Freedom

Another one of those tired, subway rides home...

She talks about her ex boyfriend slash current boyfriend slash lover slash enemy slash friend. It's a standard tale of turbulence and insecurity and emotions, the youngest and most inexperienced of loves; of course, it is also the hardest to let go, and the most unforgettable.

"I think..." she begins. She looks down, a battle flickering across her skin. When her eyes touch mine again they are clearer, stronger, and hot with impossible hope. "I think that you're not truly happy until you learn to stop caring." And that's what I need to do, she said. I need to just stop caring.

Damn. My heart.

I suddenly understood the hope I saw in her eyes. She wanted to know that it was possible, that the heart was capable of shutting off emotion, that maybe this was what growing up was all about. She saw me, and she saw my indignance. She saw how abruptly I cut off her self-accusatory questions and insisted on self-respect. She remembered my reputation, my walk, my hard edges and careless shrugs. This was actually the first time we spoke on some deeper shit, and I guess she needed to believe that her image of me was real, that this was a reaction to being hardened by life and experience, therefore utterly attainable.

I shook my head.

"No," I said, grinning at her mild surprise. "It's human nature to care, you can't stop yourself from doing that. You wouldn't be happy, ever, if you forced yourself to never care. It conflicts with what you're built to do."

We pondered. "You're close, though. Maybe you're just seeing it the wrong way? Happiness comes from not..." I cocked my head. What did freedom feel like?

It was so there. My tongue twitched with recognition. You have to care, that I know. Freedom, the refreshing kind, the permanent kind, settles in when you stop... Then my shoulders relaxed. I smiled.

"...Needing."

That in itself was a recent revelation for me. Up until now, I had been defined by my addictions, my vices, my kryptonites. I dived into them passionately, for addictions -- way before I was aware of this -- carried a heady kind of romance in my dictionary. I was a smoker, it's who I was, I couldn't relax without it. Sunlight instantly triggered images of sunglasses, silk scarves and outdoor cafes with winding vines of happiness and lipstick. Always, always a cigarette perched in my hand. Sex defined my very essence. It was threaded into my clothing. It pulsed through my walk. It made my eyelids heavy, my sneer inviting. Sex trickled into my bloodstream and made my speech vulgar, my sympathy little, my respect impossible to uphold. I wore it like a windsor knot.

I had recently allowed my toe to be taken by love, and I jumped into the pool giddy with the prospect of learning to swim -- but the water was too cold, and I gained nothing. I lost, instead, a whole bunch of time and patience. I pushed, and flailed, and insisted that I'd be able to stay afloat... until one day, something in me just clicked. I stood up, exhausted, and pulled myself out of the water.

I'd suddenly learned to know when to give up. Usually when I see passion or potential, I'd stretch it and push at it with all my might. Or, I'd throw up my hands at the smallest buckle in progress. In both these situations, I'd never fully understood how important time -- and silence -- was to growth. I know now.

When I first quit smoking, I entertained the ideas of quitting everything else. I struggled with celibacy. I pushed away weed. I mulled over the non-animal choices on the menu. (Admittedly, within two weeks of this newfound will I pulled everything back into my world hungrily, spitefully, overhwlemingly. LOL)

It wasn't until I ambled out of the water that I realized how... content I was. My steps got lighter as I walked away from the pool. I stopped needing the person I fell in love with to give me consistant signs in return. I stopped relying on him to show me my place in his life, in mine. I had come to a point where I liked myself better than I liked him; he steadily proved that this wasn't a person I wanted to be involved with, and though the surface of my heart will always melt a little at the smallest thought or sight of him, I know that I would be better off without. I got the tiniest bit stronger. It tipped the scales.

Since then, I've lost interest in sex. Or rather, I let go of the hold that sex had over me. And I didn't realize how strong of a hold it was, until it was gone. Isn't that how life always works? Lying in bed with him, wanting him to turn over and sear heat down my neck, wanting him to need me, feeling his hands tentatively question my unresponsiveness -- I suddenly wanted him to deserve it. In that very moment, I grew up. I became the reward I should have been, and not the gift I was giving away. I put on my coat, and I went home. We've barely spoken since.

This is the happiest I've been in my life so far. I've learned to let so many things go -- really go. Not bury, not suppress, not smother into the subconscious. I let them go. I've learned to stop needing. And this freedom is intensely liberating.

I looked at her that night on the train, and I smiled. She had so much potential. There was a lot of hunger in her eyes. She wanted to break from this cycle, but didn't know how. As selfish as it was, at that very moment I felt blessed to classify myself as a writer -- or, rather, a wordsmith. To be able to distinguish the difference between Not Caring and Not Needing... to be able to know what makes a gift, and what makes a reward... I feel like I helped her, guided her a little bit, prevented someone else from denying herself love and contentment, allowing it to follow into womanhood. I don't want her to go through what I went through, not to that extent.

Now knowing what love was like -- and how weak it can make you -- helped me understand where she was. Normally I would have barreled ahead of her words, cut her off, frustrated that she couldn't see herself the way I saw her. Normally, I wouldnt have had the patience to find the vulnerable in her point of view. I'd thought once that love was something you could smooth over with determination. I know better now.

I told her she'd have much more to go through before she gets fed up, and that after the first time it will get much easier. I told her that I hope she stops monkeybarring her way through relationships long enough to form a sense of identity outside of the context of other people. I said it resolutely, because I knew she would. I gave her faith. Sometimes, that's all people need.

"Your life is going to get so much worse as you get older," I laughed. "This is childs balls. There are so many bigger things to worry about, to cry about, to fight your way through. There will be much bigger heartbreaks. Don't waste all your tears now.

"I know that makes it sound really bleak, but it's not. This is supposed to make you stronger, so that by the time the bigger shit comes along, you'd be able to face it."

"I know," she said. We grinned at each other. Her desperate hope had gradually settled into a calmer understanding. An awakening.

Good luck, honey. I'm learning right there with you.