Do things seem complicated to you?
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So... how did you get to where you are?
Do you think you understand how it all happened? Or is it all a blur that carries you along?
Do share. That's what we're here for.
Alexis Massie {alexis@digiweb.com} |
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I'm in the process of trying to figure out
where I am. If you had asked me a year ago,
I would have known the answer. But now, (why
are there always buts) its all different. I
have no idea.
But I'm trying.
But is there really an answer?
Ben Brown {benbrown@wam.umd.edu} Before, relationships seemed quick and exciting and there didn't seem to be too much work involved. I suppose that was way back in high school when no one really had to keep up a life other than school and some work -- all the other stuff is usually taken care of for you.
Now, BUt, now that it is summer again, I am looking forward at standing, walking, running or talking in the rain just to keep some of those fading links from washing away too soon for me to appreciate them.
Michael J Godfrey {godfrey@www.daily.umn.edu} I've always had this feeling, deep down, that somehow my relationships should turn our like they were supposed to: like the movies. Someday, I knew, I would be able to communicate to her how I really felt. She might not understand it at first, but eventually, she would realize the Truth. I felt that when I was a freshman. Tommorow I graduate, and as much as I'd like to believe in hollywood-style fate, I'm having a much harder time. I still can't get the words out, I still haven't been able to show anyone, I still haven't been able to convince myself. A dozen songs are still half-written, the results of trying to force myself to rationalize my feelings. This fall, she'll go off to college, and so will I. My mind shows me images from movies in which old high-school friends fall in love at 10 year reunions. These dreams, though, seem far less right than those of years ago. The selfish, foolish part of me wants to return to being a freshman, when love seemed simpler. The honest side of me, though, sees something beautiful in this newly-realized complexity. Hopefully I will be able to enunciate it someday.
scott raymond {sco@zoehouse.com} They seem too bloody simple, as if every attempt at complexity is mere theatrics: Either a self-defeating addiction like cigarettes or masturbation; or a deeply entrenched, self-serving tool for manipulating other people.
Nothing is ever difficult or complicated. Think less.
People are very easy to understand. Realize very few know what they want, and are simply floundering around trying to ease their own pain. If they don't want you to help them ease their pain, then there is nothing you can do.
It's sad, but then you leave them.
Or they ask you to leave.
simplifier {conman@gladstone.uoregon.edu} A year ago today I had my first date with the woman who I love. We were head-over-heels, I was visiting her whenever I could, we took trips together to Mexico and Indonesia, Malaysia. And I thought we were a really good match. Four months later, I came up for air and looked around. I thought about the future together with her. And I realized in my current situation--my job finishing up in a year, facing a career change, and offering her absolutely no security as to what country I'd be living in in a year, I didn't feel it was fair to keep her waiting. But she said she'd wait. Things got complicated. I didn't know what to do, and I suddenly didn't know my heart. I tried to fit all I knew and could see into a picture of two people together, maybe married. Things didn't seem to fit. I wasn't sure if I loved her anymore, but I did know one thing: I needed space, and time. I tried to slow down,far too late. In the midst of this, she told me she was pregnant. Things got more complicated here. And much, much worse. Pure hell, actually. After the abortion, she was hurting terribly; I was panicked, confused. But the commitment she wanted I couldn't give. I ended the relationship.
I think about her everyday. I made choices, I live with the consequences. But I think I made things complicated for myself--looking for guarantees and perfection where there is only the uncertain future.
I would not say it is simple, and definitely not easy. And things are complicated. But it comes down to this: Do I face the future, and all the complications, with this person, or not?
Phil are things complicated? jesus fucking christ, yes. and from what i hear, they only get worse from here. every day i wake up and think to myself "gee, i wish i had known yesterday what i know today." i wish someone would give me the answer to it all, tell me how to straighten it all out. sure, i konw of a few ways, journals, friends, or religion perhaps, but i've yet to see any real progress. well, i'm still young.
gerard {mummers@phish.nether.net} do I know how I got here?
a singular event...revealed to me a year ago...has shaped more of what I am and how I react than I thought one moment ever could.
but between these lucid moments, when life and meaning is crystal clear and the path seems uncluttered and obvious, there remains a thick clouded fog wherein each action is solitarily suspended unrelated to what has gone before or continue after.
complicated? yes! simple? probably...but right now I don't recognize it.
Jen {jworden@meadoworks.ns.ca} Am I happy now? Maybe. But I'm coasting. Not acting, and barely reacting.
So what does all this mean?
In different stages in my life, like I told my sister, I just woke up. I woke up and started running. I had visions of who I was and I jumped for them. I had the instant solutions to my problems, and everything was going to be fine.
Where do those come from?
god?
"Oh thank you very much, sir, can I have another now, or are we on rations?" Is it fair that god might pass 4 out to one person and 2 to another? Or that some people never get it?
god gives nothing out and doesn't expect anything.
Luck? Or destiny or fate? No matter what we do, we will always do it. Whatever 'it' is, there is no way around it. Is that fair?
I'm not asking for a judgement on life as the the fairness of the issue...
...I just want to know where to go.
And I want to know now.
We only have a limited time. And at 23, I feel as if mine is running out. The End Is Nigh whether you're 80 or 12. You only have so long, and that's never long enough.
Why go blindly through live learning little lessons that you might forget only to die after learning them? Sure, the journey is the fun part, but we (grand socially) seem to be repeating the same journeys over and over and over... I want to keep journeying.
In The Last Temptation of Christ, David Bowie plays Pilot for a whole 3 minutes, and it is perhaps my favorite part of the movie. He meets with Jesus, Willem Dafoe, and non-chalantly asks him what he should do with him. Brilliant scene, and I hear that Bowie came up with it himself.
The reason I like the 'non-chalant' in this scene is because it is ironic. Here is Pilot about to by inaction pass judgement on one of the most influential men in history, and he is 'non-chalant' about it. But it is deeper, his almost apathetic demeanor is knowing. Pilot senses what is going on, but doesn't know what is going on.
Thy Will Be Done.
I am not surrendering to the universe, but I've always liked the sound of it. the present and the future are a blur, only the past is concrete and unchangable. Everything is complicated, and interrelated, but we each choose which aspects to ponder and which to leave alone.
melissa I think so. Yes. No. Maybe. I think I let things seem complicated. I blow things up way out of proportion in my head, exaggerate situations to mythical proportions; and then I find out that the reality is a lot simpler than I ever thought. Sometimes it's a let-down; sometimes a pleasant surprise. Maybe we make things more complicated because we're afraid of how simple things really are. The thrilling fantasy is more comforting than boring ol' reality. I think there's comfort in simplicity, though. All these little threads, these small experiences, they all work together, tying around each other in brilliant stitches and patterns, creating something more beautiful than any amalgam of sitcom/soap opera plot twists:
A life... Thought I'd mention one more thing: as I read this story, the song on my CD player was Poi Dog Pondering's "Complicated."
Complicated...it's all right.
Jesus, don't we all? The world is held together with scotch tape.
I think I heard that somewhere. I don't think I made it up. Lately, it seems awfully true.
Things seem so fragile these days. Pull one wire out of this computer and it dies. Pull one plug out of my car and it stops. Shake a freeway in just the right way and it crumbles. Everything has an achilles heel.
And, at the same time, with all it's fragility, everything keeps going, seemingly unchanging, one day into the next. It's a wonder that the freeways are still standing, that the cars are still moving, that we are still going. But we do.
We are simple beings living complicated lives. I beleive life is only gets as complicated as you let it. If you keep your goals and dreams simple, your life will be that way too.
Nick A story (as opposed to a parable, which is always more entertaining but less factual in the end): Me, sitting on the couch on a Saturday afternoon, flipping channels. I stop as I hit PBS, because there's always something interesting there, even if it's dull. I catch the middle of a show about astronomy - maybe a Nova episode - and a woman is speaking, an astronomer, about galaxies. Seems she's in the habit of pointing radio telescopes up into the heavens to look for galaxies. To map them. To find the edge of the universe. Next, she shows a super-computer model of a slice of the sky with her mapped galaxies floating suspended as the 3-D map slowly rotates. The collection of galaxies looks very like the collection of stars along one of the arms of our own galactic home, The Milky Way (such a happy, childlike name for such a tremendous, mind-boggling thing). So she expanded her field, looking at more sky and feeding this to her computer until she had a more complete picture, the radio-telescopic eye stretching itself out for millions of lightyears. And what she had was... What she had, what she found, what I saw was that the galaxies are arranged in the same spiral shape as our galaxy. A galaxy of galaxies. And these galaxies behave like planetary systems, spinning around axes, expanding and colliding, pulled and pushed by gravity. The then showed an animation of what two galaxies - two entire collections of a million-million stars and all their collected heavenly detritus - would look like as they intersect. A collision so mammoth that it is hard to imagine, yet there it was on my TV screen. And I thought, 'so, the moon revolves around the Earth, the Earth revolves around the sun, the solar system turns on its own axis, around the spiral arm, turning around the galaxy's center, spinning among the other galaxies, all dancing endlessly endlessly. And here I am sitting on my couch eating tortilla chips watching it. No, things aren't all that complicated after all. It's just us that is.
Lance {all.this.and.heaven.too@glassdog.com} I relate to so many of the postings already here. It's true that it is as simple or as complicated as you make it...but sometimes fate steps in, lightning strikes, the goddess points her finger and you find yourself madly dancing to someone else's tune because it has a better beat and you can feel the lyrics deep in your soul. If you care to wander off the beaten path a little, visit my home page and explore the link to something I call The Dilemma...
The Whyld Chyld {WhyldWoman@aol.com} when I was a child, I used to march down the basement stairs with my brother, fists to my mouth pretending to play a trumpet, celebrating with a crude form of heart music the return of my father from his job as a meat cutter.
the door opened. he stepped in, blood-stained sawdust flaking off his shoes, a smile shining like a light. we exploded into his open arms, inhaling the odor of fresh meat, a smell we learned to associate with paternal love.
where is the complication now? my father knew it at work. we knew it at school. but now it was dissolved in our reunion.
simplicity is love's foundation. complication is the inability to understand this. we cannot know everything, that's why there are billions of people to learn from.
we all are born to do what we can without complication. our simple efforts gain strength when we do the best with what we know.
Love(verb). It is the simplest thing to do to uncomplicate the world you know.
!kevin {zozula@mail.brigadoon.com} This started as a tribute to Sartre, but ended as a glaring realization of my recent breaking up with a woman I loved:
The world looked somber that night.
J.P. Vicente {vicente@concentric.net} Life gets complicated and uncomplicated it seems with the same ebb and flow that every other aspect of my life seems to float in. I don't mean to say that we have no control over our lives - I think we have more than we use - but life does seem pretty feast-or-famine-ish sometimes. Right now I'm actively uncomplicating my life, and it seems to be working pretty well - I don't feel like I'm giving up anything really, just mentally simplifying - letting myself not take everything so goddamned seriously. Liked what !kevin up there said about love - I've always thought of it as complicated, but it's possession that's complicated and poisonous, and love that's so very, very simple. Thanks....
Magdalen Powers {maggie@vivid.com} I thought he was beautiful from the start, could not imagine myself ever being able to speak to him though. He played at the bar and had a celestial talent. He was my dream. With time his hesitant nods of recognition gave way to smiles, and my elation grew wings. My beautiful dream. I found out we had mutual friends and brief hellos became long conversations over a beer, and several more. He showed me his mind and I reached out to soothe his hurt, his disillusionment, so much like mine. So much like me. Our paths would diverge, I could see that from the first time I met his love. His very presence was enough though, so simply relished our moments. I never told him my feeling, and he never told me. I could accept that. Then, he told me of his separation, he had fallen out of love, I could feel only sympathy. We walked with others away from the bar, but I knew he was walking with me. We were several in my room as the night became morning, and as they all left he wanted to stay behind. He was leaving in one week. In falling asleep, he reached out to touch my arm, with the fingers of an artist. My soul trembled. We fell asleep holding each other, and it was pure, simple, inevitable. He had to leave early, and we parted a week later with only a look of regret. My soul still trembles, and he only touched my arm...
alexandra things are complicated, but i really do have hope...
i've been with her for fourteen months and things are very different now. we bicker with other a lot. i don't feel the same way about her that i did a year ago. but things are so good. there is so much focus in my life. i'm happier than i have ever been. and it is all because of her.
superficially, things aren't going a good as they could. but the things on the surface are easy to mend (and easy to break again). the things that are underneath really matter.
complicated...
chris knight {chris@knight.net} { add your experience }
! ? !
after that?
gee, alexandra, that was beautiful.
if only things were just complicated. most days they seem impossible. well, some things are simple. one foot in front of the other. that's easy. breathe. done. it's when those wacky thoughts in our heads get involved that things get complicated. we get these thoughts and maybe at their base, they're simple and true but that's never enough. we start manufacturing complications for them. and we work at it till we get it all messed up. maybe it's the brain looking for job security? something to keep it occupied? there is freedom in simplicity
allen {allen@palazzo.com} complicated? nah. morality and ecology and living is easy, easier than we would want to believe. try not to fuck others over. or in a polite way, try not to hurt people. or in a positive way, try to do what you feel in your soul is right. it's that simple. those that don't want to are those that are lost in their actions, unable to see the forest from the trees. There is logic, and then there are emotions.
What happens now, all the dreams I dreamed disappeared with you, why? You say it's not the end, but you're not here? Love complicates everything, even good intentions become distorted. Just trying to offer love along the way, and now six years later, of all the trouble and trifles we've been through, I never ever imagined life without you.
Ya--life is DAMN complicated.
Had you asked a year ago, I would have known exactly what I wanted from life, but there is no answer right now, only solitude. I find it hard to even speak, I feel like I'm just going thorough the motions of life right now, stripped of my heart, robot like, until something will trigger within, and rise me above all this pain.
Elle Things only seem to become complicated when I try to understand them. If I allow things to unfold as they may, I feel much happier. The relentless need to comprehend why people meet or fall in love or why wars break out is, I think, why we're so stressed out. A few years ago, I began to just accept that things happen for reasons - reasons which I might never know or understand. Even chaos is a reason. Do I know how I got here? Yep. A series of half hearted and then whole hearted essentially lazy decisions because I was too uninspired to try anything else. Surprisingly enough, I'm fairly content with how it turned out. Things go poorly when I try to actively affect the outcome.
one half of me wants to say: "Life? That's easy! Live how you want to live, love who you want to love, and trust in your self. The world will fall into place after that."
the other half says: "Life? What the hell is life? How do I know where to go next? You know, I really would like to trust in my self, but what is it saying to me? And how can I love who I want to love, if those that I adore don't realise this, or return the feeling?"
I'm feeling very fucked-up right now. Now was a bad time for school to be over. I have now been cut off from my friends and been thrown into the insane daily life of the hell I call home. Away with the freedom that comes with living far from my tyrranical mother. Away with the privelige of talking to people that undersand me.
I have had a falling-out with my best childhood friend.
Yes this is incredibly whiny.
And here's the best part. After swearing to myself and my best friend that I would never fall in love, I fell in love. With my best friend.
Now THAT'S complicated.
. . . Life is as complicated as you make it. Sometimes my life seems incredibly complicated, to the point of collapse. Sometimes it seems so simple.
kris {kerupp@bsuvc.bsu.edu} As complicated as I choose it to be, as simple as I need it to be... and always, oh yes, always entertaining.
I've been both spectator and participant and I find scant indication that my life is anything other than the product of my own machinations.
And these are also just stories.
Shy {quasha@hatelecom.or.jp} Life is wonderfully complicated.
The intricate weave of people and ideas, ever changing, ever growing, is what keeps me alive each day.
It's present in the girl who wants to sleep with me but I'm still thinking of another.
It's there when I decide to go to work another day, instead of being really alive.
Complication breeds in the things I need and those that I want.
It's in the friends that I can never leave but can't stand to hang out with for more than an hour, because they are too fucked up.
Complication is the force behind creative thought and deductive reasoning.
It's falling in love with your best friends' girl, having to fire someone you like, or having to support a product that you know is crap.
Complication can turn a yes/no question into a series of more questions.
It is deciding what to go public with, and what to hold inside.
everytning is extremely complicted how can it not be? someone or something makes you so happy, happier than you've ever been but you can't let that be your everything you never know how long it lasts, and if it ends you're devastated. i was someone's eveything once, but i didn't let him become mine. then he was crushed at the end
Jennifer i am in love (?) for the first time in my life. before i let myself fall, however, i thought maybe i shouldn't- it would be far too complicated. i was back and forth about it forever, a fucking oscillating fan, i was. then i realized i didn't have much choice in the matter. then i said to hell with it, let's go. things make sense, now.
rebecca The problem with identity, at least for me, is that it's constantly evolving. It's impossible to put your finger on it and understand it, because as soon as you think you know who you are, you're someone else.
It's sort of like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. If you try to figure out where you are, and how you got there, you'll only find out where you were.
My feeling? I don't know how I got where I was, or how the world got where it was. There are countless random factors that made me who I am. Butterfly effect, typhoon in Peru, handguns and urban street kids, eating too much MSG. I don't know where it began, and I don't know where it will end.
All I know is that we're all in for an interesting ride.
The only way to measure one thing is in relation to another...to say that life is complex suggests that we know of something else...I don't.
It does seem overwhelming. But I think that's our fault, as a failing race.
We are so busy worrying about the light bill and the pool cleaning man and our pager going off and what's on TV and making our whites stay white and low-fat lard and electric nose hair clippers that we fail to notice that we are miraculously ALIVE against all odds, flying in the face of the cosmos ALIVE!
Not that it matters.
Issac {iccs@usit.net} 48 hours ago, I really felt sorry for myself. then, at about this time (2:00 am) on Sunday morning, I had a rude collision with reality. As I walked into my apartment, here in Chicago, I heard two gunshots outside. when i looked out of my window, there was a boy laying facedown on the street (yes, he was just a boy). silence. then a woman's voice screaming. people rising up from behind the parked cars they had hidden behind seconds before. mayhem was ensuing pretty quickly. 'fuck' was about all I could manage to get out. Motorists stopped long enough to gawk, but none stopped to help. how american. I called the police, even though I'm never sure if that really helps things in this neighborhood. During the summer, it seems to turn into a small warzone, and frankly, the police prescence here only increases the pressure. Within 15 minutes, the neighborhood was blanketed by an army of police. Later, I realized who he was. Not someone I really knew, but just a kid who would hang on the corner here. Haven't heard jack about it on the radio, news or in the papers. Of course, I suppose murders only make the papers if they involve a millionaire, and a stolen jeep cherokee (or alternately a ford bronco). It's not that i think the news coverage itself is important - it just makes me realize how little some people care about what goes on in this neighborhood. it makes me sick. The same bastards who fight for the 'right to life' at abortion clinics don't give a damn about this kid. What about his right to life? But alas, I digress....maybe this is completely of the topic....thanks for reading anyway. Yes, things seem complicated. But sometimes, things happen that put things back into perspective. And I realize just how complicated things could be. I wish it didn't take someting so dramatic to drag me from my own pit of self-pity. I also wish I didn't sound like such an angry young man. oh well.
Thanks for reading
rgbboy {rgbboy@hotmail.com} Things seem complicated when I make them that way. Anything is attainable in life if you are committed to making it happen, not waiting for it to come along.
What's life about? What does it mean?
My life means whatever I say it does. Nothing more and nothing less.
Diana Galligan {dagal@mackerel.com} Life is complicated only because we make it so. Figure out what you want and need and get it. Simple enough, but hard to practice. But, as They say, it's not the destination that's important, it's the journey.
Dave {MuzzyNYC@aol.com} Sometimes even the simplest matters become complicated by our own perceptions. Clouded by what we think we want or what we think we have control over. And sometimes the most complicated issues of life make complete and total sense.
Often I find myself confused or lost within the simplest of issues, but shortly after I can look back and the situation and the reactions make sense. It all seems to work out eventually.
No higher power or obscure action driven philosophy. No, just knowing enough about myself and how I am to realize what I am doing and what I am confused and lost about.
Life is a series of transitions between one phase or level to another. Jumping into the fray (so to speak) a bit later here. The original Meeting Peter was what got me hooked on Fray in the first place, as it was a situation I was experiencing right then. And... I didn't add my experience. Fear of... what? Reprucusions, perhaps? And yet, then, then she didn't read Fray. But now I introduced her to it, and she's hooked. Much more likely that she'll read this.
That's why no name, email or url (sorry - chickened out at the last minute...).
Yes, life is complicated. I fell for a friend just at the same time as the original Meeting Peter story, while she, of course, was dating someone else. It was tough, because this was the friend who I always kept up to date on my relationship news and what I felt, and who I felt for, and then... nope. Can't say a word.
But then, lots of stuff happened. People going away - here, there. Circumstances changing (too fast) and me promising not to say a word. (Who did I promise? Myself, I guess - though perhaps more accurately, I promised her). But life is weird and plans make no sense, and promises even less. I didn't say anything, but I think the way I acted (and reacted) it was clear (too clear). I made some half-assed attempt to explain things in a way that didn't implicate me, but I doubt that helped.
Complications added to the complications and life got downright miserable. To make it worse, one single realization: I had fallen for her, and she was (is) perhaps the closest friend I've had for a long time, but to be honest, I know very clearly, that we would never work out as an "item".
That should end it, right? Stop the pursuit, leave things be, enjoy the old good life? Yeah, right. Things just get all the more complicated.
So, now, I'm far away. She's far away. Time to recoup? Perhaps. But, I'm wondering what happens in my version of Meeting Peter Again. No doubt, things will get more complicated.
*sigh*
*sigh* It's that time of night. Late. I've been reading fray for half an hour. I was searching for it, clicking links and talking to search engines until I found it.
Didn't know what it was I was looking for, but I did know what it would be. That insistent hunger to read something good... Personal is good.
The night is quiet. Time to take a breath and look around. An old CD playing; that gentle feeling of absent familiarity; I know that song. Soft light, a coke, a comfortable chair. Papers fluttering slightly in the a.c.'s wake. Why is peace so elusive when it surrounds us?
Confusion is dirty laundry, late bills, dusty tables. Organization is simple. Right?
Confusion is people investing a million dollars in my creations. Why? Are they nuts?
Confusion is having someone love me so. Not knowing if I love them. Do I?
Confusion is too many questions.
What does it mean to have everything, or nothing? I've done things other people dream of, I think. They were my dreams once, too, I thought.
L.K. Last summer I finally met the girl I previously knew only "online". It is an experience that I will treasure forever. It was an experience I will never forget.
But why did she forget? Or has she put the whole experience aside?
I stayed with her for two nights. Passion was abound. Was it just lust? I think not. I think of it as two people who just "happened to meet" online and finally met for all the right reasons.
I thought we were meant to be with each other.
It's been over 365 days now and the last e-mail I get from her is a several-liner talking about her latest happenings in life.
"...some guy trouble..."
Am I expendable or something? Talk about fucking complicated...
James Wong {jameswong@iname.com} Things are only as complicated as you let them be You can cloud up the issue with feelings, trying to bend reality to what you want it to be, following all of the what ifs, letting fear silence you, acting only out of fear, never saying what you mean, only what you think you should say. Or you can cut to the chase, just say what you fell, be bare and rawly honest, suddenly make everything at least seem simple. If I'd just tell my Sabs what I feel, instead of hemming and hawing and hinting, it'd make everything a lot simpler. My own fear, and perception of how things are supposed to be keeps getting in the way. I make things complicated for myself. In moments of lucidity, I step back I see exactly wat is going on with perfect clarity, and for a moment I can really speak my true heart, with no veils. Then we communicate very deeply for a short while, until convention and fear and uncertainty cloud our voices again ... we're learning, we're growing, we're progressing. We wouldn't give this up for the world, but yes, at times, we make things complicated, until we remember how to keep them simple again. We met for dinner last night. I asked her out. I could sense that she was afraid; afraid that everything would end too soon.
Things don't seem complicated for both of us. They have been complicated from a certain stage.
We started out as friends. Then became best of friends. Then I fell in love with her, deeply and I told her how I felt one day. That was one and a half years ago.
I left her last night. I ended our relationship. Because the most precious gift I could offer, she could not accept, and I can't take 'no' for an answer. All she wants is friendship. But all I can give are friendship and love.
I did not make the decision out of haste, which is all the more something to be afraid of, because there may be not turning back. It was a very difficult decision to make. On one hand, I believe that if you truly love someone, you should feel happy for them if they have found someone they love; and do whatever you can to make them happy. But on the other, I know I can't do that. Perhaps I am not noble enough.
She told me last night that she does not want to lose me. She told me the same thing before I left. And she said more about how important I was to her when she was going through a rough patch. Blah, blah, blah. I was listening, quietly as I drove her home.
But there was something I would really like to hear her say. That is, I love you. But she didn't say it because that's not how she feels.
She knows that if she had asked me to stay, I would despite knowing that the same situation would occur again; and I would prefer to stay more for the reason that she loves me than she needs a friend.
So what happens next?
I don't know.
And I don't want to think too much about it.
Just go with the flow.
The past has happened. We have seen it happened.
The present is taking place even as I write.
The future is always a second away. Ever so elusive. ron (shouting):"ARE YOU KIDDING???!!" orit:"i got here by mistake. most things, i think, happen by mistake, but everything (almost..?) ends just fine." ron:"words of wisdom from our friend here". orit:"this is the truth, babe." ron:"i need to get laid. tonight."
ron and orit Complexity???
Confusion seems more apt. We normally going bumbbling through life, blinkered and oblivious to the world around us and the things that mankind is inflicting upon itself.
Confusion because the things that seem so complex are only this way because we make it so.
Tina {tmc@globalnet.} Confusion? Seriously though, nothing could be more confusing than relationships.
I met her, and in a day and a night I fell in her hands. My whole being screamed out against it, but finally I gave in... We were lovers for a week or two. Then, the problems started. A month and a half later, things were slowly deteriorating. There was little love, and a lot of anger between us two.
"us"...
There is no "us" anymore. Three months, and it was over. Now all there is, is the feeble attempt at being friends...which is something we maybe never were. We started at the end, and slowly work our way to the beginning. Where to from now?
Does it matter?
This was a journey of self-discovery, as much as one of learning about sharing life with others. Perhaps in time, I will learn from my mistakes. Perhaps things will someday change. One thing I learned though,
was to take a day at the time.
Dandy Hm. Yeah, I posted earlier. But I feel like saying something now. I don't know exactly what yet.
Such a hard question in and of itself to answer... If you say things are complex, you are merely failing to see the inherent simplistic order of life; you are making everything too hard for yourself. On the other hand, if you say things are simple, you must either be insane, or lead a charmed life. I tend to just be confused. As you can tell, I can't even decide if life is complex or simple. Oh well.
So why is it that the perfect people come along to us at the worst times? Usually for me, that's just the way life is... One guy was moving, one guy was gay, one was going away to college, one was too old, the other too young, one too smart, another too out-there... but usually... they already have someone. How is it that other girls find these perfect guys before I even get a glimpse of them? Somehow, that's not fair... but then there's P. He's perfect! He's smart and sensitive... and he's one of my best friends. No girlfriend, no moving away... nothing... but he doesn't know how I feel... So what's a girl to do...? Love dies hard, they say... But so do bugs... You say you want to spend the rest of your life with me. And I answer I need time for myself. Four, nearly five years ago, we were snatched from youthful, innocent love into a deep understanding for eachother, and the thought of living without eachother was a pain. Sex did not matter, it was wonderful, but did not matter. Friendship mattered. Love mattered. Strange love for a couple of young teenagers. Sometimes I wish our love could have been innocent, as the love you feel for a short, intense while, and then it goes away. But ours has stayed. Sometimes I hate my love for you. It burns me out, just like a drug.
I try to claw away,
I try to stop loving,
I try to stop thinking of you, stop saying your name, stop dreaming of your lips, I want to be alone. Without you. I try to fall in love with someone else. But my heart won't let me. It would be so much easier if you'd hit me, yelled at me, punished me, treated me bad. But all the time you are a perfect man. Smiling at my jokes, kissing away my tears, sheltering me from fear and cold, buying presents when I feel down, loving me all the time. The perfect lover, finding every spot on my body that will react to touches, sensitivising every inch of my skin to your kisses. I shiver with delight thinking of your beautiful body. Nobody told me that love could be so strange. And all I want is to be alone. I know, I've yelled that to your face. And I've realised by now, that you will never let me go. However much I scream at you, however much I've lied, however much I've fled... you will not let me go. You always listen to what I say, understand what I mean. Except for this. You are like poison in my veins, a shard of glass in my heart. And I love you. Sometimes I wish death could embrace you, peacefully and lovingly into its arms. Then I could grieve... alone.
Tee Love hurts
Why? It happened just like they always said it would...
At a time when I was not even thinking about companionship, from out of nowhere, she stepped in to my life. We were both drawn to each other instantly. Complete bliss. With one catch. She was leaving for grad school at the end of the summer.
How's this for coincidence: she was attending grad school in the same city that I was planning on moving to by year's end. What could be more perfect? Who was it that dropped this angel into my life? What could possibly keep us apart?
Then the unthinkable happened. 2 weeks before leaving for school, she lost it for me. Just like that. She couldn't give me a complete explanation, except that something inside of her said, "STOP!"
Confusion? When this all occurred not too long ago, I thought that she was the only one who was confused. After taking time to reflect though, I realize that I am battling confusion myself.
How can the person that puts you at the top of the world be the same person that makes you feel 2 inches tall?
Why is it that there are 5,000,000,000 people on this rock, but there's only one that I really care about? One!
When will I find the one? Or have I already found her? No one claimed that love was easy.
Could this be a test of devotion, or am I grasping for the unreachable?
Who was it that said that timing is everything? Well, I say that they don't know what the fuck they're talking about. Not in this case. I am convinced that for once in my life the stars were aligned. When the right one comes along, you unquestionably know that its them. Or do you?
I admit it, I am dissapointed at the way things are going, but I'm not mad. What the future brings for us, I do not know. What I do know is that she has shown me that I am capable of really loving someone again. Giving 100% of my being. And that, my friend, is something that I have not been able to do in a long time. For this sole reason, I will love her forever.
Should I give up all hope yet? I think not. Just my stumbling across this little corner of the web has added to my faith that all hope is not lost.
FRASER {cfraser@mindspring.com} Complexity is constructed of a multitude of relatively simple events that orchestrate themselves, for the purpose ofsurvival,pleasure, entertainment, or the formation of stars. The patterns are complex the components are not. The rational us, tries to identify some small part of the pattern that we can change for our benefit, pleasure, desire etc. It is a game, we win or lose. The pain comes when someone refuses to join us or picks a different pattern to alter, a different thread to follow or to tug.
Tomorrow I will see her again. Unfortunately, it is my place of employment. She will ask the usual weekend questions. I will make something up. She will laugh and my brain will record it. There was something there in the last two weeks, some form of magnetism. I know it and she knows it. It won't be acknowledged because she blanketed the invisible with a stance on employee romance. The irrational me refuses to believe in that structure, the logicians smothering of possibilities, believing that anything positive can transcend, that the pattern is there waiting to be explored...perhaps never. However, is this complex? Not really. At the worst, I lose before anything was began. At best, I have misread the pattern and all that should be will be...or I will make a complete ass of myself. All of this just for a date...exhilirating...
Peter {peterbalius@mindspring.com} i've been . . . . infatuated . . . (i suppose) with him for nearly a year now it seems. i was together with someone else then when i first set eyes on him. when i broke up, i thought these feelings were just rebound. i think i was wrong - 6 months down the track . . . good friend of a good friend - but it hasn't been easy getting to know him. keeping myself in check all the time. afraid. afraid always - jeopardy. then one night - it seemed like that the chemistry was there. he felt it. i felt it. it was strong. our eyes met - i was so sure.
Things wouldn't be complicated...if I didn't do it do myself. Awhile ago, I wrote that I wanted things to be simple, clean. I think I lied. I wouldn't get myself into these things if I did.
I didn't think this would ever get the chance to amount to anything. Innocent flirtation. A thing that wasn't real, but a game. A made up relationship. He is available. Hm. It seems simple, but it would take pages to explain the webs and connections that make this so very weird...if it ever happened. Big if. If we didn't give a damn about anyone but ourselves, life would be simple indeed.
nicole {noizangl@cycor.ca} I hate to be unoriginal, but there's a line from a song that's often stuck in my head, from a UK band called Ride. They mumble, but I think they're singing I wish that life could be just like a photograph Each moment captured as you laugh your perfect laugh But that's a danger things could never be so right There's so much more to think about than black and white My age is unbelievable to me. I am 47 and shall turn 48 in November. Yet I do not smoke cigars, or drive a large American car with the windows rolled up and the air on high. I do not tell war stories over a drink with the guys. When I was a child, that is what 47 meant. Successful, or, if not, at least, boastful in one's lies. Boastful in conquests of life and love, as years of steaks drooped over one's belt and the smokey Scotch flushed. Sweat and leers illumined the faces of these preponderant and preposterous men. I feel none of their feelings. The jealousies and camaraderies. I sometimes, even as a child, saw them as the fodder of World War II that had somehow survived, inexplicably, unexpectedly. What else did they have? My battles were personal, singular. Or so I thought for years. I was gay, and knew it at a young age. I was smart in ways society would rather deny me, in that I could read people. The motivations behind bombast, the masks behind masks. I was a male closely attuned to my heart and the hearts of others. I could see thoughts in eyes, lies in actions. Yet these men were the host of my larval youth. What else did I have but my imagination, and the inspiration of far away minds and cities. These ghosts in fedoras complicate me still.
David Worden {hermes@earthlink.net} i have come here purely by chance and i have not yet had a chance to wonder through your halls but after glancing through all the heartfelt postings here i just felt as though i'd add a line or two.
despite the words of despair and despondency i think that i sense hope amongst those who have written; they may not feel it themselves but i can sense it trying to break out from behind the clouds.
life is complicated, with that i agree and i cannot say anything new nor anything more poetically than some of you have done. however, in its complexity there is a certain sort of simplicity - it all seems to come down to what life means to us and how we deal with "the vissictitudes of life".
love has been a constant theme here. i don't know if there is a "the one"; i've been told by some that they knew - how? i ask them. they smile knowingly. how is anyone to know this amid the competing claims of so much else, and what if we find out too late? by then we are too old to do anything but mourn for our lost dreams......
Anon It is the post like the one above mine that causes me to decide to kill myself before December 31, 1997. It will be fun when I will no longer have to put up with shit like the shit Anon is pulling. It's over and I'm rejoicing now, a cloud has lifted. I will die and it will be over and I'm through with this shit. The End. My only friend, The End....
No One AN ADDENDUM. There is no reason to live, face it people. There just isn't. I highly reccommend death. I'm nearing that point and man I already know it feels good. No more attention-seeking, no more fighting for things you can never have, no more pain. Just nothing. Nothing is good. Being No One is fun. I love it. No more need to think clearly now. No more need to write clearly or be held to any standards or have to do anything or even do anything. No more need to be you or anyone else or what or why or when or where or ever. Death. How pleasant. I can't wait. You all shouldn't either.
No One my current answer to the suicide question. life is cold. killing yourself gets rid of the cold. and everything else. i was pretty sure that i would, eventually, kill myself. but not for awhile, probably. i had an experience, recently. i felt warmth. and it would seem simple. just find warmth. but it isn't really. it's very hard to find warmth. maybe i'm not looking hard enough, though.
[the fray's kinda warm.]
rmci {roland.mcintosh@oberlin.edu} when i'm happy i would say it's worth all the pain, but when i hurt i can't figure out why i even bother.
simon king {simon@phreakco.com} I had a story all set to share with you guys. Well, okay - it wasn't all set, but I had something in mind, and was ready to write it up for you guys. And what happens? I'll tell you what happened. I was reading through the post, and there's one already here by someone who was very... oh, Jesus, I don't know why I'm pussyfooting around this. My ex-signifigant-other posted a message here. On this very page. Here's what would make my life less complicated: if I could remember not to confuse hurt with regret.
signman Just a note to 'No One' who wants to kill him/herself:
I, too, pondered suicide earlier this year when the 3rd in a series of relationships ended against my wishes. I saw no hope. No reason to go on. But then a 2-year lease came in the mail and I realized that I was paying about 60% of what my trendy East Village apartment would go for on the free market. So I decided to stick it out for a couple of years.
I don't mean to make light of your situation, No One, but another thing i realized was that i wanted to live for, if nothing else, the jokes.
Sure life is full of broken promises and heartbreak, but it is also intensely funny. It also gets funnier when you have given up on it. After you've seriously contemplated suicide, and gotten over it, you have carte blanche to laugh at yourself and everything else in this bizarre dysfunctional realm.
Stick around, No One. Why the fuck not?
Bryan Wright {shaggy@panix.com} Reality is infinitely complex. Our minds are not.
Why do we try to understand it?
Patrick {patrick@sticking.com} Complicating. Enlightening. Frightening. Ever changing. The murky days of struggling to not only balance our inner self-esteem, but extending beyond the self to have an influence on others, the environment, society. These days are spattered between golden days of clarity; accepting the self and how I only have true control over self-actions, with my circle of influence expanding when I actively practice this rationalization.
Wendra {Wendra123@aol.com} sometimes i feel like the fish.
Bob {bobsteine@usa.net} I invested fifteen years in a grave of a marriage based on lies we could not hide, and truth we did not want to reveil. I look at the singles and see miles between the place I was, and the road I am on. Simplicity is my only rule. Things have become so un-natural and mechanical that I refuse to participate in this "you should feel like this because I brought you flowers" mentality. As a man of the 90's I can cook, clean, provide a shoulder to cry on, repair things, write a poem, change a diaper, and make enough money to live quite well. I just don't make enough money, or time to afford a relationship. It is not the kids who are too expensive anymore.
Kevin Robinson {flyingtiger@bigfoot.com} My wife ran off with her friend Cocain Thank god I ended up with the kids. It keeps me focused. Although some days I fell better I never do feel well. Hopes spring is eternal. here's hoping there was reason for this extreme test........
killboy powerhead nothing's easy. or, at least nothing worth anything is easy.
i love things that are complicated. i feel guilty for wanting it so easy way back when, but now i long for the days where i have so much to do i can't see straight. a sense of accomplishment is one of the best feelings i can imagine, that is, of all the feelings i can imagine feeling.
yeah, things are complicated. but i wouldn't want it any other way.
scott {scottz@mail.id.net} every couple weeks or so i make it a point of mine to rummage through my room and dump the stacks of useless papers that pile up...you know, you happen upon a discourse between haldane and russell or the introduction to a thesis on the logic of networks and you print it out and read and think...sitting back and tapping the highlighter against the paper...sometimes it's worth saving...
...you know, i downloaded the brain after reading about at TheObvious or at MSNBC (it's all a blur by this point in time), and along the way i found criticisms and praise, and at the crux was towards finding information and synthesis lies relevance--even if you have information does it remain particularly relevant--does it have significance?...
...posing this question seems to have quieted my parents complaints a bit...as if it was _their_ room...
michael schwartz {maverick@wwa.com} Complicated??
You bet things are complicated, but you know what? If things were simple, then life would be very boring. Where would the challenge be? I am in a transition period in my life, leaving the comfort of College and getting ready for the "real world", whatever and where ever that may be. Sure things are complicated in love, life, money and politics, but I wouldn't change it for the world. Life is always complicated, but with experience and education one can learn to make it less so. but that's only the very beginning. With a greater view of how and why the world works the way it does, from love to international relations to quantum mechanics, comes an increasing feeling of helplessness for me. Maybe the best analogy I can offer is a great and complicated machine. I can see the tiny and myriad systems and mechinisms of the machine, and see exactly what is wrong with it and where to intervene to fix it. The only catch is that the mechanism is buried too deeply into the machine to reach, or is attached to so many other parts of the machine that to change it would break the machine. I find it both interesting and difficult to be the grease monkey of my soul. complicated vs. simple could you really tell the difference between them? reduce everything and you get lots and lots of the same thing. throw it all together and you get infinite combinations of the same thing. i don't see the difference. just like (to get specific on this theme) i don't see why i've had to lose every hetero male friend i ever had. it's always so complicated when we're staring at eachother right after an uneasy laugh. but when you reduce it, it's just lots and lots of the same thing... it's neither simple nor complicated, it's just that we don't understand it.
lin Life is so complicated for me.
I seem to achieve moments of clarity when I truly listen to my heart.
Even that seems to fail me sometimes...
Everything seems brighter and I can breathe so much easier when I stop living for others... and begin living for myself.
Aaron {super_flie@hotmail.com} I think that people confuse "simple" with "easy."
Sometimes the simplest things are never easy.
They are complicated because of us. We complicate life, often just for the hell of it, or so it seems or to "tell the story" afterwards. Blech.
I mean, for ex., how complicated is it to "be true" to someone, really? If you only want to be with one person, that's easy enough to do, provided the person in question feels the same way, too. No?
It's all very simple. You just don't see other people. When offers get fielded, you say "no thanx." Bite into your bottom lip and cross your legs hard when you say it if you have to. But even then, it's easy enough to say, I think. Engine gets revved up all over, but you only back the car into that one garage, you only consult with that one mechanic. Nobody else matters, because you say so. That's simple.
But given the state of affairs (um, pun not intended, i swear) as we know it, how easy is it, hmm?
I say that "complications" arise when folks start rationalizing and signifying, about simple things finding excuses not to do something that's simply done or not done. "Things" are not complicated at all. People are: we are wayward, contrary, frustrating, self-sabotaging creatures. If there isn't any conflict we go about making it, just to have something to do.
I can no longer count the times that I would go to a friend in tears over the changes some loved one was putting me through for some weird-assed bizzarre, rationalized-beyond-rational-reason only they could understand. I'd be sobbing, and tearing the slight shock of hair I do keep on my head out, trying to figure out why when the answer to that question only resonates in One Universe, anyway. A universe completely unlike my own.
My consolation:
"Well, at least you can write about it."
Um, okay. Whatever.
A dear friend of mine lost her husband, recently. She happens to be an incredibly gifted writer. I was on the phone a few months back discussing her situation with a mutual friend, saying how glad I was that she'd resumed her writing under these extraordinarily difficult circumstances, and all he could say in reply was:
"Well, her stuff's gonna be off the hook, now."
Um, gee. Should I be expected to prefer THAT (even if it's true), to the security of knowing that a dear friend was happily partnered in life? Maybe I'm just a complicated person, but I'd rather the lady had her husband back.
Lately I find I'm not bemoaning the complexity of "things," so much as the lamentable, complex perversity of mankind.
For me now it's as simple as that.
steve brownlee {brownlee@bwitch.com} Things are as complicated as I make them. Right now I'm on a quest to simplfy my life as much as I can. That means I pick my fights wisely, I plan the amount of time I spend at business functions, I question if I want to have a relationship with someone I meet (friendship) and at the bottom of it all I listen to myself.
Yeah, things are complicated. It's complicated to tell your future mother-in-law that she can't meet your parents because her son is black and my parents are not thrilled that I'm going to marry her son, a black man. It's complicated playing the office politics that abound at most corporations. It's complicated dealing with clients who figure that because you're young and attractive that sometimes translates into a lack of brain power.
Here's what keeps me sane. Sometime ago I realized that I am responsible for no one else but myself and that I have no control over anyone. Those two seemingly common sense statements have placed my life in perspective. That coupled with my personal belief that there is a higher power running the show allows me the freedom to be myself and not worry about other's perceptions of me (which tended to complicate things for me).
What is my point? I fear that I lose my point and lapse into mere ramble. My position on complexity is this: Trust that where you have been and where you are right now, those places were right for you. Try not to analyze situations to death. Things generally fall into place and in the grand scheme of things we are but mere minions.
Someone once told me that the bigger my ego the bigger I perceive my problems to be.
:RP
RP {caribbeanspice@hotmail.com} Life is very complicated. I think that we make it that way for ourselves. Why do we not choose the right path in the first place. Meeting Peter Again reminds me of my life right now. I met HIM just a few months ago. He's sweet. He's funny. He's extremely sexy. Very dangerous. He's married. Hell, so am I. I like flirting with disaster. But now he's in my dreams and I find myself devising clever little plans so that I can bump into him now and then. Last night we danced at a party. He pulled me close and I melted in his arms. We stared into each other's eyes like old lovers. I pulled him closer and for just one second I saw a hint of invitation in his eyes. I could have him if I wanted to, I thought. I turned away from his gaze feeling guilty. Suddenly, my husband walked in. How did things get so complicated?
S I was searching for something and bumped into Fray by accident. I'm glad I did. I had no idea people had these kind of discussions.
I liked a girl for from 1st-6th grade. She liked me. We never thought about anybody else (to my knowledge). But we never talked or did anything. I moved 2000 miles away after 6th grade. Her family is all around her. I can never move back to where she lives. I could never ask her to move where I live. Three years later, I went on my first "date" with a smart, shy girl (very similar to my elemetary school girl). I really liked her. We went to homecoming. I saw a lot of myself in her. We were both shy. From what I new about her relatives, our two extended families even seem to share a lot of common things. I asked her if she would like to go to a movie or something. She told me no. She is not the real serious dating type, I think she just wanted to go to Homecoming. I, being new, was disappointed but I accepted it. I'm shy but I'm not afraid to try new things, like dating. Even after this, I still thought about her for the entire year. I couldn't stop. The following year I asked her to Homecoming but she said no. I felt I couldn't have asked anybody without asking her first. Its hard to explain why. I went with another girl but I didn't realize at the time that she really like someone else. A few months later was Prom. I had been talking to another girl a lot in one of my classes. We had a great time, there I had my first kiss. Everything seemed so perfect. The week after was great. Then something happened. It was not definable but she seemed like a different person then. I kept getting ideas that she was avoiding me. One could say I was thinking silly, I had no proof but I turned out to be right. What's really weird is ever since I was little, I've always had this vague notion of the perfect girl. It seems that every girl I get to know is way off every time. There's something that I know exists, that I have seen a certain spirit--quality in older and younger girls but its always the ones that seem so "inaccessable." I feel like everyone around me is messed up. Perhaps I'm discovering a harsh reality... But why in 5 billion people, do aren't many people very similiar. It seems that many people are similar but the ones I'm looking for are rare to nonexistent. Perhaps I'm just being too picky... Its hard to know what to think anymore.
I haven't given up. My life has always found unusual solutions to my problems and they didn't present themselves until they were absolutely needed. When I was little I would try to imagine the future. Every now and then I still do. But the future keeps showing up in strange ways. I feel every year leaves me in a completely different place. Its as if I'm making 90 degree turns every year but I'm always ending up somewhere completely different. I'm not going in a circle, its more of a multi-dimensional corkscrew.
I almost wish that we could be assigned wives at birth like we are assigned hair color or even life. But, I suppose a lot would be lost. It's too bad so many people loose so much in this world though.
You know what? Life is complicated but one thing is simple: Everything will always work out but it won't be your way, it will be better than that. (And if you don't see it as better, you've got another thing coming...).
May we all find emotional comfort in this world,
-Name Now Unknown (I am not who I once was).
Unknown {theredneck@bigfoot.com} Everything seems so incredebly complicated, but really it's not. If you think about anything long enough it makes perfect sense. 5xy+3a-6C/5xnm*(4n=5g)=7gh+9hy/6/x^5 It's like an algebra problem given in freshmen year of high school. It seems to scary to think about, but when you have to do it, it's actually incredebly simple. x=1 And those few times when x has no answer, it's even easier to figure out. We humans are stupid and have no idea what's going on cause we don't have the time or the intelligence to sit down and think about it long enough. Of course x is only the problem. The solution is a calc problem we never learned how to solve.
Laura I am happy with who I am, and I'm originally from someplace much darker than that. Family is the price I pay for connectedness, and I have some time left before I realize their true value. As you already know, I skirt the issue. My passion is alive, and it makes me proud. I plan to climb a mountain, swim a stream, and find a me to keep. Kindness amazes me.
My former life was less eventful. I've worked at myself and it hurts. I also made people cry. When I was expected to perform tricks for my parents, I did. I would work a crowd, and please a party, and then go cry in my room.
Now I am aware. It pays to live through that. I enjoy so much of everything. I like to read.
I LOVE lighthouses, sunflowers, and brothers who protect. I enjoy making up my mind based on intuition. I also love french kissing, and pink toenails. I went one entire year without speaking to my father, and then two more to grow on. Porch swings, sweet tea, and the ocean warm my soul.
Purple was always regal to me.
Another passion: knowing. I LOVE to count, and explore used book stores.
I cannot play the piano (but I can type fast). I am displeased with the quality of literature these days. I wish everyone used sunscreen. I am an introvert who can pretend to be otherwise. I will not abandon my sister. I wish I had a red convertible. I do not believe in heaven. I do think God is within me. I am a prolific questioner. I protest love on command. I need a cause to fight for, right now.
nakia {nakiasunshine@hotmail.com} An acknowledgement first, if I may: ERIC, your message was amazing. Said everything we all know but can't articulate. Now I may proceed with my own life complications. Twenty one years on this earth. Feel secure in my own identity and values, but am still learning so much. Realizing that for once in my life, I really need someone. And that he needs me right back. Loving my mom more now than ever. Taking more time. Reading a book just to read a book, not just when I need it for a class. Drinking coffee slowly in the morning. Accepting myself as a strong, rational, significant person. Smiling for no damn reason, and not wanting one anymore. Knowing that happiness is not a THING, it just is. Comes and goes, as does the pain. Wanting my lover in a new, curious way every time he touches me. These are the things that we all know, or will know, or don't give a damn about. These things are life to me, and that's not all that complicated when one begins to implement the "bird's eye" approach:)
Anna You know, I knew from the beginning, with us trying to hide our relationship from friends and family, that things with David were going to end up way too complicated. Now I'm no longer with him and no longer want to be with him but I'm tied to him by my roommate, who is in love with him, and a web of lies he and I spun around our relationship. Nobody knows that, even though we broke up 18 months ago, we were sleeping together until 2 months ago. Sounds like a Soap Opera huh? Nothing complicates a life like lies.
Now I am better and my life is much more simple. I work and I love work. I like to say, "I'm still under the weather but over the storm." I have family and friends who REALLY love me and stand by me through thick and thin. I have based my life on priorities instead of fantasies. I have taken responsibilty for myself. But, every now and then, after a few too many beers, I find myself staring into Dave's blue eyes and feeling his subtle brush across my breast and I know that I should distance myself from the soap opera. . . and simply go to bed. I was sitting at home, only this home is becoming more and more unfamiliar to me as it is my parents home now...I have moved to Providence. But here, on this too tacky couch and there, on that too large television screen, A&E was telling me that the definition of genius is best summed up by the too dead Ezra Pound.
Well, what happens when a hundred things are seen; thousand; ten thousand ;everything? I will tell you what happens. You become bitter.
This vague, semi-nihilist brand of thinking seems to arrive with the menoras and fake polyester mall snow carpets, so I am willing to marry my failing mental health with the too-chipper holiday bruehaha, but one dim light can be seen from the comfort of my parents orthopedic mattress and flower print comforter...I will be getting on a plane to Providence tomorrow, and I will be going home to an empty apartment where my ten-thousand thoughts will echo about the grey and guacamole walls, silenced only by sleep and the occasional car alarm.
Robert {roberth@ids.net} Why is it we can love each other so much and still not make a relationship work? What is that song and dance we do around feelings and expectations and doubts, saying everything but the things that get said anyway when someone knows you well enough you never had to say anything in the first place?
There is something to be said for that kind of closeness, something to be savored on the tongue, in the soul. Something to be said for a connection that makes you feel like you belong as never before, like you finally fit somewhere you really want to fit.
Love can be the easiest thing in the world. And sometimes, I think, if it seems too easy, we have to make it complicated so there's an excuse to leave.
Foolish. Maybe that's why real love lingers, even in the complicated aftermath.
alison {ajd710@yahoo.com} Everything happens for a reason. All those times when I've been lost for words in front of people have been because I've been trying to impress the wrong people. Real friends don't need to be impressed, they just take you as you are.
Yes,god,yes... I keep searching,hoping for that hidden thread which I could follow to make sense of everything. So many paths to take,so many possible wrong decisions.Somehow I _know_ I'll pick the wrong one.I try to reason out the right path to take,and it's like I have a 386 for a brain:too slow to see it properly,I can only sense what is about to happen. Having hidden my feelings for so long,I want to learn how to use them again,but how? How do you reconstruct a childhood?Who am I? How do I feel?What do I want from my life?I think,and think,because that's the only way I know of understanding complexity.
Colin {cjmccaug@glam.ac.uk} Do things seem complicated? Good God, yes. Often we have wondered to each other how this happened... how we got to where we are now.
We don't know. We may never know. All I know is that I love her with an intensity that I've never felt before. And she loves me. She loves me enough to give up her entire life. I stand in awe of her.
We should be rushing into each others arms, not stealing kisses when and where we can. I want to shout my love out from the rooftops. But then, neither of us wants her husband, my best friend, to hear.
Complicated? Oh, yes.
craig things are as complicated as we make them.
we can get lost in the day to day bump & grind - get hung up on who did what to whom or we can get beyond that & look within ourselves for answers.
sometimes it makes it easier to take a step back and laugh......
trust yourself
freda {wonef@hotmail.com} We loved each other from the start ................... but When he was ready, I wasn't and When I was ready, he wasn't
....................I've never been so happy . . . I've never been so sad..................
did I mention it was fabulous?
jenny {jjmassie@ecst.csuchico.edu} things are very often too complicated for me to handle. i once thought love was simple. i found it once back in high school. we said it to each other. we meant it with each other. there was this bench in front of this lake. i used to sit at one end while she put her head on my lap. i would stroke her hair until the sun set. then we would continue with our evening. we were always looking at each other from across rooms exchanging smiles and winks to let the other know we were thinking about them. throughout our relationship my heart was huge. so filled with love and genuine care and concern. i always made sure she was happy before i ever asked for anything. i always thought she had it great. she had a boyfriend who put her before his desires and needs. and never pressured for sex. that was a big thing with her. no sex. we used that to our advantage. we had a wonderful sex life. it was filled with passion and feeling and truth. we held each other till morning. we kissed for hours on end just because we didn't want our souls to seperate. sometimes our lips would bleed. that was love. ...............so i thought she dumped me.............. .........for my best friend that's when things got complicated. even to this day i can't trust a girl to be telling the truth when she says 'i love you'. (but leah, i still love you. with all my heart)
Everything in my life is complicated, being madly in love with my best friend of 3 years who has no idea. My life turning into one big addiction, alcohol, nicotine, all before i am halfway through high school. i hope things get easier, but i know they will not. Complicated is the way i feel, aside from my anger which is a complicated feeling in the first place, i totally feel complicated and strained to an extent of breaking.
Jeremy {boddah22@hotmail.com} I spend a lot of time feeling very much like a Rock'em Sock'em Robot. I roll with the punches and dodge as best I can, throughout my life. Every three years I seem to notice the wallpaper, the plumbing, the street outside and think "Whoa. Where am I?" I've lived many places and each place had its own rules and expectations, quirks, stories, characters, etc. But at each new one, I'd forget what those things were and just realize, "This is different. Where am I now?" My first relationship was almost like a trial by fire. I decided that it would be all or nothing, so i committed myself fully. It was a wild and crazy youthful, scarring, blissful, scary, loving and deceitful thing. Just like love, I guess, in fast forward. I've been in a few since then, each time trying o get it right. I've been lucky, I've been with very beautiful women who have touched me in unique ways, hurt me in others and shared as well as hid from me. Each time there was usually a new locale of some kind and new rules, etc. each time I'd find myself looking at the wallpaper, the street, etc, noticing a lack of consistency. I felt doomed to never feel at home, which I equated as a place you're always at. Now I'm living in a city I love with a woman I love and I think it feels right for the first time, which is odd. I think what I was looking for in the wallpaper and in the street and all wasn't consistency, but safety. Which is nice.
Jamie {mistersix66@yahoo.com} This has been a complicated year for me.
Maybe I wouldn’t have fallen for him so hard if I didn’t have such a vivid first impression of him. I first saw him about two years ago. He was working in a restaurant as a waiter. And he walked as though the world was on his side, as if everything was about joy and laughter and love. There was always a crooked grin on his face and he had this loud addictive laugh. All this I had noticed within an evening at a restaurant and it BLEW me away. When I talked to him,
(more like nervously stammered a few meaningless words at him, too nervous in the presence of such childlike beauty)
I knew I had to see this guy more. But the next time I went to this restaurant, he wasn’t there. He’d gone South to this dance party and hadn’t come back. I now think "that’s bloody typical", but at the time I thought "how wild and free".
No-one knew how much this one person had affected me, it was to the point where even up to a year later, I’d keep half an eye out for him when I was at a bar or concert or party. But no joy... until one night. I saw him at a party, talked to him, got his phone number. And when I finally got the guts to call him, he told me all about her. He’d found the girl he wanted to marry, the most amazing person in the whole world, he would take her passport photo out of his wallet and reverently say "But you should see her when she smiles…." then drift off to a happy place in his head. She had just moved to another city. They were still together.
But he’d call and say that we should have dinner (I was in ecstasy) that I had to come out for some drinks so I could meet his best friend that would I like to come to the beach that I was one of the most amazing people he’d ever met (such a massive compliment coming from him) that he was having doubts about her (barely veiled, guilty delight).
Before long we spent every day together. And you can imagine how I felt. This beautiful, idealistic man with the most penetrating eyes who I had thought about for so long before. Then, she dumped him, and his world came crumbling down. It was my shoulder that he cried on, my house that he stayed at for weeks, me who’d go out with him for the purpose of getting so nailed we could barely walk. I got him another job working with me, after we’d finished a shift we’d go dancing. It felt so good to be out with him, made me feel so special. Girls would always swarm over him (women just love this guy, it has to be seen to be believed) but he’d make such a fuss of me that everyone soon assumed that we were together.
He seemed to like it that way.
And I thought that I loved him more than anything in the world. I thought about him every minute of every day. And, after a while, I knew he felt the same, that he wanted to touch my lips as much as I did his. I knew he wanted to hold me as I fell asleep, and to do all those other things that make us feel so painfully tender and vulnerable.
So I asked him.
And he said No. He said I was like a sister to him. That he was a one woman man, and that his woman was the passport photo girl. I said the next day that I’d been drunk and lonely, that I didn’t really mean it at all.
And eight awful weeks later, he left the country to go on what I suppose could be called a spiritual pilgrimage. He’s like that, bit of a hippy.
So now he’s gone, but do you want to know the MOST fucked up complicated thing? I’m not only glad he’s gone, but I don’t miss him. At all.
amy {amycran@hotmail.com} i went to his house just to get out, away from my kid... drunk. i didn't want to have sex... well not really. we had sex the next morning. so i wasn't so easy... right? that was in june.
now it's october. i practically live at his house. when he's not here i am... when he's here i am... when i'm not here, he calls me to make sure i am on my way. i'm here now.
but we're not in a relationship. (we talked about it)
so i go out with others. just to have fun. to do things he doesn't do with me. to see things he doesn't like to see.
i feel guilty sometimes like i am cheating. being unfair to the others.
i just wonder why i care what anyone feels anymore
why i am in a relationship that is not a relationship.
why can't it be easy? tell me you love me and put a ring on my finger... i don't want to do this anymore... If I look back I can see a time when it was clear. But now, I just dont know. I can see exactly when the time of clarity in my life ended, and at the time I knew it too. But I could have done something about it then and I can still do something about it now, to get it back. What I dont know, but I know the option is open.
Tempest {Tempest_stormbringer@excite.com} Love is the only bow on lifes dark cloud. It is the morning and evening star. It shines upon the cradle of the babe, and sheds its radiance upon the quiet tomb. It is the mother of art, inspirer of poet, patriot, and philosopher. It is the air and light of every heart, builder of every home and of all fire on every hearth. it was the first dream of immortality. It fills the world with melody..Love is the magician, the enchanter that changes worthless things to joy, and makes right roayl kings of common clay.
eugene {ewong55@hotmail.com} met this guy online about three months ago. met face to face and started talking. this guy led me into a place in my heart that I hadn't visited for a long time. he's moving to another city at the end of this week. I think I like this guy enough to pursue this between to cities. I don't know what he's thinking, or what he wants. It seems like a simple matter to just ask, right? Wrong. It's clear in my head. It's my heart that's aching.
kurt {yelsaid@hotmail.com} Funny, how the title of this section is hope, but reading the previous entries, there doesn't seem to be any hope of making sense of it all. How many times have I chanced, and how many times have I been wounded for my trouble. Worse of all, I'm always at least partially at fault. So now,a few weeks after my last encounter (see the New Year entry), a few months after my last relationship, I know it's going to start again. There's a girl, that I used to work with. I never asked her out, because we worked together and I have a rule about that. That's a lie. I never asked her out because I knew she wouldn't go out with me. She saw me as a friend. But last time I saw her, comments were made. We'll see. God, I just want to make a connection! Is that too much to ask?
spyrral {spyrral@hotmail.com} things are only as complicated as you make them out to be...
i was thinking of being a nun once cause men just piss me off and worry me to no end because the are the complicated ones. seems nothing has gone right and i have never had a date on valentines day. never. here it is comming up again and yet here i am in the middle of some big uninsightful, complicated, romantic, soap-oprah-like mess.
love is so rational to think irrationable about.
i'd like to go to a place where romantic ending's happen and kisses that matter are for real. and where 'that thing called love' is more that just a good movie; and where i can find the right lips to lock to. where i don't worry about where the motives will lead me or where the guy on the other end is placing his hand. and where things aren't so dang complicated. where i have to chose whether to stay with my boyfriend, that i'm not sure if i've been able to love all along this 6 month trail.
which takes me back to being a nun... things would be less complicated. and men wouldn't matter. but then i'd miss my perfect kiss.
cathy vanatta {paige8978@excite.com} oh yes... if we didn't think.. if we didn't have a conscience or a reason of mind the complication wouldn't exist. we'd be slugs. simple but true.
cathy vanatta {paige8978@excite.com} perhaps it is always simple, and the corners and complications are added by me I could list the affections of my life and the stories which brought me to them and which took them away because they go away, make no mistake reasons may differ and circumstance (bloody circumstance) but in the end there remains a soul with a question when did I get so attached? because I always do
aino {aino_i@hotmail.com} Thins are complicated, but I want them to be the simplest things I've ever lived. Sometimes things are not as complicated as WE are, and we make things even more complicated than they really are.
Well, my story:
Once I was in my daily chat room, chatting with my freinds, and a freind told me that this guy had seen my picture in the heading room, and he totally liked me. I heard of him of being a "male slut" who had already cybered with half of the girls in the room, actually those who were so called sluts. Of course, me! following everybody's opinion instead of follow mine as the principal one, trusted the woman who told me this guy was such a player and when he came one day to the chat room and started complementing me I totally ignore him. I can still feel bad when I remember how stupidly I treated him.
Why?, because I was a stupid girl who loved to complicate things without any reason. So many things went through my mind due to my weak mind. I could not believe a guy could have noticed how pretty I am, because ALL guys just want to have some fantazies with me and that's it. Thank God I realized I needed to think with my own mind and do whatever I felt the right thing to do.
I met this guy, and guess what? He is the most wonderful, incredible guy I've ever wanted to met. He is handsome, smart, sweet, hot, delicate, funny, and I love to spend time talkng with him on the phone and reading his long e-mails. I have not had the ooportunity of meeting him in real life, but we are thinking about it.
If I hadn't trusted my own desicions, by now I've lost the chance of meeting someone so incredible as he is. I learnt not to think so complicated, not to make a trouble of everything, just think carefully, but generalize is a very bad idea. Sometimes we judge others because of bad experiences we've had before. Not every man in this world think and act the right way, and that about "men are all the same, and men just want sex", that is all false.
G- complicated? perhaps too strong a word.
full. and sometimes, so empty.
so I figure it's my job to make it simpler. that's what it seems life is all about. you win at the end not with the most points, but the most clarity.
and if I knew how to do that easily, I'd be old and content. and who really wants to be either?
debbuzz {debbuzz@yahoo.com} Very much so.
I'm in my first (serious) relationship, with the first person I've ever felt so deeply connected to, the first I've ever been able to talk to about anything without embarassment. The complications: she's married, 10 years older and won't be spending much time in the country in future.
If only...
M for now What things? What complication? Is it the meaningless wars and so-called minor conflicts that pervade the news and air we breath? Is it the stupid stereotypes, ignorance, and suffocating stupidity that we swim in everyday? Sometimes I ask myself WHY? Why do we let fear of ourselves take control? Why do we need to trample on another to achieve and be "successful"? Sometimes I feel like I am beating against an impenetrable wall of ignorance and stupidity asking WHY? WHY? WHY? Then later I realize that it's not them-society, my parents, the tv, but me. A tiny little voice inside cries sometimes (not as much as before) to be free. But again, I am afraid of that voice. I am afraid to discover things I already know. I am afraid that I will not miss my parents when I leave for college (or maybe I will). I am afraid of how much they mean to me. I am afraid that the time will come when I will break my parents hearts in order to be me. But I am not going to worry about that now because most important of all, I am no longer afraid to recognize the little voice that speaks.
Iffy {Queenoeighties@hotmail.com} Ironic this...
complicate: to involve
Yet, the more involved in life I am, the more simple it is....
simple: backward, slow, feeble-minded
Yet, the more feeble-minded I act, the more complex my life becomes....
Karen
I have no idea how I even got from there to here, let alone how I went from torn leather and too-tight jeans to being the only geekchick who wears ties to work.
I have no idea, nothing beyond a faint jasmine-tinged boudoir of memories and bold-faced decisions based on grim self-proclaimed epiphanies.
I still hold on to them too hard, determined clutching at ancient scars who've lost all sensation years ago.
I'm not even that old, yet.
I have no idea how I came to be here, curls in my eyes because my head is bowed as I am telling this to a faceless you.
But I am happy here. As long as I can hear the rushing.
monstre {monstrosity@canada.com} Complication is my adventure.
As long as I've lived (and this is not very long in comparison to others) I've come to envision myself as the hero of my story. I beleive this notion originates in being a secong-generation comic geek, but, nonetheless, if my life were a comic book, or a novel, or a movie, I'm almost positive that my resolution would win me the title of hero. Why?
Because the hero conquers all. Have you ever noticed? I know that they sometimes die, or they lose the girl but even in death, a hero becomes a huge lumbering rolling boulder of good that trounces the evil that faces it. I tend to look at the complications of my life as those lilttle lumps standing in my path as I crusade down the slope. Even if the lumps cause my death, stop my momentum, or slow me down, I'll still have given them a good fight; and that makes me the hero.
Much love. And good luck with your rolling/lumbering.
K-Rock {herotheory@yahoo.com} i am in love with my Friend, robyn. robyn is the one who consoled me after i realized that my relationship with my Friend allison could never come to fruition. yes, the vicious cycle is repeating itself yet again, and i think i like it.
josh {jewbacca@ufl.edu} complicated?
My dad, who I am slowly getting to know again after the divorce is diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Simple.
He has an operation.
I think it's okay now.
Simple
I talk to him once he's home again. The doctor calls him. They didn't get it all. He will have to have chemotherapy.
Simple.
I am still angry at him.
But it's still no big deal. He talks about percentages.. 25% in 10 years, 90% in 25.
Simple
Yet so fuckingcomplicated.
I can't even write down more than this.
Complications arise as soon as you stop running long enough to think about them. I? I keep running.
Mosley {unum_pro_uno@hotmail.com} Life was simplier when we were younger...no it isn't. Our past only is murky and hazed where only major events stand out to add definition to the past which gives the illusion of clarity. Life isn't any simplier yesterday as today. Take in a breath of air. Simplicity is a state of mind.
Joy Peterson {bok_hee@yahoo.com} We started talking because of something I wrote about on my website.
He understood what I was trying to say although my words were awkward and stumbled over themselves in their attempt to run the page.
We talked for hours about everything and nothing. I hung on his words and he hung on mine. He eventually became my first and my last call of the day.
But he was breaking up with Her. But at the same time not breaking up with Her. Things were coming to an end.
So he comes to see me. We talk, touch, kiss, hug, and do everything but. When he leaves I stand at the airport exit and cry frustrated tears. I am so angry. I am so in love with him.
He comes back again, except this time he is distant. The silence is the Grand Canyon between our two worlds.
I do the only thing I can think to do. I tell him I am in love with him and then I break the only vow I've ever tried to keep.
Abstinence.
I sleep with him. While we are in bed and I am watching him sleep I hope. I hope he falls in love with me too.
He went home to Her. I could have pleaded and begged and made thing difficult for him, but I didnt.
I still love him. But I talk to him like everything is fine. Like nothing ever happened. But I still love him. i wish i could truly say what i mean here.. but a little while ago i had a dream. in that dream there was a man, he was sad. i tried to make him feel better, i tried to get him to stop crying. he was sad because he had lost his grandmother, and he was remembering how she always used to live in a room- and i interrupted him, to make him feel better. and i told him that there are no rooms. and it sounds stupid, and i sound stupid, but really, that's the only thing that my mind has ever told me that i can't understand. which means, to me, that it must be true. =)
erin {eochoa@ualberta.ca} Do we complicate our existence? Sure we do! And we usually choose the worst moment for doing it. But this is what makes us feel alive. I just recently took a hard but fair decision about my marriage. I couldn’t do it with a little “support” from outside. And guess what? I fall for the “support”. Why? I don’t know. It just happened. It was wrong, soooo wrong and it hurts so much. I know for a fact it will take a lot of time to get over and I need that time for my business, but I still don’t regret doing it. It complicated my life but I feel alive again for first in in years.
S.
Sandy In my experience life is very complicated, much more so than I ever thought it would be when I was younger. It's also much more painful and much more horrible as well as much more wonderful, much more miraculous. For example, finding out that terrible things can happen, that you yourself can make terrible mistakes and that there's no way to rewind and make it all go away. The realization that some things actually are final. For another example, actually giving birth to a human being and watching them grow and being absolutely humbled, tumbled, turned upside down with love. Finding out how miraculous it is to be loved and cared for yourself.
Yes, I'd say things are very complicated and the worst part is they are also so fleeting ("the food was awful---and the portions were so small!) I've decided it's best to relate to it all in as friendly and gentle a way as possible. It feels like everything is and isn't at the same time, so why not at least smile to yourself?
Jane {astrlwks@lycos.com} Life is simple. Happiness is simple. You just can't worry to much. I look at the dogs sleeping on the floor. My boyfriend is watching something on the TV and laughing to himself like he always does. Soon we will go to bed and snuggle each other and I will fall asleep in the crook of his arm like I do. In the morning we will cook breakfast together and maybe go to the beach. We don't complicate things with alot of crap.
Pasha things are simple AND complicated. why shouldn't they be? we are complex organic machines,our brains are computers which we only utilize, what is it, 10% of? We can't even interface with our own nervous systems on a conscious level, how can we ever be simple. And yet, my life is simple, a girl who has had things happen. here i sit with my life . the surface and the center, both malleable and simple, strange and complex, from one day to the next. i need to get some exercise, my plants need water, why did i binge this morning, why did i dump my boyfriend, why why why. it's all meaningless in the end to most of the scheme of things, but in my head it's the paramount existence, simple and complex, just to entertain my brain. and it does. and your life fills your brain as well. simple or complex, as the moment feels to you.
rebecca {rebecca263@hotmail.com} I would like to say that relationships are easy, but they're not. I have a childhood friend--can I cross that?--had. We seemed to be the best of friends before I had to tell him how I felt. But I was insecure and I felt so lost and empty then, I thought the only way to go was to draw something more out of him other than just jokes and casual hangouts. I felt that he has retracted from the relationship ever since, and time has already passed so much...it goes with many other friends from the past.
He continues to look at me as if nothing has changed whenever we have the opportunity to spend some time together, but it has changed my ideas and perspectives about relationships dramatically. Obsessively over a period of several years, I wondered why things had changed between him and I. Despite appearances, he hasn't realized how much I grew. I am still struggling trying to keep the communication going with him as well as any other old friends, but it seems hopeless to keep up with Father Time. Ever since things became awkward between him and I, I've been trying to observe these relationships and how they work. Most of the time, it's as simple as the lack of communication between people that keeps us away, not because of life. And it makes me question about the words people type in their e-mails or the things they say on their phones. We hardly talk about anything beyond our education, him and I. In a matter of four or five years, I don't even know who he is anymore. People's reasons for not writing, calling, and so on. It makes me wonder. So instead of attempting to resolve things and hoping to mend this friendship once more, I am cutting it. Although I feel sad because the way things turn out the way they did and how much I wanted to keep this friendship, it only feels better to just drop it and move on with life. i was reminded of my own "peter" of sorts. it was a love that i couldn't really understand, and it was over before i could even figure out how it happened. it was a very simple love-- gentle, thoughtful, sensitive, silent. we didn't even really say it was "love". it just sort of existed suddenly between us, and then in a month or so, things changed. but what i understood was that i preferred his sort of guy. and that's the kind of guy i married abt a couple of years later. but still, i think abt him from time to time, wondering if i had bruised him deeply and if he remembered me at all. it must seem selfish, yes, but i guess i just wanted to apologize to him... for whatever it was that happened. oh, yes, that was complicated-- in that understanding why things happened the way it did between him and me. nothing bad, but really really weird. but i want to thank him for making it simple enough for me to figure out who i wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I find myself today in a relationship with one man, a loving committed relationship, while in a flirtatious sexual relationship with another. I care for a parent who is rehabilitiating and as such I have taken on the parenting role. I have no idea when my life became so damn complicated but it doesn't really matter because things are the way they are because I created the circumstances I am in.
Hannah |
