thought processing 3

the experiment begins at 2pm. simple rule: no contact. just thought explorations until it feels right. (reviewer 2 snarks, vague definition, and i agree.)

thoughts that float to the forefront in the silence:

2:50

i miss you already. i was in a meeting talking science with another new colleague and all i could do was think of you. of the feeling of your hand in mine last night. how we walk naturally hand in hand now, though only a little over a month ago we marveled at the remarkable sensation of doing so in public. i think of the sound of your voice and your laugh and how your eyes crinkle and sometimes when you are bashful about something you duck your head a little and how when you do it i want to lean over and kiss your cheek, the feeling of your cheek against my lips. i think of the scent of your hair and how your head rests perfectly on my shoulder and the brush of your breath on my neck and how much i loved the solid realness of your body on mine as you relaxed into sleep, that night that you totally let go in my arms. i think of how i felt so happy/lucky that night to be with you, to experience such a beautiful moment of you, to feel so alive, to share in your happiness and contribute to it. i think of that feeling i have of not wanting you to leave but also knowing you will return to me soon, that the days are not so long when the comfort of you is just a thought away. the intermittent amazement that strikes me when i realize that you are not just a figment of my desire and imagination but a real, physical, part of my life, and that likewise you have chosen to give your precious time and reveal your inner self to me, of all people. i think of how i wrapped myself around you all the times you were cold and how something in that simple, tiny act fills me with contentment, that i can be there for you, in the way i could not for A. the way you respond to every one of my movements. echoing things i say or synchronizing your hands with mine. when i am with you i feel as though we are dancing (at first clumsily, though better with practice) and we need no choreographer.

these are some of my thoughts of desire.

i also think of the times i have felt varying degrees of dissonance or query but did not voice them. wondering if i would be looked down upon by you or your peers, because i am not as learned in music or your academic world because i chose to leave it when i was young and i didn’t take it as seriously. worrying at the start about whether i would meet some unknown criteria of yours when i have such nebulous ones of my own. feeling alternately intimidated and inspired by your self-control and way of life. feeling alternately tentative and defiant about entering your friend space, of wanting and not wanting to be accepted, the former because it is good for you and what you want, the latter because i feel no desire to fit in anyone’s boxes or meet anyone’s approval, because i have always lived fiercely only to define myself to and for myself up till now. of mentally navigating the term we would use for each other (i prefer partner, you said girlfriend first, but we never discussed it) and wondering when exactly did we transition from strangers into being together and then simply bumbling through the moment like a bull in a china shop because a word is just an approximation anyway of a living, changing, process/thing and i never really believed in labels. and yet i do believe in the power of words. telling you i love you and you saying it too, but writing back you really like me and wondering if it was a withdrawal or a defense mechanism or if i am reading meaning into nothing at all. having to bend myself around your various quirks and wondering if you would do the same for me if i asked. 

well, i did ask. this experiment will reveal at least one of my quirks. i asked and you gave us the freedom to think. as i write them out, i touch each memory of comfort and discomfort and lay each down. these moments and thoughts and feelings are what rise and fall within me like little waves. but i do not need to dwell on the questions. answers that are meant to come will make themselves clear. and so, the soundless rustle in me quiets.

5:30

on the drive home sara bareilles is singing on the stereo. almost a year ago (to my astonishment, time flies) her lyrics had been the backdrop of me realizing that i was in fact capable of the emotion of love and not only the motions of it. this time her voice frames the sense of standing on the precipice, as if i might teeter again into the phase in which i will be fully vulnerable and yet at the mercy of someone who freely admits i still don’t fully know her. and as i drive i think, if i don’t know you enough and you don’t know me enough to actually love each other, maybe i should wait. but one may never completely know a person, and i feel that i can trust you, also, i may have already started tipping past there without meaning to. am i ready to leap? am i strong enough if i am? am i resilient enough if i am not? would you hurt me, meaning to or not? 

i realize that from when we grew close till now i have mostly only thought of you and taking care to be good to you and not myself, which has been a welcome change of pace, but perhaps not the wisest for sustainability. i think, i am lucky you are not the kind of person that would take advantage of me like that. (are you? asks the annoying little voice in the back of my mind, because you said there are things i still don’t know.) yes, i think stubbornly, i am lucky, and i am happy, and yet i see i am still afraid of being happy because of the seemingly inevitable pain i associate with every feeling of happiness that i expect is bound to end, and so i am also sad. this is what i thought i had left behind with A - the feeling of clinging to every good moment for fear of losing it. but time is not a tangible thing. i can expend my mental energy tensing around something i cannot control, or i can relax and let my life flow as it will. the latter is what my mother taught me. “yuan fen.” the more i live the more i understand.

i also think, to placate my sad rational self, if everything i do is not enough, i don’t need to be the right person. according to the eastern concept of yuan fen one should not force anything - not to push together, nor to wrench apart. we simply meet and part if that fortune is what is meant to be. i feel we are both mature enough that if needed to we could part amicably and stay friends like i’d wanted to with A. and now i have learned not to contort myself nearly as drastically as i did then to try to be enough. i had thought i was pursuing yuan fen before, but i wasn’t, i am too western, i didn’t fully comprehend the concept. but as i told you at the very start, i am still learning. this, like every adventure i’ve had with another, is another journey along life’s road which we walk together as long as we feel right. my emotional, fearful inner voice protests: but if it’s not, i don’t know if i am strong enough to do this again. and i am getting older. and i have now steered myself away from the notion that i can live the rest of my life happily alone. i don’t have any answers to quiet her this time; the choice lies in the future and i cannot dare to guess what happens. i will just have to see what happens when it does. i can’t see well enough through the tears to make out the license plate of the car in front of me but the traffic is heavy enough that it doesn’t really matter. 

8:55

i spoke with my parents and asked for their thoughts after thanksgiving. they said they noticed you were very reticent and they felt they couldn’t get to know you. my mom said she felt as though you were shrouded in mist. i had told them a little about you before, and i did again. i didn’t know how much i could share, because you are so private and it is not my story. which strikes a contrast, somehow, a parallel between you and my sister, who has also erected walls around herself and only lets in those who she trusts will not hurt her, people who will be safe. my mom and i are allowed in, me more than my mom because we can share things more freely, on the same wavelength. my dad is not - not because he is a danger, but because he doesn’t know how to communicate effectively and my sister doesn’t have the patience to wait and listen and understand him, and so the two of them always tighten into knots when around each other. they sensed you are also a person with many walls and they asked if we are in balance, because they know me and my character but not yours. they want me to be happy. their definition of happiness is not double-edged, but they feel reserved because they sensed you were too. i try to reassure them. see, this experiment is the example of the freedom and openness between us - our trust in each other giving the space to explore our own selves, thoughts, needs. i asked for this time for myself, but it also releases you to explore on your own, distill what we each really want or need or question. i hope you are doing the same tonight, or in other quiet moments, though i have more luxury of quiet than you do.

10:00 

the shower is full of your things, reminding me of you. i have been debating all day how long to run this (thought? emotion?) experiment, which i purposefully left undefined. you did say you wanted to see how we reacted to a challenge, and this is only a little one (and perhaps only a challenge for me). i don’t perceive you as the jealous and possessive type, not like S, whom i haven’t thought about since college. i had blocked out most of my memories of her including that one, the way she would insist on knowing who i was going to meet after class, or lingering by my dorm when i no longer agreed to see her. she was the one i eventually took a restraining order out on, though she made me doubt myself and wonder if it was all drama in my head. she was the one i came out to my parents for and lost a year of relationship with my own mother for. all for her to announce “i can’t help it, i love dick” in the end. all for nothing but shame and pain and such overwhelming darkness. no, i shook myself out of the memory, you are nothing like her at all. i am free of that. i have been free for many years.

10:15

usually we are saying goodnight right around now, when you are not here. i long to reach out to you. i am downstairs, wrapped in the white blanket i usually tuck around you, waiting to go up to the bed where you curled warmly against me in the so recent night. have i answered any of my questions today or have i only drifted among my thoughts and memories? would i drift to answers tomorrow? do i need to? is it cruel to leave you with nothing but silence, or is it blissful to not have me intrude on your thoughts for half a day? i think i will send you this in the morning, so as not to disturb you with something as long as this as if insisting to be read, to be known. the purpose of this experiment was multifold. what i asked was to have the space to explore the thoughts i could not process for being too physically close to you. this was also a space for you to do the same if that is something you needed too. but also i chose to collect these thoughts so you can better know me and how i think in the silence. because i want you to know who i really am. but i do not need to be known immediately, tonight. i think i will greet you in the morning.

as i go to sleep, i think(,) i love you. i might be wary of sharing other things still, (though what could i possibly be wary of after all we have already shared? yet the thought remains;) but i am not afraid to say that. that must mean something i haven’t yet defined. one of my friends once said we are all onions. your favorite.