day109 - some kind of family
as i'm typing this, i wear my headphones half-on-half-off. in my left ear a song from a band you like is playing, and in my right, the soft sound of your breath as you doze off. i'm typing as quietly as i can on your admittedly noisy mechanical keyboard, because i desperately don't want to stir you from your sleep.
"And the party would be grand
All our friends would grin with pride
All our friends would be so drunk
And have such pleasant things to say
And at last, we'd see each other
In the way that we had dreamed to be seen"
'phoenix' - slaughter beach, dog
i hear those lyrics and look back at you sweetly nestled into your quilt, and my eyes start to sting. some kind of anticipation of nostalgia for moments we haven't yet lived. some kind of quiet awe because you look so beautiful when you're asleep.
the urge to stand up from your desk and join you at your side threatens to tear me away from your keyboard.
i let it.
elsewhere, i reminisce on the last forty-eight hours, a series of vignettes, a half-completed paint by numbers forming a picture of a life with you. of the smile on your face and the redness of your cheeks as we sit and drink with our friends. as we cook dinner and sing along to a song playing on a speaker, demonstrating to a dear friend the difference between melody and harmony. of my frantic 3am rush to take a friend-of-a-friend to the hospital, your insistence that you join me, and the aftermath: returning to your house at around 4 and just sitting in my car for a while, resting on each other.
the word 'simple' has not been applicable to my life (especially my love life) for many years now.
I'm certain the people in my life who exist just outside my blast radius think that I like things that way, or that I deliberately seek out complexity. if a very specific kind of scenario simply keeps playing out in someone's life, (albeit with a continually reshuffled cast), you can safely assume that you'll find the root of the issue by studying what doesn't change— what remains constant. this is very compelling reasoning, but unfortunately, to accept that I'm the problem would undermine a lot of my desire to Be Better in the world. So I choose to shrug and say "I don't know" instead.
I'm accustomed to viewing relationships as complex equations accounting for time, energy, intensity and a host of other hard-to-miss variables.
while I do crave simplicity, I built a new family using a pen, four friends, and a sheet of graph paper. simple recipe. ask me how.
d-did you ask? fuck it I'll tell you anyway.
take two people in a long term relationship (1,2). then, add in another person (3) dating (1) but otherwise best friends with both. you'll want to preheat that for about 6 or so months before you come into the picture.
then, add in another person (4) who has various levels of involvement with all three, but is dating (2). just vibe out the time frame on that one.
finally you (5) come into the mix. (3) pulls you into the fray, and you resist it despite wanting so badly to give in to it. become close with (1,3), and develop a surprisingly profound love for (2) over a number of months. during those early months, season with self-delusion, false hope and general confusion on a base of comfort and happiness. befriend (4) after a false start, and admire them deeply.
experience a series of interpersonal dramas that feel like they could have been bad dreams after the fact, and culminate in a ten-day trip to Germany taken by (1,2). you and (3,4) help to make their home a little comfier upon their return because despite your differences you love them (1,2) so fucking much.
pick up (1,2) from the airport. hijinks ensue, bicker a little bit (5,4) from overtiredness. go out drinking to a craft brewery (1,2,3,4,5) with more friends (a,b,c) and have a stupid goofy evening.
return home and cook dinner (5) with help from (1,2,3,4) at different steps and intervals. listen to music and eat at the table together.
receive a text message from (3).
feels good to b family like this huh
smile and realise they're right, you (5) feel like you're home.
did you follow that?
—oh, it sounded complicated?
true enough. but how perfect.