Im aware this blog is not my personal diary.
But, there is a sense of vulnerability in the mild anonymous ability I have here. Though you have seen me, you all don't know me. So I feel I have a stage in an empty theatre, and everyone who sees this, is ghosts that haunt it alongside the ghosts that used to. Previous friends standing next to current ones, lives I've lived, etc.
I woke today in New Orleans after being out most of the night, and the day continued on like any other. I woke up, I got my clothes on, I have mass in a few hours. The French Quarter is full of last night's mistakes and todays future ones, too much liqour here, too much fun there, too little food here, need more water there.
There is a peace here. My host adores it here, and loves our regular visits.
A sweet mundane that we could lick off the ground.
I said a goodbye to someone I've known forever, it was brief and fleeting as it always is. Our lives have split into different zones and when we cross paths here, for a few drinks we are one again. Until the world calls and splits the seam on its perforated line and we are strangers again until next time.
But stumbling my way up the stairs, a man coming down stopped on my step. Inches apart , strangers an entire lifetime. He gave me a strong hand on the shoulder that nearly unsteadied me, and with a full sincerity he simply says two sentences.
"Hey!" He doesn't smell like liqour the way I do, his smile reached his eyes in a way mine doesn't. "I'm glad you're here!"
We don't know eachother, we have never shared a laugh in a room, a space on a couch, a drink or a memory. He patted my shoulder while I stared at him.
As tacky as this post is, as sappy and Hallmark as the moment felt, it broke down a dam of emotion that I have worked so hard to carry for myself, for my host, etc.
I had stayed out till 3 am, fully intending on clean up and sleep. Instead I sat slumped outside in the courtyard, with no faces passing by, and a serene silence that for once didn't feel lonely. I sat there and I sobbed and I sobbed. I stayed up an hour, composing myself, writing in the journal I hate, then finally I cleaned up and passed out for 2 or 3 hours.
I have always been isolating by nature; As a Nicki, over decades of life both human and immortal, I have learned that there is nothing to escape the inevitable that is life. If God is there, or if he isn't, if The people I speak to today will know my name in a year, if I will ever sign the publishing emails I get, or finish that composition that is staring me down in my room for months. Nothing is guaranteed, or promised.
The "but what if " when Im told things will be fine isn't exciting, it isn't having me on the edge of my seat going "What if they are right and everything will be okay." Instead it is an anxious weight , the what if is always a forked road. And no direction leaves me scared and nauseous.
What Ifs didn't work at home, they didn't work in Paris, they didn't work with my transformation. Each time, there was hope. Each time, that light was snuffed out.
As I sat in the courtyard, the "What If" returned, wrapped me in a blanket of false hope. What if this trip was a good idea, what if the way my life is going will get better, what if this is the life I have until the death bell rings and for once I find satisfaction. That man was glad I was here, this stranger is glad I was here, others must be too, right?
I could smell the mental smoke on the edges of that blanket before I could process it, my own mind plunging me down into black waves that the fire was somehow surviving. My metaphorical blanket of hope turned to ash. Another me, the one in my knowing soul, standing there holding the match, looking at me with pity for even wrapping it around me in the first place, he knows the burns that will follow. I can think myself into a bad mood, because I know how this tango goes. The sun will shine bright and warm, and then the storms will roll in, and though I know it will pass and bring new flowers, no one considers that I stood and weathered it hoping the flowers I already loved would survive the winds and rain.
Instead I stand in memory graveyards, surrounded by wilted memories that were once so vibrant.
That moment with a stranger, so warm, so kind. Is something I want all the time, its in a shop window with a price I'll never be able to afford.
The moments will always be fleeting.
A few seconds on the stairs, a few months, a few years. Then the memories will be carried off with the wind, and that breeze will find me later down the line, where I keep my window open hoping to catch the shiver it brings. Hoping for a moment that I am standing in that warmth one more time. A taste, an addiction I succumb to.
I want it to last, I don't want it to be photographed memories added to the wall of thoughts that keep me up at night years later. I want it to gaze across the table and realization to go "Wow its been a lifetime of this contentment."
I want that love, that warmth, that care.
"I'm glad you're here!" Even when I push, when I doubt, when I panic.
I want that breeze to say "I mean it."
