Wednesday, October 28, 2009

The Five Year Itch (Ladies, don't read this one, you won't like it...and it's mainly b/c I don't date guys)

Some women get it out of their system in college, but that's because they didn’t have anyone. No guy to keep them from partying and hooking up so much that they eventually got over it. If it's in men, then I must've blew through it years ago. Even I was locked down during college but never felt this undying need for independence. And that was a relationship from second semester of Freshman year all the way through. Maybe I got a enough ass prior to college, to keep me happy. To me, p****, is p****, is P****...gorgeous thing, and I love it, but let's be honest...there's a million more things a girl needs to make herself appealing. It's amongst the search for these things that it all starts to get ugly.....nothing labial about it. The ugliness comes into play when a woman....I digress.....a girl.....doesn’t have enough time to herself. Time to herself...meaning....time to be single.....to go down on other guys...to experiment with girls, to drink their face off and dance on tables, to have any mother fucker with potent cologne and drenched wet hair grazing up against her just so she knows she's desired. Trust me....if you see a woman at 50 who's still craving it, it's because they got married too early, thought the grass was greener, and now look desperate trying to score a guy for superficial reasons, or just to prove they’ve still got game.

This does not pertain to older generations like our grandparents…that’s a whole other topic dealing more with women’s independence movements, social acceptance with divorce and society, separation during wartime…you name it….so this is relevant to our parents, ourselves, and generations to come. Girls in cities, hate to say it but, the itch is even worse and often longer in duration. The more options they have (i.e. people and entertainment), the more confusion and temptation combine to keep reality from setting in.

Love my mother to death, but she's the best example of having wished she'd seen more of a youthful life. She’d gotten married too early…hadn’t enjoyed being a woman in her twenties, had dated maybe three people before marriage, hadn’t experienced enough fun while young….and ultimately, it led to her obsession with getting divorced. What she did decide to end, now seems to be an overeager and premature decision in the aftermath. I don’t think people are all that different. And I would doubt chemically or emotionally that this wouldn’t need to happen to everyone, therefore, here’s a bit more about why I believe that "need" to be true.

I say it's 5 years because that's really just the length of the age bracket where it seems to happen the most. That does not mean they need 5 straight years of being single, or 5 total years to party and hook-up. From age 22 until about 27, these behaviors are most noticeable. So much change, so much lack of direction, it's by far the most prone time; especially for big city loves, and additionally for anyone who had a long relationship prior. I’m obviously biased. Eager to dissect the chosen paths of those I've loved; watching them firsthand, and analyzing their choices. I've had two serious relationships, each more than 3 years….both of which failed. In hindsight, I see myself unconsciously holding back the girls I was with….they'd proved this the minute they were free from my backyard tent (jk). After that first stint where the girl and I were shacked up in college, we broke up immediately after graduation. I guarantee you know three relationships that ended the exact same way...maybe even yours. In mine, I found out she moved in with two girls and lived for three years, just partying, enjoying herself in a fashion she'd damned to only losers, years prior. She'd point at those girls and despise their dancing on tables and screaming "Sweet Caroline", when really, they were just getting it out of their system earlier than her. There she was, two years later, living in a smaller sorority-style house in the city, enjoying her rightful and well-needed place.

The second relationship I had was different in the sense that you're older but she isn't. It's really the same stage as your previous girlfriend where she's mature when you begin dating but then a total mess with priorities and her own self come age 22. Although it lasted beyond that age, it shouldnt have. I was the circumstance holding back the bird that needed to fly. She’s now doing the exact same thing I mentioned of my previous ex....almost to a T (whatever that expression means). Having seen this already beforehand, it's not even odd to me anymore....in fact, the progression I now expect of anyone. Although a bird always returns to its home after it sees what the world has to offer, to be at home waiting, well you're just not a man. No one should do unfair....there's nothing too lose when you've lost yourself.

There's no way of taming the itch...no method by which to cull and abate what will rise and fall for the best reasons. So keep doing what we all tend to do when faced with sure failure...lose interest completely, remain desensitized and just flow.....for timing and fate does its thing, and there’s no hurt when you just don’t care anymore. What I’m really trying to convey is an awareness, not a bible to live by or a straight defamation of the female character…in fact I think it’s necessary for anyone to go through this, so they don’t end up like my mom, having regrets after 27 years of marriage. I also want people to understand that it’s not something they might’ve done. That it was never in their control to begin with and that they didn't lose it by turning a person off or unintentionally holding them back.....it's remaining cognizant that there's this weird time in one's life....for me, it always seems to be within the ages I've mentioned....but really, it's a time where, no matter what you might do, no matter what you might think, or what you might want and expect of someone else........it really just aint gonna happen.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

The Grape

An old wise philosopher once challenged a town when they professed luck of a young boy’s fate to avoid the draft, while his friend went off to fight. When comparing the circumstances, to most it would seem apparent, but to the old man and the luck of one over the other, he said “we’ll see.”

Disheveled sweats and bloodshot eyes she waited, not for a knight in shining armor but for a hint of comfort to walk through the hospital doors. Her hair was limp and lifeless along with her posture. The future couldn’t possibly hold happiness; no rainbow to follow the storm rolling in. Your body can only be so stressed. On any normal day, these are not her aesthetics. She is out of character and aloof, for her father’s fairing far worse than they’d expected.

She’d gone down to the lobby in a daze to meet her brother; to wait anywhere but that depressing room. The rubber slides through her hand as she waits atop the escalator…and she thinks of life as a cycle, constantly rotating and slipping by, so she tries to grip it tighter; to pause it…..if only for an instant.

Staring past everyone who enters, she notices a man carrying a big basket of fruit and she breathes disgust for she hadn’t thought of that. Following him with her eyes, he comes higher and closer and her head moves forward as if to sniff flowers. The cellophane doesn’t wrap completely around what’s overflowing the wicker, and one tiny grape tumbles out. To stop a man for something so insignificant; to speak for words have escaped her for hours now, it felt good not to care. Desensitized, she’d craved a little good. As the man disappears into the elevators she sighs and returns to pondering what her life will be like without dad.

Dreaming of her best memories of him, she’d agreed with herself; he’d lived a storybook life. A navy man, he’d found his heart in a woman at 19. His fingers like triggers, he’d handled weapons not of gun-smoke and steal, but correspondence. A man who could type when no one else could. The wealthiest family on the block, they had the first television. A flickering blue light dancing amongst the stars, their living room was always packed with anxious glowing faces and warm bodies strewn carefree on the carpet. For feelings never pounded harder through his chest on the day he lost her, they’d been married for 60 years. She now thought about life and how it finds its form in many shapes within this world, the more interesting part of a form being the direction it takes and the meaning it delivers to the lives of one or many; whether conscious or un. Her fresh tears are interrupted…

Crashing to the floor behind her, a body thuds with a subtle snap. Screaming in agony, a heavyset woman in her 60’s has just broken her arm in three places after visiting her daughter. Shocked by the incident, the disenchanted storms over to help. “Thank you so much dear…I don’t know what happened…I’m just not paying attention…I’m sorry.” In shock, she’s sobbing but holding her arm and repeating over and over, the fact that she must get to work. “Mam, you’re right here in a hospital, I think you should get it checked out, no?” “No, I really must go, I don’t have the time right now…dammit, it’s killing me.…..I just wanted to stop by, see my daughter and head out……..you’re an angel though…… thanks so much for helping….I can’t believe this…I’m such a freakin klutz.” As the woman scurries out in disbelief that something so simple could have led to this, she regrets her visit. As she lumbers forward in a hunch, her head lays flat in a grimace. As noticeable as a blue ink stain on a crisp white shirt, squished mercilessly against the back of her dress was the grape. Shocked, our otherwise heartbroken and gray figure grabs her mouth and literally turns cold white. Behind her, a streak continues to dry on the tan-tiled floor, and her conscience kicks in. Tearing apart her stomach for being so remiss, even as the woman walks back into the lobby deciding the pain was unbearable, she can’t say what she now knows. It just isn’t necessary and how could she possibly respond if asked why she did nothing. No matter what she’d come up with, it would never make a difference.

As the town looked on at the lives of those two gentlemen; one spared from the calamity of war, and one sent feasibly to death; defending his life with nothing but a gun......their paths were revealed. Less than a year before the cadet left home, a plague swept through the town. It took with it many of the youngest lives, including our pardoned fellow at the ripe age of 22. He’d coughed and bled from every direction, spending the last 3 months of his life in a sweaty piss-stained bed for those who’d cared for him had died or were forced to quit. Two summers later, our subject doomed to trek the countryside of every country he'd never cared to visit, he'd endured no famine, slept uncomfortably through nights with comrades by his side, and came back to a huge welcome home party. He was awarded the medal of honor for bravery. A hometown hero he began his own practice and went on to be the most educated, successful citizen their little village ever churned out.

Now leaning on the balcony ledge with pure disgust, she kicks internally at her previously lethargic whispers “who cares about a damn grape.” Deciding never to let something like that happen again….just shrugging off a complacent notion for its priority is too low for an otherwise fatigued body, she vows never to have an excuse; she continues to learn. No one knows why things happen until they’re able to look back and see the outcome. Although the fate of the injured woman is unknown, such an unbelievably difficult coincidence may this time lead to destruction, but in regards to her future…well, that……”we’ll see.”