the painful paradox

"She met him at a fireworks display..." Tobias Wolff starts off in his short story entitled "Face to Face" fm In The Garden of the North American Martyrs. Good reading on a cold winter's day.

I have been thinking.

How does it turn into the happy ending? What is the happy ending? How does my story go? So far, a tragedy--or is it more of a murder mystery? It could become a murder mystery. Is it better to live an uneventful, quiet life with regret or a complicated one where one lives the highs and the lows?

When posed the question, "Do you hope to settle down with someone?" my first reaction is, "And change my way of life as I know it? I don't think I am ready."

Am I willing to give up the freedom that I have at this moment? Or does love change all of that? And at what cost? What kinds of compromises would have to be made?

The idea of starting over with someone terrifies me. And not so much because of the aforementioned so much as considering investing in that kind of relationship again and then it not working out.

Leslie Feist writes, "the saddest part of a broken heart, isn't the ending so much as the start.." (fm. Let It Die)
I would have to agree with that. Still, the thrill, the hope and actual possibility that there is someone out there to fill in the void makes it worth the risk...until it ends. And it always ends badly.

I suppose having this talk with myself reminds me that I have a long way to go. I give too much too easily and to the wrong people. My timing is always off.

I hope you are out there. I am waiting for you.