128. profluent

“History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction. That’s why events are always reinterpreted when values change. We need new versions of history to allow for our current prejudices.”
— Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes

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profluent, adjective: Flowing smoothly or abundantly forth.

Today I am 29 years, 1 months, and 3 days old.

In comparison to the incomprehensible age of the universe, the age of our own solar system, or even the microscopically brief length of time that we have even been “human,” this is an insignificant fraction of an insignificant fraction. To me, that ineffable smallness is a beautiful thought—that I mean absolutely nothing in the near infinity of time and space, and yet am here all the same, with my own small thoughts, emotions and experiences, and the power to decide upon and create my own meaning.

“I suddenly felt very deeply that I was alive: Alive with my own particular thoughts, with my own particular story, in this itty-bitty splash of time. And in that splash of time, I get to think about things and do stuff and wonder about the world and love people, and drink my coffee if I want to. And then that’s it.”
— Julia Sweeney, Letting Go of God

This is something that never made sense before I came out as an atheist, and something that doesn’t make sense to my friends now who are theists. And I think that’s rather sad. I could be wrong, of course, about the notion that this is all there is; that there is no deity outside of the universe measuring the threads of our lives; that nothing awaits us after we die. There could be a god, but the probability of that being true is astronomically small, or at least insignificant as a fact.

A few days ago my friend Emily turned 30. In my experience, after 25 age doesn’t start to matter again until around 40, but reaching 30 is still a cultural milestone. While I was making coffee this morning, and taking the dishes out of the dishwasher and putting them away as I waited for the grounds to steep, I considered the idea that there is nothing we can do to stop time, the process of aging, or the inevitability of death. Someday, probably sooner than I’d like to think since time itself is a fiction that we create to make sense of our waking moments, I am going to die. Life is uncertain, but of that I can be certain as an organic being.

This past weekend we threw Emily one hell of a party as only twentysomethings with too much education and access to alcohol can. Since we aren’t teenagers it wasn’t a wild party by any definition. However, I did end up getting very drunk since the only thing I’d had to eat the entire day was a scone from Starbucks and two pieces of chocolate cake. The result was that I blacked out for part of the evening, although I do recall playing a Bach prelude from memory and then breaking down in tears because I’d just played a Bach prelude from memory and no one at that party fully appreciated that fact; the fact that I love Bach, the fact that I write music, write stories (or this blog), or all of the sundry incongruous elements that make up Me.

And there’s no one special person right now who appreciates that. That’s mainly what upset me this weekend. And I was up until about three in the morning talking in my bed with the only other gay guy at the party (who I wasn’t even sure would like me since 1) he’s a Christian and a pastor; 2) I’m an outspoken atheist and a loud one, and he knew that) about some of those things—including Seth, with whom we’ve both had unfortunate experiences.

In the little over a year since I came out as an atheist, the desire to deeply and intimately share the experience of being alive with another human being has grown a lot. In the past my youngest sister has expressed a total lack of sympathy or understanding when I’d talk about wanting to find a guy. (This is the sister who, incidentally, is currently substituting a dog for a meaningful relationship with a guy because she “can’t find anybody good enough,” which is not-so-subtle code for “fear of intimacy,” the congenital malady of my family.)

For me, the desire to be with someone comes out of the knowledge that this is the only go-round that we get on this planet, and I want to spend that time with someone who, out of all the other guys in this world, wants to spend it with me (and vice versa); who finds my quirkiness enchanting, and my insanity endearing (even if, at times, infuriating); and who desires as much as I do to deepen his understanding of humanity and of existence by exploring life with another person.

“I speak of none other than the computer that is to come after me,” intoned Deep Thought, his voice regaining its accustomed declamatory tones. “. . . A computer which can calculate the Question to the Ultimate Answer, a computer of such infinite and subtle complexity that organic life itself shall form part of its operational matrix. And you yourselves shall take on new forms and go down into the computer to navigate its ten-million-year program!”
— Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Chapter 28

When you believe that “there are other worlds than this . . . that this world, that seems so real, is no more than a shadow of the life to come” (William Nicholson, Shadowlands), it doesn’t matter whether or not if you find someone in the Here and Now. To my youngest sister, all that matters is knowing Jesus.

I want to focus on making this life the best one possible—which includes waking up with the guy I’m in love with (and vice versa).

65. angel

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind. But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.

– Excerpt from the beginning of “Burnt Norton” in T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets

I’m quoting this partly in preparation for embarking on a setting of the Quartets this fall for my friend April who is currently living in the U.K. We’d both like to collaborate on a new piece of music for her to sing, and frankly, I miss writing serious music. We’ve both been thinking texts the last two or three weeks, and yesterday in an email it became clear that we were both thinking of drawing from the Four Quartets.

I’m also quoting this because I’ve been thinking about regret and what-may-never-be the last couple of days, and have been trying to figure out a way of expressing that without sounding maudlin or mopey. A couple of days ago I was cataloging titles of my blog posts here, both to keep them consistent and to see where I’ve been the last year or two. Re-reading the “Invidiousness” post, wherein I recount what happened on my birthday this year, brought back the feelings of regret about Seth that I’ve been trying so hard to kill—that it happened; that I risked a friendship and lost it; that several friends who I used to be close with have become distant, though for what reason I can only speculate. They’re starting a church with him so they spend a lot of time together. There’s that, but I also think there’s some awkwardness about it. Again, it’s just idle speculation, but there’s a definite sense of loss.

Part of me wishes that I could just get over it, because I do miss Seth and his company—but I also have to admit that I still have strong feelings for him, and the knowledge that I cannot ever have him in that way, combined with the foolhardy hope that maybe I could (and the agony of the realization that he’s probably dating someone else), makes that possibility impossible. It still burns like a poker in my brain, like Stanley Kowalski looking up at Stella’s window in Streetcar Named Desire. I’ve tried to wall it in, push it away, kill it, and yet it remains. Maybe time will heal that gash. Or maybe not.

Another part of me also fears that I’ll never find someone like him; that I’ll ultimately have to settle for second-best; that I won’t find—or worse, that there isn’t—anybody better out there. Believe me, I’m fully aware of what he did and how he ultimately treated me; and yet I find myself missing the good things that there were with what there was. To be clear, in reality it wasn’t much more than a fuck buddy relationship, at least as far as he was concerned. That was where it got messy.

What worries me is that these are not positive thoughts to be going into a relationship with: looking at the guy you’re dating and no matter how hard you try wishing he were someone else that will never be. I am trying to date, meet people and not just wait for someone to come along. But, while trying to move forward, I fear being stuck in the past, ghosts of the memories of echoing footfalls down the passage I could not take, towards the door to the rose-garden that I tried and found slammed and barred in my face.

In the past, I’ve often turned to the writing and songs of Fiona Apple. It was after my first traumatic breakup that I first began to understand what she was talking about—but I wasn’t deeply in love with my first boyfriend. The breakup hurt, yes, and I felt like a monster for doing the breaking up. But it was after being rejected the first time by Seth last February that I actually knew the agony of loving someone who didn’t love me in return, and loving them in spite of it. Her words provided a sort of solace, because it meant that someone else knew the same pain and was able to put it into words, like a tiny candle in the darkness.

So be it, I’m your crowbar (if that’s what I am so far) until you get out of this mess. And I will pretend that I don’t know of your sins until you are ready to confess—but all the time… all the time, I’ll know… I’ll know. And you can use my skin to bury secrets in, and I will settle you down. And at my own suggestion, I will ask no questions while I do my thing in the background.

But all the time… all the time, I’ll know… I’ll know.

Baby, I can’t help you out while [he] is still around. So for the time being, I’m being patient. And amidst the bitterness, if you’ll just consider this, even if it don’t make sense all the time—give it time. And when the crowd becomes your burden, and you’ve early closed your curtains, I’ll wait by the backstage door while you try to find the lines to speak your mind and pry it open, hoping for an encore.

And if it gets too late for me to wait for you to find you love me, and tell me so—it’s okay. Don’t need to say it.

For almost a year, this closing song from Fiona’s second album When the Pawn, “I know,” was emblematic of my experience with Seth. It expressed the ineffable, the waiting, the longing, the anguish and the anger. That last line, “It’s okay. Don’t need to say it,” was the torch that kept me from slipping over the edge into total despair. But now, with this new admission, her words seem to be turned around, like the relentless mirror that music and art can be at times, and are as much about me with the ghost of that pseudo relationship overshadowing my current and future relationships as it was about what he did to me, or I was doing to myself, or a combination of the two.

Today I responded to a photographer I follow on Twitter, PhotographyAmy, who posted about the Human Rights Campaign’s wedding registry, by saying that “as soon as I find someone to marry, HRC will definitely be getting an invite!!” Later she responded, “It will happen when you least expect it!” But the older I get, the less likely that seems.

God, I need an angel.

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Apple, F. (Performer). (1999). I know. On When the Pawn.. [CD] New York City: Epic/Work Records.

Eliot, T.S. (1943). Four quartets. New York City, NY: Mariner Books.