

Dear K-

What's wrong with me? I try to make things work that I need to abandon as broken. How much longer am I going to keep saying to myself "maybe this time it'll be different"? I'm not happy in my current relationship. I haven't been happy for a while. I've been trying to fix things: make myself less judgmental, more friendly, more positive. I read somewhere that sometimes just making the effort every morning to tell you significant other "I love you" that it can be psychologically beneficial for each of you. I tried it. But it just feels empty. It feels forced. I hate myself when I say it, because I think he knows I feel guilty. I do feel guilty. I feel guilty that I can't just quip it out without even a doubt, give him a peck on the cheek, then go off to work, dreaming of the moment I get to come back home to his arms. My life doesn't have that sparkle. I don't expect things to be perfect, but I want at least something positive. Something worth staying for.

Instead, I find us getting into arguments over the tiniest things. I have even been making a conscious effort to stop starting fights over things I know are not big deals. But he finds the ways to aggravate and annoy me to the point where I just fall silent because I can't think of anything nice to say. You know the old phrase. But then he gets upset at me for "not being fun" or he takes my silence as disapproval. He's not entirely far from the mark.

The other day we went out to lunch. In the middle of our meal, which was being eaten in silence while he browsed his phone and I got lost in my own thoughts, a young man sat down a few seats away from us at the bar. I overheard him politely place his order, which was exactly the same as mine except a different beverage. He then proceeded to pull out a small notebook, full of scribbled writing, and started to make an entry while he waited for his food. He was painfully attractive. I found myself staring. I found myself thinking "if I was single, I would try to engage him in conversation in a heartbeat." But instead I glanced over at my boyfriend, looking dissheveled and unshowered, and felt my heart sink like a brick into a lake. Where did I go wrong?

Am I always going to feel discontent? Am I seeking something that isn't attainable? Why do I try so hard to achieve what should come more naturally? Who am I fooling anymore?

And yet I am too cowardly to abandon and hurt the one connection I still have to the social world.

I heard a song one time that mentioned that if you didn't like what you were catching, maybe it was time to change the bait.

Perhaps I am the problem.

Happy new year,
-k

Hark The Herald Angel Sings

Dear K,

I hope this day finds you well. I've been getting into the hippier side of thinking about things lately. Winter is powerful isn't it? Even if it's not cold, it's a time of darkness and struggle and strife. It is a time of fasting, for the soul and the mind. It is a cleansing time. We just had the winter soulstice, the darkest time of year for us in the northern hemisphere. We are passing through the shadow, and this is a time where we can easily sort through what we want to lose and what we want to keep. I'm sorting through all the parts of myself that I want to lose and what I want to keep.

I talked to B last night, and the night before. I'm in a strange place. I love her so very much. I love her desperately. Simultaneously, I know I don't want to be in a relationship with her. Or at least not in the relationship that we were in. We just want such different things. We're very different people that want so desperately to convince the other of our way of thinking, and we're not in a relationship. I saw to that. I think in the long run it will be for the best, but fuck it hurts.

I'm never happier than when I'm in pain though. I need a boulder to roll up the hill.

Lots of religions say that life is suffering.

I love suffering, it makes me feel alive.

May your suffering be sweet,

K

Merry Christmas