Fish Wrapper: 2007.02.02
February 2, 2007Is this the same woman I fell in love with six years ago? Or, why is this the same woman?
Kids, we have a few problems here: I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. It’s 5 a.m. The few brief moments I nod off are taken by her.
But this is not like before. Not six years before, even — this is not like yesterday. It’s strange. Unfamiliar.
The results, however, are the same. My body functions, the night, thoughts, all are disrupted. And so what makes it different?
I pose this question: If we all get to the same place eventually, does it matter how we get there? Is it OK to be fashionably late? I prefer it so.
Who would have thought the phrase “conflicting interests” would become as prophetic as it has. This is a wide world of women.
“What’s wrong?” I say.
“I don’t wanna say. It’s a conflict of your interest,” says she.
That was many years ago. The sweaty summer love of 1997, or, ‘98. I can’t remember. It could have been 1996 or 1995. My mind’s not so sharp these days.
But that girl, then not yet sixteen, prophesied now. Except this time the shoe is on the other foot.
“What?” she says. Different she.
“You know: conflict of your interest.”
What fucking idea is this! Not sure enough to say: “It’s me you’re thinking of.” To say: “I know you’ve got this one thing going on, but, forget that. Forget him. He’s no good for you. Not like me.”
But why? There’s silence on the line. Why must I, a bachelor of some esteem, choose tangled to liberty and freedom from this sort of drama? This sort of thing is for my married friends. Drama: “It ain’t me, babe. It ain’t me you’re looking for.”
Ed. Note: This is where I cue the music (look under the picture, press play).
It boils down to this: is this where I want to be? Mired between the proverbial rack and a hard place? What do I expect from this? What can I expect from this? Am I doing more harm than good? Am I doing any good?
I can say that now is not a good time for any of it. For me, sure. For her certainly.
Sure — straight faced — I can say that this drama, these recent dramas are out of character. “Give me liberty or give me death,” always seemed like a good way to live it. It’s just that the liberty in the mind is out of step with the liberty in the body.
And there is no freedom in that, let me tell you.
///END ANGST