Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Block of letters

Is it a writer's block if I can write about not being able to write?

My birthday twin is getting married. For years, our lives had this creepy parallel quality that kept us both interested in keeping up with one another even though we had more of a kinship than a friendship. The truth is, our paths diverged long before she met her future husband at a house party. It seems like I should hope that I'm not far behind her. I don't know if it is a chronic lack of sleep or just a pickling from the slow bitterness I've been steeping in, watching many friends pair off and begin lives together, but I'm not terribly envious. Being with someone is work. I think 3/4 of the pain in the loss of a relationship is the resetting of all of your habits. You're used to telling them about your day, you're used to something that always annoyed you about them but was familiar, you're used to the way they smell. They become as automatic as the involuntary kick of your leg when your knee is tapped. And we associate that familiarity and intimacy with love. And we miss that. Which is to say I'm not green with envy because I'm not having a ball by myself but I haven't found it better to have loved and lost, or to have loved and fought, or any of the other combinations of love and pain a relationship can produce. Perhaps I just haven't been in love.

Who knows.

1 comment:

Optimistic Pessimist said...

i am in that missing all the familiar things phase right now. i like what you mentioned about needing to reset yourself. perhaps that's what i need to do. find my reset button!