Ramblings on a Monday Afternoon

Seeing as how I've created a blog and have been told to maintain it by my girlfriend, who has two blogs of her own and makes me wonder how she handles that, I am compelled to post something outlining the events of today. Not that I'm really talking to anyone other than myself and my girlfriend, maybe a random stalker every now and then...

In any case, today marks the end of what has been a week long endeavour to evaluate and analyze a piece of abstract art. Suffice to say, I have been much moved by my experience and have a new outlook on modern art. It would not be appropriate to say, however, that I now love abstract/modern art, for the research I had put into analyzing the painting had been tedious and painful, and no doubt similar ventures into the analytical world of abstract art is equally, if not exceedingly more, torturous. No, I am content to sit back and declare my short lived escapade into the realm of abstract expressionism as an interesting but not-to-be-relived experience.

Certainly though, this quarter has opened my mind more to art I had previously no interest in. Poetry has always been that kind of, far-away art that has eluded me ever since my high school days. I was much too interested in music to ever seriously consider switching to poetry. I'd much sooner switch to art, for one can always explain away or draw over bad art and turn it into good, well okay maybe not good, but acceptable art. Modern art. One cannot write over poetry with any headway in making it better (though it'd certainly be more illegible and confusing). But I digress, I had always admired and hated poetry. I admired the way some could command the language so well, in its rhymes and rhythms, to create a song without a melody. A story in simple, elegant sentences, though in any other case it'd be completely wrong, having written in my high school days myself. Who would write a story like that?

"We danced upon the graceful tiles of old. Their shining sleekness, once a glimmer of incandescent beauty, faded. To and fro, we leapt, arms shooting out. Here! There! We were done. We then proceeded to the checkout stand..."

It's silly to put a poem in story form. Poetry is like a combination of writing and music, but I have to admit I especially despise poems that draw upon so many cultural references as to make their point. They read like a sequel to a story you've never read, full of inside jokes. It's like a slap to the face, really. Is it our fault for not knowing our own culture and history? Is America even considered our culture? Perhaps, and perhaps not. In any case, to me, the most beautiful poems stand on their own merits, not on culture's. Which reminds me that my own girlfriend has yet to show me any of her poetic work. I am curious to see how she writes, and what her voice sounds like. I had hoped that maybe, with the advent of her blog, I could understand a little more about this woman who I have, for all intents and purposes, opened my life to. It's silly to think that, despite spending much of my time with her, I know so little of her as an intellectual; as an individual. For she is an intellectual, I do not invent such claims. I see the marks of her intellect in our day-to-day interactions, but she would much more hastily suppress them than share. I can see now, the complete transformation we individuals go through for the sake of a love one. I can also see now why many fear the day of matrimony. To marry is to devote one's entire life to another. To sacrifice all that has made one individual and unique in order to form a union of lives. This has affected the both of us equally. I am saddened that she would much sooner throw away these parts of her life, at least some of the time, in order to accomodate mine. As for myself? What interests did I give up? Few, far fewer than her I imagine. I associate that uniqueness with myself too strongly. I had always revelled in being the odd one out, and for a while I had come to live that life. Alone, isolated, I dove into the thoughts of my mind, ignoring the call, the need, for company. I have always felt that I had progressed far too quickly down the line. I miss my childhood, the age of innocence. I miss my younger years, when life was simple. Is there a point of return to that in the future? Perhaps, perhaps not, though I cannot deny the arrival of new joys. Certainly, my girlfriend has been the center of this. Her life, so entangled with mine, is it any different? We are married, if not in name then in spirit. My life has become explicitly bound to hers, my thoughts and worries focused on the entirety of a single woman. In a sense, I fear like many men do on their day: the loss of self. In gaining a component of your life you had never experienced, you give up that which has been so dear to you all these years. Again, I feel like my life has past me.

But in any case, I welcome her as I welcome the new in my life, the strange, the mysterious.... No doubt she would read this some day, if not within the coming hours. How would she feel, upon my reflections? I do not hide these things from her, nor should I feel any need to. Many insist I am being too honest, too upfront, brutal. But the fact of the matter is, it's who I am. And I know she loves me for who I am, not who I pretend to be. I cringe a little whenever I see others doing romantic things, whether in movies or in actuality. I think to myself, why can't I do those things? I can imitate, but I cannot acquire. Why can't I be the ultimate personification of my girlfriend's perfect boyfriend? It pains me to admit this, but I know it to be true. I am far, far from any corporeal representation of this. Why do I love her? I cannot explain it in words. Do I even know? Do I love her? These questions have answers, but they do not have answers. Upon retrospection, do we really have answers for why we do? Can one honestly answer these questions with complete fullness and honesty? I tend to think otherwise. It is not a signalling of my inability to love. Perhaps it's finally the destruction of what I perceive as love. Something I have desired to attain for much of my life has hit me across the side of the face and I don't even realize it.

You never really know what you have until you've lost it.

It'd be wrong to accuse me of not loving my girlfriend. It'd be wrong to accuse me of saying I have devised some misconception of love in which I have attatched to her. No, it's more so a feeling than anything else. The love I have for her is not one born of instantaneous realization; it is that which has been grown and nurtured, the kind of love I find dearest the most. For too long, I have been bombarded with ideals of love, what is love and what is not. Is love singular? Can there not be love after love? I think this is true, and yet, to believe so is completely wrong. It is not enough that I love my girlfriend so completely, I have to love her over all. The singularity of it all strikes me funny. The only objection to this is that I will, someday, find another and lose what I have constructed in a heartbeat. But I think to repress love is to repress who I am. I know the difference between loving my girlfriend, and loving my friends. In loving m family. Because it is in completeness that I give my girlfriend my soul, no strings attatched. It is because of that, that I can write this post in its completeness, though that has probably led to some confusion.

So I have come back to where I have started: I love my girlfriend.

Customary Notification of Return Post that...

...everyone does at some point to signify that the will plan on coming back but probably won't post anything and end up just going back to inactive mode.

Okay bye.