Late to Ben&Ben

"Because all of this comes with a love that is real."

What do you call it, freedom or loneliness?

"And when nobody wakes you up in the morning, and nobody waits for you at night, and when you can do whatever you want. What do you call it, freedom or loneliness?" - Charles Bukowski

I saw this quote again on Facebook. I used to have a hard time understanding how loneliness felt. I could always find happiness in my own company. What I felt more strongly was the invasive concern, if you can call it that, of people who found something wrong with my being alone.

I'm grateful for the friendships that found me by myself, yes. All my friends, I believe, found me and pulled me in and never let me go (except for Sherwil; I think I found her but it was she who never let me go, haha). But if they hadn't, I don't think I'd ever be lonely if I were left alone.

What made me experience loneliness was being in the company of the wrong people.

I hope I never make anyone feel lonely in my presence. And if I have, I'm sorry and I hope never to do so again.

'Love is for the ones who love the work'

For a Student Who Used AI to Write a Paper

By Joseph Fasano

Now I let it fall back
in the grasses.
I hear you. I know
this life is hard now.
I know your days are precious
on this earth.
But what are you trying
to be free of?
The living? The miraculous
task of it?
Love is for the ones who love the work.

Love nowadays

In my age now, I think I hold on to love not because of the person but because I still can't accept that people just aren't as important as they would have been had I Ioved them in my teens or 20s.

These days, love comes and goes, not leaving an indelible mark, except maybe a guilty sin or two that I no longer take as seriously either, so I scramble to save some significance because of how I loved when I was younger.

That is probably what I cry about: that I refuse to let me and you be easily forgettable; I want to be even a little scarred.

But in my age now I have also forgotten how heartbreak was back then, how I had no sight of the healing that would come, and how, even when I was feeling like I was dying, I wanted to be able to give a mature kind of love that could let go when the time came to do so.

So it is me, not any of the people I loved recently. I still want to love the way I did when I didn't know better, but I can't because I already do.

My theme for 2023: More

I didn't even pretend to make a list of resolutions for 2023, like I have done the past many years. When the new year rolled in, I just sort of surrendered, in a bad way and in a good way. I've been alive long enough to accept that I am always going to be who I am, in a bad way and in a good way. 

I'm done changing myself. And it feels like such a huge relief to openly embrace that there's always going to be something wrong with me and something unlovable about me. 

I know there are good things about me and traits that people do love, but I don't intermittently obsess about minimizing those aspects of me. I don't spend energy magnifying them either, but that's something else I should think about.

But first let me just face my shadow and tell it it's alright for existing. It can come out to play. We can be friends.

***

That being said, my theme for 2023 is More. As in, I want more. From myself, from others, from life. Thank you; more please.