Someone I don't mind
"I gave up the idea of finding anyone I didn't mind. But I was still sure there was a grandiose golden sunset somewhere in the sky."
- Eve Babitz, Slow Days and Fast Company
That's what almost everyone does isn't it ? Settles for someone they "don't mind". I don't know how to do that, anyways I don't think I could even if I did. I can't imagine anything more tragically boring or gut-wrenchingly lonely. I'd rather have an empty house than one filled with shadows I don't care about.
See how all those sentences I just wrote up there start with "I" ? That's pretty much the size of it. I think that, basically, I'm not willing to compromise myself anymore. And I don’t want someone else to compromise themselves for me either. I couldn’t bear being responsible for someone’s happiness. And then imagine all that for someone you “don’t mind”. Anyways I don’t even want someone in my bed who isn’t capable of inspiring fantastical daydreams- let alone giving them my actual time. I tried that whole notches in the bedpost thing and it wasn’t as satisfying as I’d imagined it would be. Sometimes it was downright boring. I only want to be with someone I love, someone who loves me back, no matter what unexpected shape that might take.
Every time I go to write lately, no matter what it is that I'm writing about, it always seems to go back to him. I guess it's like how I keep turning up in his songs. I remember the one he played for me "is this the way that it goes, you and I, stranded, one down, a few left to go..." and how he explained that this one wasn't for me, because it's about feeling like every dinner, every date, every night is an obligation- "one down", counting how many more left to go. "But it was never ever like that with you". Instead he showed me the lyrics of another song, about holding on to your friends and those you love- "somewhere there's a dreamer gazing at the stars we charted together". Lifetimes ago, when we were still kids, before everything fell apart, we spent the summer together in Florida. It was July and the nights were nearly as hot and heavy as the days, that swampy humidity that makes everything feel languid and time feels like the lazy drawl of the southern accents around there- too hot to talk fast or enunciate clearly. We walked barefoot down to the dock at the end of my street, a dock I've been sitting on since I was a child, worn wooden planks still warm from the unrelenting heat of the day, and smelling of river and fish and I-don't-know-what, but I can smell it now as I write this so many years removed and miles and miles away. We stood at the end of the dock, you behind me, arms wrapped around me (god I feel safe just thinking about it) and we stargazed. We couldn't remember the names of all the constellations, so we decided to make up our own, saying we would teach them to our kids one day and confuse them with our whimsy and embarrass them with our love. I wish I could remember all of our stars- the only one that stands out clearly to me is the vintage 1950s crab buckle belt.
Some of the stars we charted together have become, with time, uncharted- if you wait too long, waters you once navigated with your eyes closed can become strange and unfamiliar. But neither of us forgot the part that matters, that we once loved each other so much that we designed constellations, just for us. And now, having had that, I'm not able to settle for someone I don't mind. I know full well that I will never know that kind of incandescent love again, but never mind, at least I've had it once. And god was it good.