{august 15, 2000} ......,........................<--ramblings, observations, & mistranslations---
on a night not unlike this, i wrote the following:
{may 20, 2000}
what does it feel like? well, i'm waiting for someone to ask me what i'd like on my tombstone. pepperoni? olives? roasted garlic? a little bit of humility? tonight i drive to the airport and pick up the woman whom has redefined for me the word patience.
it has been a rusty road, the two of us. i don't think there is any way i can describe the polarity of my feelings for her, all the emotions she has influenced, but i do believe that she has made me a better person. i am a very different woman than the one she met over a year ago, and she is as well, but i find serenity in the fact that we are still very much in love.
there is a continuum that, in my youthfulness, i often forget. i have the distinct displeasure of being all-or-nothing in temperament, leading to numerous declarations of "no more!" and "never again!" and "if it isn't going to work now, then it won't work ever!" throughout my life, and the span of this relationship. things i have learned in my maturation is patience and humor: perhaps two of the most important elements of humanity.
this woman was the catalyst for my own self-discovery, even as she was toiling through her own, thousands of miles away. she has made me question, redefine, explore, rage, wonder, cry -- and the best possible thing -- laugh my muthafuckin' ass off. i crave her presence and opinion daily and look forward to so many more deep and silly observations.
i had always thought i was afraid of commitment, and perhaps i was. this is the first time in my short and moody life that i have met someone who has kept my interest longer than a few months. no longer do i feel that i am hanging around in a relationship until something better comes along, not with her.
no, not with her. not with her at all.
i speak of continuum, and this is what i have accepted -- that i will never understand the cycles that are at work within another. no matter how much you love or care, there is, at core, an element of survival which shall prevail.
here's me being stupid: shave my legs, put my best dress on, oh.....and the red heels (if an entire nation was ever created for my supreme enjoyment, it was spain, whom offered me those patent leather platform candy-coated pieces of dream-pie-shoes.) me = decked out beyond all recognition. i think i even had lipstick on -- or lipgloss, at least, and i stood at the airport, reporting to the gate indicated by the flight number she had given me......
and i waited.
and waited.
and waited.
i even had the hopefulness to walk up to a flight attendant and ask her if all the passengers had gotten off the plane. she replied with, "ma'am, the plane is moving away from the gate, now -- all the passengers are off."
so, what then? oh, it was terribly dramatic in all the best ways: i sped home at no less than 100 mph, heels clicking on the clutch and tears streaming down my face. smeared make-up, god how sexy. but, yes, that was me -- at the gambling table with all my cash on the line.
and, of course, not a word since. never a word, she is a ghost with a tantalizing sense of timing. i have the very keen notion that she will surface again, and i will again be mesmerized by her beauty and perfection -- for she is the siren, the mermaid, the banshee: exquisite and deadly.
"act your age, mama, not your shoe size."
most recently, in the past few months, i have stepped forward and held my own hand. frankly, i was tired of waiting for a worthy suitor and it was getting cold. experiences like these show me:
1. i have a sense of adventure.
2. i don't need to breathe under water.
3. what anyone else thinks of me is trash.
4. i don't want to ever settle.
5. life = a charming swordsman.
6. no matter how much i try, i can't see the future.
and you?
love, kat