Chasing ghosts and lessons learned

"he’ll never change, he's just too vague, he’ll never say you’re beautiful"

I’ve taken to writing again. A piece of myself claimed back, words on paper for my eyes only, a five year running track of where I’ve left myself. Words on a screen, the ones im less inclined to preserve for myself, the words in need of escape, if only into an endless void.

Tonight my mind is running past relations, the ones that satisfied, through which I thrived, the ones that disappointed, the ones that hurt, the ones that taught me, grew me, and the empty ones that left me dying of thirst. The latter is perhaps the most pervasive on my mind tonight. The empty relations, the ones built on words without actions.

I am, and always have been, an incredibly tactile person, I find myself in touch. A person is only half real to me, if I can’t feel the warmth of them. And even then, old friends, close friends, who distance or time have removed, until they are but words on a backlit screen become less and less real. These relationship ghosts, a memory reimagined, the smell after rain. Pleasant, but not worth a damn when you’re dying of thirst.

I find myself, in my current quest to re-Engage with a world I was forced to drop my step from, with new ghosts. Almost real people, almost able to touch, almost able to believe in. I find this perhaps the most frustrating, dating and courting in the technological age. So easy to keep in contact, so easy to feel time fall into itself, until a new friendship feels older. But even with a meet, or two, this petrichor is not enough. I find too many people now, who speak in mirror images, all the right words, the right inclinations, intentions, are only half real, all too unwilling to take action on these empty sentences. I have never found myself inclined towards a text based, or distance relationship, too tactile, too sensory driven. Yet I find myself so frequently courting one. And I do not want it.

My time is finite, restricted, an intense job with unsociable hours, my chronic illnesses casting further restrictions, but I find time enough for what I truly want. Three times in as many weeks, I have carved time, planned in advance, forced my body to a reasonable level of compliance through days of work, only to have the objects of that time cancel. All three times on short enough notice that I could not make other arrangements. These things do happen, plans change abruptly, bodies and minds betray us, I’m not one to stand in judgement of that. But I feel a precedent is being set and I deny it.

These online companionships, groundwork of friendships are hollow, meaningless. But my energy is limited and my time must be focused on fruitful endeavours. I can not abide empty words, and I am starting to feel they are all that is being offered.

I reflect on the hurricane girl I used to be, years of work has made me far more measured, controlled, unwilling to continue to leave a wake of destruction. But I learned these traits in a new place, with a new life. And once more I find myself struggling to reconcile the person I am, the behaviours and nature I am so proud of, with the hurricane girl who I’m trying to reconnect with, without submitting to. I want to be both. Miss measured, controlled, is bored, quiet, overly isolated. The hurricane girl is gloriously free, forever submerging herself in ecstasy, but too inclined to fits of passion and rage. I wish to pull my best traits from both these women and knit them into someone new.

Yet here I sit, dancing with a dangerous old friend, a terrible habit that damn near ruined me once, and the hurricane blows inside of me. Externally tonight when presented with a trigger, I was miss controlled, reasonable, patient, as it should be. But I find myself blowing a gale of anger bred by unmet expectations in the silence that follows. This reaction is not reasonable, but God is it honest. And I think that is a key part of integrating these personas, accepting that whilst my reaction is valid and okay, acting on it would not be, allowing it to colour control my future interactions would be unacceptable.

But my reaction feels familiar, to hollow relations I’ve had before. Am I colouring my perspective or am I recognising a pattern early on? Am I once again investing myself in ghosts, waiting for them to change?

I think of what fulfils me, all the friendships and more that resonate, and it is always the ones where I know the smell of them, the texture to their hair, the sound of their laugh as if they were ever present. And I think of how many relationships I’ve wandered away from when people became ghosts, how easily I do so. I think perhaps I should linger, not walk so quickly, but that feels disingenuous. I value myself, my time, my solitude highly. I value time with others highly, but only when it is willingly offered. I’ve been the poison vine that smothered everyone around me, trying to steal time they did not want to give, and frankly, I respect myself far too much to debase myself like that again. I’ve learned too much to try and insert myself anywhere I am not enthusiastically wanted.

I once spent years with a ghost of a boy. I would drink the days we had, save them for what I knew would be a lengthy wait between, and we kept in constant contact. And it was empty, fragile, unfulfilling. I want someone real again, beneath my fingers, breath on my neck, scent in my nose.

“one cup of tea, not enough for company, maybe tomorrow you could let me borrow, another cup of tea, and your company.”



Nov 10, 2020