I'm growing tired. Old. It's almost as if I can feel my brain decomposing parts that I once used but that have become dusty and untouched for years now. It's not maturation, it's not "growing up" - it's more of a continual de-evolution of what was into what simply is.

As I often say, I've lived much longer in spirit than my nearly twenty-four years of life may show. I've loved, I've lost (both literally and figuratively), I've both cried and fought back tears, I've won fights and I've been beaten senseless. Somewhere along the gradual path of my current self, I've realized certain truths about my life. I want love. I want all consuming, passionate, can hardly stand it love and I want lazy Sunday morning love. I want stability, but not so much that I can't shake it up and go crazy every once in awhile. I need options - I can't feel backed into a corner. Above all, I need room. Space. My own personal bubble so that I can be either comfortably involved or comfortably uninvolved.

I'm not sure what happened between January and September of this year. On the calendar, that's only eight months. That's only 2.7% of the life I've lived so far. But, I can pin it down. It happened during January and September. The "it," well, I'm not sure how to quantify that. I can say, however, that everything that happened - everything that has changed inside me - was entirely my own doing.

I feel a little weird right now. I feel as though Bear might take this statement and somehow turn it into an "I told you so." "I told you moving out would be the best thing for us," he might say. Almost as if saying, in unspoken words, how the breaking of my heart and the intense stress I was under was a good thing. I'm not saying it wasn't, don't misunderstand me, but I am saying it wasn't only that. There is so much more to the story than a complicated relationship ending simply. A few harsh words, a few jagged insults, a few boxes and a lot of tears.... but it only started there.

What am I trying to say? Even I don't know that just yet. Only that a shift has occurred, for better or worse, and it's about time I start living up to that. Do I want to let something that I've worked so hard for go to waste to appease my desire for temporary interest and pleasure? Do I want to gamble with it, throw the dice, close my eyes and hope for the best? Certainly, a lot in life is like that gamble. But I can choose whether to ante up or back down.

Perhaps that's not the right analogy. Backing down isn't losing; backing down is comfort. Happy comfort. Routine comfort. That lazy Sunday morning love thing I was talking about early. Three years later, he's still here beside me. That's saying something.

I think I have it all figured out, but I'll let those words come when they're ready. For now, I'll simply not act. Not acting is one of the most important tools a person can have. Trust me on that, I've learned the hard way.

This entry was posted by Mellie, on Friday, September 09, 2005.