I’ve somehow just spent like, 90 minutes reading through liquidmercurial‘s livejournal, back through … I don’t know … February or something. I remember why I stopped reading was the same reason that all the reading I just did didn’t answer the questions I went into her archives in the first place for; at the time that the important things were going on in her life, she began posting everything important in such a way that only livejournal users she has marked as her ‘friends’ can see the posts. I don’t have a livejournal account, and I can’t be marked as her ‘friend’, so I can’t see what was really going on with her. But I can read between the lines, and this far away from whatever happened, I guess it’s just assumed that everyone knows anyway, so … I can see that I missed something important in the life of someone who used to be so important to me.
Except… I haven’t been to her site since January or February at the most recent, so why did I go today? I didn’t see a link or hear her mentioned, did I? Actually, as I read back through her site I realized I has heard brief mention of her ten days ago, but that wasn’t when I started thinking about her. I remember a little over a couple weeks ago I noticed (not by looking at a calendar on a wall, but by feeling it… like a memory in time that pings against my heart every year) that her birthday was about to happen. That she was having another birthday I would not see, like every one since her 16th, I believe. I remember looking up at the full moon just after midnight in the first moments of the 26th and thinking of her. I wished her a happy birthday through the moon; I don’t know if the message got through.
She is one of three people (outside my family) who have had a lasting impact on my heart. I remember the last time I was involved with her (engaged to her) hearing something about how every relationship we have we give a piece of our heart away. The point at the time was that we needed to get those pieces back before we could offer our whole heart to a life-long partner. The point now is that I let her keep a piece of my heart. Reading through her journal, I clicked a link or two to pictures of her (she was showing off her fantastic hair extensions, like the opposite of these pictures), and just seeing her face again … a deep reaction in my chest. Memory of loss, I guess. Remembering a future together I can’t explain since we’re apart.
Of all the pieces of my heart I ever gave away, hers is one of three I never took back. I haven’t done much giving away of my heart since then, either. Perhaps that’s why it feels so strongly even after so much time and space apart. My love for her was the reason I gathered up all the broken pieces of my heart. If not for that, perhaps I would be desensitized to this feeling. Would that be something to want? To not feel so strongly about somone I’ve loved? How would that turn out when/if I love someone new? Perhaps this is for the best.
As I was reading through her entries, I kept seeing where we have so much more in common now than I remember. A lot of it that are things we’ve only begun to do in the years since we haven’t seen each other. We drink the same drinks, we like the same TV shows. She’s taken to wearing the sort of vinyl clothes I love to see on other people and with I had the body for. So many more tiny things, too. We spend time in similar places, often just missing each other through circumstance. I looked over the last 4-5 months of timeline, and if one were making a movie about either of our lives, a clever editor could have made something like the frustrating parts of Serendipity from all the ways we passed through the same spaces without meeting. It would have been nice to see her though. Being a part of some sort of cosmic entertainment is one thing, but seeing old friends and lovers is something else, and often more satisfying.
I think that if I were a little more proactive about being part of Phoenix’s gay scene and making new gay friends, I would almost definitely have run into her. That’s something else we have in common; we both like gay men. She’s just a lot more successful at having meaningful relationships with many gay men than I am. I really need to get out more. I’m not going to make any new friends or run into any old ones by staying at home. (Apologies to Chris, who I did meet by staying at home.) My mother thinks the real problem is that I don’t follow through when I am interested in someone; that I flirt, but don’t take the next step to ask for a phone number or a date. I think she’s right. I’m sure I meet people at least once in a while. I know I’m interested in having friends. The disconnect must be me.
This may also be why I have such a strong reaction to her; she is already someone I know that knows me. I don’t have to ‘break the ice’ with someone I already know. We’re already comfortable with each other. I’m running out of people I already know. They’re moving away, getting on with their own lives. I don’t do enough to keep in touch with most of them. Too many of the people I’ve known, I haven’t had much depth of relationship with, and I didn’t miss them when they were gone. The ones I did have depth of relationship with either stopped returning my calls (like her) or are still around (like Zoe and Art) or I at least know where they’re at in the world and keep in touch with them (like Sara). Since I’m running out of people I know, especially those I’ve had a deep connection to, perhaps that is why I react so strongly to the idea of her; something in me tells me that that connection may still be there and finding it again won’t be as hard as building a new one with someone else.
I feel like I’m babbling, but I’ve done it long enough that I can almost not feel her anymore. Maybe I’ll try to contact her again. Maybe I’ll just link her to this post. I think it says a lot. Then again, it may just be gibberish. I keep getting interrupted by people calling in for technical support, so I’m never sure if my trains of thought stay on the same tracks as I go through a long post like this. Did I make sense? Does this have meaning? Is this a better read than what chores I did yesterday?
