March 4, 2001

The Bitterness of Yesterdays

I wrote this last November...I just ran across it when I was "cleaning" my room. I thought I'd put it up here as I'm rather proud of it as far as my writing goes; though I've somewhat modified my opinions due to a certain charming, sandy-haired individual...

Here goes:

I remember being a fourth-grader. All the girls in blue-haired Mrs. Perry's class, including myself, used to write 'I love ?' on our hands, then giggle and flash goofy grins at that pretty-eyed boy in the third row. We couldn't bear to speak his name, that would be admitting that we like a certain boy; that we thought he was cute.

I don't think anything has changed. I look around me now, in my senior year of highschool, and I see the same games being played. I see girls floundering helplessly in their adoration, biting their tongues to keep them from being shoved down prospective boy's throat. I see these boys, feigning oblivion, their own preoccupations revolving about in their minds as they try their most adamantly to appear cool and sensitive and masculine all at once. Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we find it so impossible to simply accept the way we feel; to display these desperations?

Rejection. We hide, we cower, we cloak ourselves in detachment and indifference; we do everything within our power to construct a safety net of wit and apathy, anything to obscure these feelings from the rest of the world and especially from that someone upon whom these feelings are directed. We are so afraid, so petrified, that this person will only mock or ridicule or reject us that we would rather never have our attractions known; while at the same time of this rampant cowardice we exalt this fiend, this lover who would cast us away, we think. We long so deeply to be embraced, adored, but so rarely are we willing to take the risk to achieve these heights. We are content to waste away in our self pity, our destructive love; we expect our counterpart to take the leap of faith that we ourselves dare not attempt.

This is not all. While wallowing away in our misery it seems we are surrounded by the fortunate lovers who just happened to stumble into eachother's arms. I believe most relationships to be happy (and sometimes unhappy) accidents. They are established most often as excuses for public displays of affection and sex. And yet they parade about as if their two-month relationship is amazing, withstanding, that they adamantly love this person and must continually remind you of it. Here we revert back to the socially obvious fourth-grader, to the childish, uncultured tendencies of lovers who have no idea what they are doing. I have seen girls who still stoop to scrawling 'I love Tom' or 'Lori and Bill 4-ever' all over their notebooks, their folders, their hands. And because they can insert his name means nothing; because they can be shirtless and skirtless and swollen with ecstacy in his presence means less. They are no more mature now than they were at nine; less mature, if anything. They are willing to soil thier bodies for him, for 'love,' they wear his class ring and delude themselves into believing that this tin committment means something. Something and Everything.

I am not discrediting love for the beatiful fever that it is. It exists in its purest form all across the world; in many worthy hearts. However, sexual attraction often masquerades as love; and by calling this carnal emotion love we hope to feel it, if only to justify our actions. Anything is possible when one is in love, this is true. And it has become a convenient scapegoat for all of our mistakes. We are blinded by love, we are raped by love and shattered and abandoned by love. Love has become a stain on too many a tongue, it is a word sapped and sucked dry of all reverance and meaning. It is used too casually today. Loving someone is not willingness to invite them to your bed; loving someone transcends these bestial restraints. Loving someone is the willingness to die for them; the heavy, tangible willingness to die.

So these fourth graders disguised in barely breasted bodies, these quiet boys whose shoulders bear not the burden of men; these children are fooling themselves. The world they live in is not one of their fabrication, and despite how they bat their eyes and make willing their lips. They cannot escape the truth and consequence of their action (or inaction). These happy couples are no different from these sour faced recluses; both are oblivious to the true nature of their cravings. They strive for the same destination. They both go about it the wrong way.