No Title 12/27

"There are all kinds of love in this world but never the same love twice."






"I am one of the searchers. There are, I believe, millions of us. We are not unhappy, but neither are we really content. We continue to explore life, hoping to uncover its ultimate secret. We continue to explore ourselves, hoping to understand. We like to walk along the beach, we are drawn by the ocean, taken by its power, its unceasing motion, its mystery and unspeakable beauty. We like forests and mountains, deserts and hidden rivers, and the lonely cities as well. Our sadness is as much a part of our lives as is our laughter. To share our sadness with one we love is perhaps as great a joy as we can know - unless it be to share our laughter.

We searchers are ambitious only for life itself, for everything beautiful it can provide. Most of all we love and we want to be loved. We want to live in a relationship that will not impede our wandering, nor prevent our search, nor lock us in prison walls; that will take us for what little we have to give. We do not want to prove ourselves to another or compete for love.

For wanderers, dreamers, and lovers, for lonely men and women who dare to ask of life everything good and beautiful. It is for those who are too gentle to live among wolves."

James Kavanaugh

Puffy

"You know I'm bad at this. You know I don't like things to be complicated. I like to go about my day simply, doing the things I need to do. I like to think, I like to analyze, I like to wonder. I'm good at these things -- they make sense; I like things that make sense. But when you ask me how I'm doing, when you wait patiently for an answer,when you listen attentively to the cracks in my voice, you're asking me to feel. Don't do that. Just go about your day like everyone else - asking without really wanting to know. Don't tell me you genuinely care; please don't ask me to feel.

You know that I can take care of myself. You know that I will always be the last to need someone. I like to be there for others because it's so much easier to give than to be the one in need. It is pride, it is an overestimation of security and strength. But it's all I've ever known."

-Kovie Biakolo

Alumni

I just said goodbye to the past 3.5 years. I'm ready to go; I don't regret anything, or wish I had done anything differently. But imagining my life without you all… There are no words to explain the way that the people I have met here have changed me, and it scares me to think of returning to a time before that, a time before all of you. Coming to Conn was not something that I anticipated, and not a decision I was happy I made for a significant amount of time. It was and continues to be the individual relationships I have with people I met here that make me so happy I stayed.

I'll see you again soon…I couldn't not.

"You close the door and start the motor/I roll the window down/I raise my hand and wave goodbye/to neighborhood queens and clowns."

Distance

"Instead of saying all your goodbyes, let them know

You realize that life goes fast

It's hard to make the good things last

You realize the sun doesn't go down

It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round."

22 months

Don't promise me forever…but don't write it off yet, either.

"Minds change, everything changes..."

"Did you ever see the way the clouds love a mountain? They circle all around it; sometimes you can't even see the mountain for the clouds. But you know what? You go up top and what do you see? His head. The clouds never cover the head. His head pokes through, because the clouds let him; they don't wrap him up. They let him keep his head up high, free, with nothing to hide him or bind him. You can't own a human being. You can't lose what you don't own. Suppose you did own him. Could you really love somebody who was absolutely nobody without you? You really want somebody like that? Somebody who falls apart when you walk out the door? You don't, do you?"

Toni Morrison

Olivia Wilde

I have such a hard time going outside my comfort zone.

Until now, it had only hurt me.

Jesse (part 2)

Man oh man you're my best friend, I scream it to the nothingness: there ain't nothing that I need.

Middle Distance Runner

"How can it be a mistake if I don't have to wash my hands after I touch her? Love is not a mistake, and it's killing me that she can run away from this and I just can't."

"I leave the door unlocked. I leave the lights on." -- 'OCD Love Poem'

It's been a long day on the track, and it's a stamina that I lack.

backbone

"True love will triumph in the end...which may or may not be a lie, but if it is a lie, then it is the most beautiful lie we have."

Dates

"Worry is a misuse of your imagination."

"Say what you need to say. Don't hold back so much."

Silent Hero Bullshit (Part 2)

You don't understand - I do have to be strong.

bookshelves

1. "Because there's nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shore, no matter how many times he is sent away."

2. What would you change, if you could only change one thing? What would you keep, if you could only keep one thing?

3. "I'd like to build a fort."
"Why would you want to do that...?"
"...nevermind."

4. Words have never been enough.



How do you know what's right? Maybe this time, or maybe the next...

"There's a lot to think about."

1. We need to talk.
2. Are you okay?

3. So what does this mean?

4. I'm so sorry.

5. I'm just trying to do what's right for both of us.

6. I want my key back.

7. I just need some time to think about things.

8. I never meant to hurt you.

9. Is this really what you want?

10. This is hard for me, too.

11. I hope we can still be friends.

12. What am I going to tell [our friends/my parents]?

13. There's no one else, I swear.

14. I'm just not ready to settle down.

15. Where is this going?

16. So it's really over, then.

17. I love you.

18. I hate you.

19. I can't do this anymore.

20. You're going to make someone so happy someday.

21. You're making a huge mistake.

22. Get out.

23. What about [the shared pet/our impending vacation/the kids]?

24. I knew it.

25. I'm not in love with you anymore.

26. Where is this coming from?

27. I can't believe this.

28. You're more like a [roommate/friend/sibling].

29. I need to focus on my career.

30. You're not the person I fell in love with.

31. All we do is fight.

32. I wish I never met you.

33. There's someone else.

34. Are you sure?

35. I just need some space.

36. It's over, it has been for awhile.

37. I can't even look at you anymore.

38. It's not me, it's you.

39. It's not you, it's me.

40. How could you do this to me?

41. I think you're an amazing person.

42. Tell me you're going to be okay.

43. You deserve better than this.

44. Don't ever talk to me again.

45. I just want things to go back to how they used to be.

46. I never cheated on you.

47. When can I pick up my stuff?

48. Who is [he/she/it]?

49. You broke my heart.

50. This isn't working.

-50 Things to Say During a Breakup

June 13, 2008

June 4, 2010: "I know we don't talk much anymore, but I will never forget how you changed my life, and I will never forget you."

June 13, 2013: "I don't ask you to love me always like this, but I ask you to remember. Somewhere inside of me there will always be the person I am tonight." -F. Scott Fitzgerald

Who the hell can see forever?

remember me fondly

"And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good."

I wrote a checklist of things that I was worried about happening before I left almost three years ago. You know, it's funny. Almost all of them happened.

Alis volat propriis

"I wish my smile was your favorite kind of smile,
I wish the way I dressed, was your favorite kind of style."





D: I have fought against my better judgement, my family's expectation, the inferiority of your birth, my rank and circumstances - all these things - but I am willing to put them aside and ask you to end my agony.

E: I don't understand.

D: I love you. Most ardently. Please do me the honor of accepting my hand.

E: Sir, I appreciate the struggle you have been through, and I am very sorry to have caused you pain. Believe me, it was unconsciously done.

D: Is this your reply?

E: Yes, sir.

D: Are you laughing at me?

E: No.

D: Are you rejecting me?

E: I'm sure that the feelings which, as you've told me have hindered your regard, will help you in overcoming it.

D: Might I ask why, with so little endeavor at civility, I am thus repulsed?

E: And I might as well enquire why, with so evident a design of insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me against your better judgment.

No Title 5/13

"I am the hero of this story - I don't need to be saved."

Duck, duck, duck, goose.

Could someone please tell me what love is?

Marina and Ulay Reunite (link)


P1: It's morally wrong to promise to do something when you know there's a decent chance you won't.
P2: It is not in our own self interest to bind ourselves to commitments that you won't want to fulfill.
Conclusion: Romance is unethical and irrational.

Trust Issues, etc.

Homesick, homeless. How am I supposed to know?

"Messy is beautiful."

How do you know when it's right? How do you know when it's wrong?

Why didn't you want to stay together? Why did you change your mind?

What did you promise each other? Did you think you could keep that promise? Did you?

Did you stay together because of us, or do you still love each other?

Would you do things differently if you could? Couldn't you?

Can you define "forever"?




There are so many questions that I'm just not allowed to ask.

Jesse

I want to tell you that it's all going to be alright.
I want to promise that I know what I'm doing and I won't hurt you. I can't.


I feel like I've been doing this all wrong for far too long - I'm not sure how it started, though, which makes it hard to know where it's going.

I'm claustrophobic. I need air and open space. I need advice that no one can give. I need to fix myself before I break everything.

Cliche

"Are you ok?"

"Death is a challenge. It tells us not to waste time, and it reminds us to tell each other right now that we love each other."

You're great.

Upper East Side

"The trunk is filled with records, and books and tears and clothes.

I'm smiling on the surface, but I'm scared as hell below..."

Drive darling, drive darling, drive.

Hey. Whoa.

"Don't go slow - you'll miss all the things you need"

Sometimes I wish that my brain would move as quickly as other peoples' do, and I could stop digging so deeply into every thought. But then I wonder - what do people do with all the extra time that I spend thinking each thing over so many times?

"I have always struggled with vulnerability. I like being strong; I've always had to be strong, and I have associated vulnerability with weakness for as long as I can remember. Of course in everyday life, it would be difficult for people to know this. I am seen as someone who is quite open and outgoing, at least to the extent that my demeanor is not mistaken for being a cold, unapproachable bitch. After all, I'm also seen as someone who is known for being blunt; the quintessential, "what you see is what you get" person.

Perhaps it's through writing, perhaps it's through getting older, but ultimately I've realized that I'm a really hard person to get to know. And very few people know even the half of it. I'm guarded and I don't break easily; no matter how close I am to people, I know that most of them are still kept at a distance that is comfortable, a distance that won't leave me exposed. I do not like to be vulnerable."

Sometimes I just want to go home.

"We regret to inform you..."

Eet - the button on a typewriter that allowed someone to return to where the previous letter was and type over it.

It's not that I regret a minute of the time I spent on this. It's not that I regret any of the choices I made, the things I did or the people I met. The only part of this that I regret is that I wasn't good enough.

I guess the truth is that I have nothing new to say here, besides that it's over. Hours of work, hours of complaints, hours of edits, and countless tears. What I put everyone around me through, needlessly (usually this hurts more to think about than the work I went through myself). Maybe I'm just not going to ever measure up to this.

It's not that I've never dealt with failure. I'm used to it by now; I have a good sense of what a rejection letter looks like... and I have an even better sense of what it looks like on other people's faces. The pity, the disdain, the concern - some of it good hearted, others not. Even worse is what it morphs into inside my head: I'm not good enough. I'm no longer worthy. They now know just how fallible I am.

There aren't any words that make this better. In fact, space and time is all it takes. Space to realize my own self sufficiency - to realize that I don't need to be taken care of, that I'm not a child, and that I can succeed on my own in at least the simple things in life. Time to see the other parts of my life that disprove my own theory of insufficiency. Time to let the sting fade away.

"It's like forgetting the words to your favorite song
you cant believe it - you were always singing along.
It was so simple, and the words so sweet - you can't remember...you try to feel the beat..."

I'm only gettin' better

"When everyone else is more comfortable remaining voiceless
Rather than fighting for humans that have had their rights stolen."

I will finish this. and I will be proud of it.

love is patient, love is kind.