11.24.04 - 1:46 am
being around me now, it's impossible not to notice the marked difference in my attitude, outlook, and system of belief. i can't help myself and i also can't exactly nail down why it's happened the way it has.
i tortured myself tonite by going online and reading SOMEone's last 20 journal entries. it kills me and enthralls me and *delights* me and terrifies me all at once. i have so many unanswered questions, and i've never been so certain of anything in my life.
i'm in southern illinois for the holidays at the moment, and all my 85-year-old grandmother can talk about is how in looooove she is with her 92-year-old boyfriend. it's gut-wrenchingly cute, you have no idea, and watching her flit around the house and use any excuse to bring bill up in conversation gives me hope.
romance doesn't have to be obsolete after your fourtieth birthday.
tonite my aunt was talking to me quite a bit about what my parents were like and how they met and what their wedding was like.
she kept saying over and over, "oh my god, they were SO in love. it was contagious. we all liked your mother, but i think we really LOVED her because your father did SO much."
it was really hard hearing those kinds of things. i have an idea of who they were and what they were like, but my memory has gotten fuzzy over time. it made me incredibly happy, though. i can only remember them yelling at each other while she was extremely sick.
my aunt busted out photo albums chock full of my baby pictures and their wedding pictures and my god was she right. you can see it between them, just on paper like that. just totally insanely in love. with each other AND with me. it gave me hope.
it's in my nature to be incredibly insecure when it comes to matters of someone having the power to pluck my heart out my chest and grind it into a fine powder to be consumed as an exotic cooking spice in indonesia. but this is me, blindfolded, fearlessly walking the plank.
i'm not gonna deny the possibility it could all explode in my face. but for the first time since my heart was intact, back when i had jaw-droppingly naive ideals about 'luv', i don't care. not for a second.
i got this amazing hefner album the other day. it's the kind of thing where you hear a record and my god, it's as if the thing was recorded SOLELY for you. it's speaking to you about your life, and you feel so much everything that's going on in the songs.
it's all come together. and i feel honestly alive for the first time since november 21st, 1998. and my suspicions were right: all of that crap i've endured [from shitty boyfriends to wonderful-but-not-quite-right-for-me boyfriends to identity crises to complete and utter heartdeath to a rediscovery of the guilelessly optimisitic and loving ME that i always knew was still inside deep down) has not been for naught. twas a journey -- a process -- and i have emerged victorious!
i don't regret the years of cynicism and darkness for a second, but i'm so glad it's over with.
this is my very favorite "once upon a time..." of all time.
"when we went out she started clicking her heels, she was sticking her chest out, cause she was starting to feel. love don't stop no wars, don't stop no cancer, it stops my heart."
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