Every autumn when I was younger – much younger – I would fall in love. The spell would come on like a sickness, when the world turned colder and I just wanted to snuggle in with somebody who was warm. It was sometimes confusing to discern between feelings of affection and feelings of loneliness. It would usually start semi-innocently enough – a glance, a look, a gaze held just a little longer than usual, and then some random act of kindness or attention that pricked slightly more than my passing interest. If there were anything more than that behind it, such as any sign of returned emotion, I went into full-fledged obsession mode. Back then I was desperate for companionship, for something to make me feel less alone, because when you never quite feel like you belong, even in your own family and friendship circles, you cannot help but brush up against feelings of loneliness. The chance to possibly end such a state is deliriously tempting.
In my only defense, I didn’t fall for someone if there was absolutely nothing behind it – there had to be some miniscule indication of interest, some spark of chemistry or joint attraction to spur my feelings. For instance, I didn’t seriously obsess over the cute guy at the Boston Chip Yard just because he was cute (I mean, I crushed on him – we all did – but that didn’t translate into anything real or possible, and I was adroit enough to know the difference between a crush and these love obsessions).
I am going away for a while
But I’ll be back, don’t try and follow me
‘Cause I’ll return as soon as possible
See, I’m trying to find my place
But it might not be here where I feel safe
We all learn to make mistakes
And run from them, from them
With no direction
We’ll run from them, from them
With no conviction
My troubling tumbles into what I thought and hoped was love were built on something tangible – perhaps very flimsy and slight things, but there was reason and fuel behind them – a knowing smirk by the first guy I ever kissed letting me know he was interested too, the Herculean efforts of a boy in my Literary Criticism class to reach the paper I couldn’t get, or the lascivious way a stranger on the street sized up my entire body, inch by inch, as if devouring me with his eyes – and the way I intentionally invited him to do so.
‘Cause I’m just one of those ghosts
Traveling endlessly
Don’t need no roads
In fact, they follow me
And we just go in circles
End of reasonable justification, and the start of something less reasonable… because back then I didn’t understand the turn-off that immediate availability and focused interest could be. To be honest, I still don’t. While I understand that is how the world works, that is how human nature responds, in my heart, I will never find fault with someone who so honestly and openly and vulnerably shares their affection for another without pretense or pretend disinterest. My problem was reining in the flood of emotions that invariably accompanied such a release, but I’m not going to apologize for my passion at this point. Water under the bridge, long gone – the frivolous foibles of youth – and how lucky, and likely life-saving, to have gone through youth without cel phones and social media – a circumstance for which I remain forever grateful.
In those early days of falling, I didn’t know that the game you had to play was real – to make yourself unavailable, denying what you actually wanted – a phone call, a meeting, a connection – in order to elicit interest from another person. And I should have understood this better, because I was also on the occasional receiving end of unwanted or unprovoked attention, and the more intense or interested a person became in me, the less I wanted anything to do with them – human nature cuts both ways. Alas, ’twas always the ones I wanted who ended up not wanting me, and vice versa.
Now I’m told that this is life
And pain is just a simple compromise
So we can get what we want out of it
Would someone care to classify
Our broken hearts and twisted minds?
So I can find someone to rely on
In the beginning I thought that writing letters to the recipients of my affection was the best way of dealing with this. It turns out that I was only half right. Writing was the best way for me to exorcize my emotional demons – the way that writing about my childhood friend who killed himself finally freed me of his ghost, or the way it took the sting out of the awful manner in which the first man I ever dated truly treated me – words would prove the escape and way out of any number of difficult mental cages. For potential paramours, my words would end up wounding whatever chances I might have had because it was too much, too soon, too… everything. I scared them all off – and in a way that was best. My life has been one long exercise of pushing people away to determine who was strong enough to stay. A mistake on many fronts, but a useful one.
Just because they didn’t last doesn’t mean they meant less. If anything, they meant more to me because the only thing I had was what was in my head – and for some reason I wanted them in my life. In the end though, it was never about them, and I wish I’d known that then. A small regrettable part of me wishes I could whisper that to you, my younger self, through the ensuing decades – all of what not to do, what not to say, how not to think – but that would be to erase all that you were – and despite those who didn’t like you, I happen to think you were pretty cool, and diabolically honest when it came to your heart. More courage resided in that space than in the empty heads of anyone you ever chased. More bravery was to be found in your ready tears than in their dismissive, nervous laughter – good for you in not being limited by games and manipulation – you remained true to your heart, you were open to love. For such a sarcastic, cynical, and at times sinister soul, you knew how to love – and you did so fearlessly, unabashedly, openly, and, yes, desperately. And you knew enough, or too little, to ever apologize for it – for who could be sorry for having loved? Even when it hurt, even when it broke your heart, even when those silly boys failed to love you back, it was always worth it.
Looking back at these past lives – we live so many in a single lifetime – they do feel a bit like ghost stories – and the ghosts of our youth tend to haunt us more tenderly than more recent and wiser specters. Made more poignant for their innocence, their idealism, their unjaded and unguarded earnestness – they are perhaps a more pure and unaltered version of our soul than anything we might become after living in this wretched world for any length of time.
And run to them, to them
Full speed ahead
Oh, you are not useless
We are just misguided ghosts
Traveling endlessly
The ones we trusted the most
Pushed us far away
And there’s no one road
We should not be the same
But I’m just a ghost
And still they echo me
They echo me in circles
