Eyes of the Beholder

    There are two things on this planet I want with all my heart. I want to find the man I will gladly spend the rest of my life with, and I want to have my book published. The second is far more likely than the first, but it's the one I could live without.
    I don't know if it's more painful to watch people fall out of love (or admit they might not have ever been in love) or to watch some people go through life incapable of functioning as adults. It always makes me wonder which category the people I meet fall in to and who they've done wrong or been apathetic with. The most loathsome thing on this planet is not love or hate, but the lack of either. In short; apathy. On the other hand, I wonder if it is a chronic disease to be too passionate. To love too many things.
    I watched many a marriage crumble before my eyes where one of the biggest players was apathy, but I've seen a fair number of relationships go south due to passion as well.
    There was a couple, after I graduated high school, that broke up over paint colors in the bathroom. This, obviously, was simply the straw that broke the camel's back, if you'll forgive the cliché. Nevertheless, it was true.
    Denise had wanted to repaint the bathroom for a year, but could seldom find the time since she would much rather go for a picnic with her live-in fiancé, Jacob, than be cooped up with noxious fumes in their apartment.
    Finally, there was a long weekend fast approaching and Jacob had a work conference for the duration of Denise's time off. She decided she would just paint it and get it over with, but she desperately wanted Jacob's opinion on the color. He desperately wanted not to care.
    Truth be told, he did care, but he would rather let her be pleased with the color and spend his time with her on picnics and walks and any number of other things, which had nothing to do with housekeeping and apartment living. Therefore, he encouraged her to make the decision that would make her happy.
    They fought for a week and felt like they were wrestling in a burlap sack full of pine cones with no way out. Denise had set her mind on painting and could think of nothing else until the task was finished and assumed that Jacob simply didn't care. All the while, Jacob would've rather been painting with her and offering his opinion than enduring his endless sea of meetings. He figured he'd lessened her stress by removing his opinion from the equation.
    They were both passionate about the painting and every other aspect of their relationship, but they only shared half their story. They fought on the same side, but, like enemies of a common enemy, they had no idea. They thought they were fighting about apathy on one's part or inactivity on the other's when they were simply uncommunicative.
    Maybe that's what I'm really writing about. The secrets we keep from each other while we tell ourselves we're protecting one another.
I'm still good friends with Denise and Jacob, but they've gone their separate ways. Denise spent that long weekend ten years ago packing her things and moving in with her sister. She secretly wanted Jacob to go after her, but he stayed away, thinking it was what she wanted.
    Is it ego and pride that keep us from speaking our thoughts out loud? Or do we simply feel, that by speaking, we're imposing our beliefs on another and that we ought not to impose?
    Don't worry, I'll get back to my dreams in a moment, but humor me while I'm on my soapbox. Trust me; it's less painful that way. And, my dreams haven't changed much in ten years, but my thoughts on other matters (of importance or not) can be as wiley as rabbits. Here one minute; gone the next.
    Can anyone really impose upon us? We always have free will and no one can take that from us. So why is it so easy to imagine we're a burden on another or to feel like someone has placed us in an unwanted position? Isn't it self-inflicted?
    I have stacks of journals filled with thoughts on the subject, but no conclusion I've written has been more eloquent that that. These journals are interspersed between rants about life and people and character descriptions and lists of goals I've created. Some of them have inspired novels I'll never finish or attempts at elegant poetry, but mostly they remain simple documentation of my life from the moment I could wield a pen.
    What is poetry? One country song describes it as a way to keep something or someone close. Poetry, like writing of any kind, is a way to keep your sanity or hold your loved ones close or to put you deepest thoughts in black and white and never have to reveal their true meaning, purpose or target.
    This brings me back to my dream. The one I could live without. I'm so close to scoring a publishing deal that it consumes every moment between pondering my other dream. I know I have the ability to write. It's a passion that envelopes my heart and body and mind. Or maybe I have the passion to write and the ability to edit. To turn a page, full of nothing more than scribbled words, into life and suspense and animation worth reading. Nonetheless, I love it and can't live without it.
    The publishing is one of those double-edged swords my mother warned me about. I don't particularly care for the recognition being a published author may or may not bring, however it is quite the entry for my resume, should I ever have to re-enter the mainstream workforce. I simply look forward to being my own boss and making a living at something I do every minute of every day already, and I think of the joy I get from reading someone else's book. I hope someone will feel that way about my work.
    As it is now, I'm lying on my bed holding three finished manuscripts I look forward to seeing in print. It reminds me of the first new book I ever received and the gal who gave it to me. It was a Christian book on how to know God's plan for your life. I still pull it off the shelf to read once in a while and think of Kandi from Seattle.
    She was a boisterous college student my mother befriended when I was about fourteen. Mom invited her home for dinner and she invited us to church. Kandi would gladly take me to events with her college friends and I found myself confiding in her.
    When Christmas came around, she stayed with us for a few days. She gave me that book and I was in awe. I couldn't remember ever having a new book and held it like an injured sparrow afraid to damage it. She asked me if I knew how to properly open a new book and, when I answered that I didn't, she carefully and patiently showed me. She explained that if you didn't "condition" a book's spine before haphazardly flipping through its pages that would be more likely to fall apart and do it more quickly.
    I had always taken for granted that a book would either fall apart or it wouldn't. It didn't occur to me that the simple act of how you opened it the first time would have an impact on that outcome.
    That one moment made a lasting impression on me and I doubt that I shall ever forget it. I take a certain pleasure in, not only repeating the ritual with each new book I purchase, but I relive that bond every time I pass on the knowledge to a proud owner of a new book. For each book, and there are many, on the rows of shelving in my bedroom, I remember the time and care I took in opening each one.
    What is it about a moment that makes it memorable? I'm convinced that it has everything to do with the people you share it with or the people it reminds you of. But the day I learned to open a book could've easily passed into the catch-all vault of knowledge I own, but can't remember learning. I wasn't even an avid reading yet. Reading was something required, expected or the only thing less boring than watching paint dry.
    Maybe it was a moment that could only happen once, but one I can easily relive every time I touch a book. I haven't talked to Kandi in at least fifteen years and I'm sure she's forgotten that day long ago, but I wonder what she's doing with every book I pick up.
    Kandi isn't the first friend I've lost touch with and I know she won't be the last, but it always amazes me the ways humans discover to distance ourselves from each other, no matter the impact we've had on one another.
    I grew up 45 miles from my best childhood friend and when we got together, it seemed like no time had passed at all. We'd easily jump into a game of restaurant or demolition derby we'd left unfinished over a month before without a second thought.
    I still remember the day our parents told us that Charlene was moving further away and they didn't know how long it'd be before we could play together again. The next time I saw her, after we helped them move, we were both in middle school, but that just meant that we had a lot of catching up to do. The last I heard about her was that she'd moved to Columbine, Colorado one month after the school shooting her senior year of high school and that she had a full-ride college scholarship, although I don't recall where.