Adjustments
I just read Kyle's new blog and I'm struck numb. A photograph reminds my mind of an experience that somehow slipped through the cracks of memory, bookended by too much intensity to be fully remembered in its simplicity and comfort. A blue shirt shows me a piece of myself that has remained there, in that state, and with him. Words speak clearly to a past that has become a part of who we are and therefore go unspoken for years at a time. No longer 'a revelation', simply a 'part of us', or even, maybe, just 'us'. It's scary to remember things that are so true, pieces of the past that at one point were so important, such vital conscious tidbits of our development; and today, developed, they fade from consciousness, and we are better people as a result, as we've moved on to new challenges and new things to think about.
I had forgotten how hard freshman year was for Kyle, and perhaps I never really tied it directly to his being raised in a small town. We blamed his frustration on Markleyism, Long Island jews, capri pants and the greek system. Only today does it seem that it was really an adjustment period for Kyle, and it would've been hard for him pretty much regardless.
I'm tired all the time these days. I don't think it's a physical thing. I had a dream that felt like it summed it up pretty well, and I awoke feeling as though I had had many dreams with the same challenge. The challenge was that I was at the top of a large ladder or metal structure, way high up. I had to somehow manuever my body in such a way to get off of the structure and to a safer place. I think I was holding something, making the task that much more difficult. Naturally, I was terrified of falling.
There was somebody up there with me. I think the person was on the safer structure, and he or she was trying to help but it really wasn't helping all that much.
The overwhelming part of my life these days is, ironically, not the world of academia I've just entered. That part feels totally under control, despite the intimidation factor. The hard part is everything else: my social world, my sense of personal space, a feeling that the external world is grabbing at me, trying to take pieces of me for themselves.
In my quest to find balance I am distanced from a great many people. To be as open as I want to be towards my new classmates, to fully embrace a whole, new universe I must, to some extent, close myself off to my other worlds. I have become worse at returning phone calls, I have sought out solo-time and solo-space. I owe some people an apology. I need this, though. I'm sorry.
Kyle and I don't talk on the phone very often. Still, we've seen each other at least once each year since college, including a solid 10 days in Colorado this past August. It's remarkable, the effect on your inner self that spending time with people from the past can have...I need that in life.
Kyle almost died a year and a half year ago. He doesn't talk about it a whole lot, and I'm not even sure that he's comfortable with me writing it, but to me it's important. When I read his writings I see them as a version of reality; and I see that they could fade away like the images in Back to the Future. To go back in time and look forward to May 2006, it is not a fact that he will survive that incident. It is by chance that he is alive, and I see each moment I spend with him and each beautiful concept that he writes about as a bonus piece of life, an energy that could have just as easily not existed, or as an energy that could have just as easily manifested itself as a whole in my heart. Then I realize that all existence is this way, my own life as a lucky confluence of events that has somehow not yet killed me. Cereal tastes much better when you view each bowl as a fortunate set of circumstances based around the luck of not being dead.
I wept when I read Kyle's blog. I saw pieces of myself throughout, and to inspire and be inspired by one person is truly a beautiful relationship. In a sense, that is the goal of all relationships, and inspiration has become more and more in my life a defining feature of my closest relationships. I am honored and proud to be a part of his blog, and of him. He is one of the purest individuals I know. I aim someday to have the internal purity that he emanates without effort.
A side note: Food helps me realize: a brownie once showed me that time is finite, that there are only a limited number of brownies that I will eat between the time I am born and the time I die. This makes brownies taste much better.
I had forgotten how hard freshman year was for Kyle, and perhaps I never really tied it directly to his being raised in a small town. We blamed his frustration on Markleyism, Long Island jews, capri pants and the greek system. Only today does it seem that it was really an adjustment period for Kyle, and it would've been hard for him pretty much regardless.
I'm tired all the time these days. I don't think it's a physical thing. I had a dream that felt like it summed it up pretty well, and I awoke feeling as though I had had many dreams with the same challenge. The challenge was that I was at the top of a large ladder or metal structure, way high up. I had to somehow manuever my body in such a way to get off of the structure and to a safer place. I think I was holding something, making the task that much more difficult. Naturally, I was terrified of falling.
There was somebody up there with me. I think the person was on the safer structure, and he or she was trying to help but it really wasn't helping all that much.
The overwhelming part of my life these days is, ironically, not the world of academia I've just entered. That part feels totally under control, despite the intimidation factor. The hard part is everything else: my social world, my sense of personal space, a feeling that the external world is grabbing at me, trying to take pieces of me for themselves.
In my quest to find balance I am distanced from a great many people. To be as open as I want to be towards my new classmates, to fully embrace a whole, new universe I must, to some extent, close myself off to my other worlds. I have become worse at returning phone calls, I have sought out solo-time and solo-space. I owe some people an apology. I need this, though. I'm sorry.
Kyle and I don't talk on the phone very often. Still, we've seen each other at least once each year since college, including a solid 10 days in Colorado this past August. It's remarkable, the effect on your inner self that spending time with people from the past can have...I need that in life.
Kyle almost died a year and a half year ago. He doesn't talk about it a whole lot, and I'm not even sure that he's comfortable with me writing it, but to me it's important. When I read his writings I see them as a version of reality; and I see that they could fade away like the images in Back to the Future. To go back in time and look forward to May 2006, it is not a fact that he will survive that incident. It is by chance that he is alive, and I see each moment I spend with him and each beautiful concept that he writes about as a bonus piece of life, an energy that could have just as easily not existed, or as an energy that could have just as easily manifested itself as a whole in my heart. Then I realize that all existence is this way, my own life as a lucky confluence of events that has somehow not yet killed me. Cereal tastes much better when you view each bowl as a fortunate set of circumstances based around the luck of not being dead.
I wept when I read Kyle's blog. I saw pieces of myself throughout, and to inspire and be inspired by one person is truly a beautiful relationship. In a sense, that is the goal of all relationships, and inspiration has become more and more in my life a defining feature of my closest relationships. I am honored and proud to be a part of his blog, and of him. He is one of the purest individuals I know. I aim someday to have the internal purity that he emanates without effort.
A side note: Food helps me realize: a brownie once showed me that time is finite, that there are only a limited number of brownies that I will eat between the time I am born and the time I die. This makes brownies taste much better.
posted by MEM at 5:30 AM
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