“Even when the love’s gone, don’t I know it? Even when the love’s gone, don’t I show it?”

-

The end of romantic love is such a private affair. It is a room big enough for only two. When two mature adults have decided to put an end to what they’ve had, to go their separate ways, it is a deeply painful experience, unique in its ability to go straight to our core.

It is an exercise in nostalgia and a fragile understanding cobbled out of battered emotions and the will to press on.

There is no such thing as a clean end, either.

Love goes on. It may take another form, but it does not die entirely. Once we have made the decision to cut it loose in its present form, it begins to assume another shape, almost without our doing. It is a force and often times, it will dictate its form before we have gotten our footing.

Anyone who has loved and lost, loved and let go, knows what hard work it can be to reconcile all that we have been through. Love’s end is humbling. It’s a brutal teacher. Ignoring the lessons of love’s end puts us at peril of repeating the same mistakes with somebody new. It prevents us from moving forward in any meaningful way. People will use you as a late night anecdote. They will speak of your misadventures and shake their heads. You will have become a parody.

I will tell you something that is truly frightening: getting caught in that private room. Realizing that you are caught between two people who are in that extremely intimate process of extricating themselves from one another. This is somewhere that you never want to find yourself. The emotions of others are not meant to be fodder for your nightmares, or fuel for your anxiety attacks. These people might work very hard at hiding their turmoil and their pain. If you are tuned in, you will feel it anyway. It will make mincemeat of your sanity.

He told you it was finished. You believed him. At the time, he believed himself. What he didn’t know, what he couldn’t know, was what his hidden heart would put him through. He would miss her sometimes. It would only be natural. Except now, he would feel guilty about it, like he was betraying you, because you were already wrapped up in it. You were wrapped up so tightly in it that if you focused on it too much, you could barely breathe.

And the battle that will go on in your soul: a desire to be understanding and patient, and the desire to run screaming from all of the messy human emotion. You will want to stamp your foot like a child and demand to be exclusively loved.

In the end, your only choice is to go through all of it. To see with clear eyes, to not allow yourself to succumb to insecurity or pettiness. You must rise above and believe that you will be rewarded for what you are going through.

You might make it.

You might survive it.

If you do, you will have built strength and character.

And even after all of it you end up alone again, as much as it will sting, you will have gained plenty.

 Blake Mills – Wintersong

-

I [Aric] have taken it upon myself to passively bully Tara [who writes these] into – in a few months time – putting the best TwTs into a short story novel. one per week per year or something like that. am open to ideas, but if you agree, do me a favor and join the group on FB. this shit is too good to be only seen on this little blog. 

right. so this site’s design changed. it’s for the best, and will work best with the other site/project. hopefully you’ll like it and say ‘ahhhhhh, nice’ or something to that effect. problem is we’re all busy working on getting the other one launched right now, so all the messiness and tweaking we need to do to this one… so click around, read some stuff and forgive another mess I’ve begun before cleaning up the previous one. there’s a new TwT coming as soon as I can figure this new stuff out, as well as some other amazing entries. I don’t know that for sure, but Tara will definitely be up soon. please don’t leave. this is just evolution. it will be worth it. people can change. things will be better. etc.

love, aric.

dear elizabeth/liz/beth.

I don’t know if that’s your name, but it was the song that was playing on my iPod when I saw you and, well… once you read below, you’ll know why I needed to give you a name.

it’s a long story, so I thought I’d throw it [the song] in here while you read. if you read. it’s a good song.

[Bon Iver - 'Beth']

anyway.

I just wanted to say…

[text deleted]

[text deleted]

[text deleted]

damn it.

I’m no good at this…

you can probably tell by my ill-advised posting of your photo that this is not my area of expertise. I didn’t show your face ’cause I wanted this to be a confession of sorts. me to you. for quite a few things…

I suppose I should start for apologize for being anything but subtle this afternoon.

I’m sorry for staring.

I’m sorry for taking pictures of you without your consent.

and I’m really sorry about the note.

trust that I meant well… even though I told myself that if I couldn’t find a way of passing it to you – without him seeing – that I was fully prepared to go back to the office of the boat company and bribe the guys there for the passenger manifesto.

oh my god, that’s even creepy to write.

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry.

uuuuugggghhhhh…. look:

I’m glad it started to rain this morning. I’m glad because otherwise, I would have stayed up top, instead of coming down. I didn’t expect to see you, but then again, I don’t know anyone who wakes up and says ‘I’m going to sit across from a girl so stunning that she makes me embarrass myself’. you were there, with the guy and with a girl. you have no idea how much I hoped he would have a lisp or looked just like you, but you were really nice to him the whole way – sharing your iPod, smiling when he talked – and that should have been reason enough for me to just go back to pensively looking at the water, but I couldn’t help it. there were 2 Swedish girls on the boat with us – do you remember? I tried to force myself to look at them [I mean - they're Swedish, after all, it shouldn't be too hard], but it didn’t stick. you had your hair up and a slightly crooked smile with your Chuck T’s laced up differently and I was so thankful when you pulled out the English version of the South American guide book – for no other reason than it was one step closer to me being able to talk to you…

but I didn’t.

I can’t.

for many, many reasons – one being I don’t know how to approach someone like you. the second being that you may or may not have been with your boyfriend, and the third factor of you being one of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever seen.

so, no – there was no way.

I’m sorry for staring.

we got to the island and I really hoped that when I stood up, my penis wasn’t showing through my shorts [I don't wear underwear], that my white shirt wasn’t accentuating my man-boobs [for some reason, I still insist on wearing white shirts] and that I hadn’t accidentally sat in water and it have looked like I might have pooped myself…

thankfully, none of those things happend.

you 3 walked ahead and I was able to not freak out about walking ahead of you. my knees were already heavy.

we passed a few times in the little harbor town – I don’t know if you saw me or not. I quickly got some water for my tea, an egg sandwich, and started up the only trail I saw. after about 10 minutes, I was all by myself and realized that things like this – like you – don’t happen that often, so I veered off the path, headed up the mountain [which is hard, by the way - the altitude almost killed me], found a road, and then started walking back.

this might seem a bit strange to you, as we were all on the full-day tour, meaning you start hiking at one end of the island and then get picked up on the other… but while I was walking, I realized that you 3 might have chosen the half-day option, which meant that you would be leaving from the same place we arrived at, and, if I was even 20 minutes late from the full-day hike, I wouldn’t have been on the same boat as you…

and that was something I needed to do, Liz – be on the same boat back. even though I had no fucking clue what I was going to do…

probably stare some more.

ew.

anyway.

I went backwards down the path – you might know this, as I passed your big group. maybe you didn’t see me, but I saw you [shocking, I know]. the smart thing to do would have been just to follow your group, but I was already bordering on creepy and making an 180 after seeing you would put me into immediate stalker status.

so I walked back to the town and got on the boat. it was me and a bunch of old people who couldn’t hike. even the boat driver made fun of me and I didn’t have enough Spanish to explain you to him… although he must have seen you, and I’m sure would have understood.

the boat got there about an hour before your all’s trek was done. I was freezing sitting up top, but I forced myself to keep my jacket off, since it didn’t match and I wanted my outfit to coordinate for you. but you all weren’t there, so I went up to one of the restaurants on the cliffs and had some fish and some beers.

as you can tell from the above, my mind already is a bit off to begin with, but when you throw booze into the muddle, it gets even worse.

…

I wondered if you were headed to La Paz, or Chile, or Argentina.

I wondered if I would find a way to talk to you.

I wondered if you’d be open to buying an old car with me and driving it until it broke.

I wondered if you’d look at me like you looked at that guy someday.

I wondered what your real name was, Beth. I’m sure it was something pretty.

I wondered a whole lot of stuff.

…

the whistle blew, so I headed back to the boat, hoping you hadn’t sprained an ankle in those Chuck Taylors.

I sat up top again, this time because it was actually warm.

you all weren’t there, so I decided to look for you that evening – walking around town that night, poking my head in every bar until I saw you again.

the Swedish girls sat by me.

the captain began chewing his coca leaves – which, as we know – meant he’s about to start up the boat.

and then I saw you - the 3 of you, actually. but I only saw you.

you came walking down the dock and you looked at the boat and whispered something to your friend.

I know you didn’t see me, but I couldn’t help but wish you were saying ‘there’s that in-no-way-creepy-and-kind-of-cute guy’, but you were probably talking about the captain chewing his coca leaves.

and then you sat right across from me.

that would have been much more dramatic to write had there been any other seats, but whatever…

I started staring again.

I’m sorry.

the trip back was long, everyone was tired.

you went down below after an hour, probably because that 6’4” guy slept on all of our shoes.

after you went, I pulled out my little notepad and wrote you a note:

as you can tell, this one stayed with me - I gave you the second one.

see, this one only had my first name and I thought ‘well, Queen – if she is, even the slightest bit interested, she wouldn’t be able to just find an ‘Aric’, so I wrote the same thing, but with my last name.

[btw - I am painfully aware that the first note was a stretch, but for it to have been revised and re-written is reason enough for a court order. sorry.]

the next 30 minutes were spent figuring out how to get it to you. I almost asked your friend quietly to ‘give this to her if/when the appropriate time comes’, but that would have required a whole lot of talking, which would have been hard, as my throat wasn’t completely working.

I could just walk up to you, but that could’ve been awkward if you freaked out…

as we were on a small boat in the middle of one of the world’s largest lakes.

there was really no way to do it, I told myself, and I was beginning to worry I might miss my chance.

it began to get cold up top, so I came back down. you were asleep on the little bench, which meant my hopes of even attempting some eye contact were screwed. so I sat there and listened to Otis Redding… which, if you know anything about Otis Redding, was a mistake.

the boat docked and I saw you wake up, Elizabeth. everyone else began standing – as people do when boats stop – but I hung back, which was weird, seeing how I was the first in line to go. but I took a chance and stayed back and almost everyone else left the boat [including your friends/friend and boyfriend], leaving only about 5 of us left.

the rest you know – I waited until you were behind me, turned around, refused to look at you, handed you note v2 and said ‘I’m really sorry if this comes across inappropriate’. the worst part of that was that I was trembling when I said it and was hoping to impress you with my great voice.

you took the note – as people tend to do when handed notes – and I turned around [hoping my bottom wasn't wet] and tried so very hard to calmly walk away. it didn’t go so well, as I slipped a little when walking down the jetty. I tried to picture the scene behind me – if you read it, if you hid it, if you laughed at it… but I never turned around. I walked to my hotel and chain-smoked for half-an-hour, trying to calm down.

I forced myself to stay online until the battery on my computer died, hoping you all would have taken a bus out of town or had eaten early.

when I walked into town, I kept my head down. I ate my fish, I drank my wine, and I prayed you 3 didn’t walk into the same restaurant. you didn’t, for which I am thankful - so I don’t know if you’re still here or not…

nor do I know what I would do with that information if I had it.

so… I guess what I’m trying to say is:

I’m sorry about the note.

I’m super sorry about the photo.

and I’m really sorry about this – one of the longest blog entries I’ve ever written.

I just…

well…

I just thought you were beautiful.

hang tight.

“Something must be wrong. You give me emotional artifacts that can find no purchase.”

You were never going to stick. You just weren’t one of those. You were a temporary salve for me: a way to hastily dress a wound so as not to be bothered by it. You were cold and hungry on the side of the road. I was a blanket; a hot meal. For a time, it was sustenance. It would do. And it did. Until it didn’t.

There are so many ways to hide. We can thrust ourselves headlong into certain disaster. It’s a chilling prospect, the inevitability of failure. How big can we make this explosion? How much will you shift what’s inside of me? Will I think of you, years from now, when I hear that song, when I taste that dish? Will you surface occasionally, like a sour stomach or a tension headache?

Your love was so quick and easy. It was almost dirty in its nonchalance. Your proclamations were the cream puff of language: golden and inviting on the surface; hollow on the inside. “I do not love you. I do not even want you. I want you to distract me long enough that I don’t fall apart.” This is what I would have said to you had I been honest. What happened instead is that I smiled and kept my eyes closed.

And this triste with you, this silly dalliance, robbed me of a chance to mourn properly. Instead of moving through the sadness of a true love gone dry, man and wife torn asunder, I ran through the streets with you. You and all of your facile charms, satisfying and nutritious as corn syrup. With you, I played the coquette. You loved me, too.

You had no idea who I was.

I still remember the last morning.

I made you coffee and dry toast. I watched you brush the crumbs off of your pants on to the floor. You stood to leave and without so much as a hug, you said, “Call you tonight.” It sounded like a question. It may well have been. “These are the last words I shall ever say to you.” That’s what you would have said had you been honest.

But you weren’t. And I was hardly expecting as much. The oasis between us had dissolved. We both acknowledged it in our own ways.

It was the only thing about us that was sincere.

-

Of Montreal – ‘Coquet Coquette’

-

becoming a Tuesdays with Tara fan is much easier than joining a gym. how ’bout a New Year’s Resolution you’ll actually stick to?

I am not one of those bah hum bug types that dreads this time of year. For me, Christmas is, and has always been, all about my family; people who I am happy to say I am rather fond of and very attached to.

Yes, I am very much a family girl. Paradoxically, I always tend to live extremely far away from them. I returned from five years in Turkey only to haul ass across the entire expanse of the nation to Oregon. One would think I were making some sort of statement. It’s not the case. It’s just how my hand has played out.

The downside to this is that my one vacation of the year is usually spent flying home for Christmas. I don’t have to go into the headaches of flying during the holidays, or the additional expense of flying that time of year. But I will throw in the added crap fest of flying into a snowy place at that time of year and the flight delays and wing de-icings and emergency road closures. You know, just because I can.

In my entire life, I have only ever spent two Christmases away from my family.

The first was the year I was married (so so long ago!). Having gotten hitched and moved across the country, we were just too busted to fly home. We decided to drive out to Salt Lake City to spend the holiday with my sister in law, who was in similar financial straits that year.

Unfortunately, Salt Lake City freaked me the heck out. So white! So tidy! Everything closes at 6! The Temple is an ever present shadow! The beer is so weak!

We gave it a go. Honestly, we did our best. But I called home and whilst listening to the drunken merriment on the other end of the phone, proceeded to unravel entirely and curl into fetal position to cry myself stupid. It was a dark moment.

The last time I didn’t go home also involved a lack of funds: my first year in Turkey. I cannot tell you how incredibly pathetic it felt to be living in a country that didn’t even celebrate the holiday I would be missing so much. At first I thought the lack of Christmas-related ephemera would be advantageous. It only added to the sense of dislocation and alienation that I felt. I remember thinking that I was now living in a country in which one of the major celebrations involved the slaughtering of animals. It was another dark moment.

I won’t be going home this year. Again, it’s a matter of funds and the lack thereof. But I’ve made peace with all of this and am determined to do my best to make the most of what I do have ( an absolutely lovely man, two sweet kitties and a cozy home) and be happy for the people I love back home. I will miss them. I will yearn to be there. But I am determined not to fall apart and sob big baby tears.

I may even succeed!

She & Him – ‘The Christmas Waltz’

-

for Christmas, you should do something nice for yourself and join the ‘T w T’ Facebook page.

“We were wild, for awhile. A burning wildfire.”

Take away everything else. Leave just one thing. This thing, this facet of you, was what drew me towards your burning essence.

There were red flags from the very get go. I didn’t go into it naive, not in the least. I may not have anticipated you, but once you arrived, I not only perked up, I made sure that I got in the head of the line. Whatever it was that you were sending out into the universe, I wanted to be in its path. I wanted it to run down my chin like honey; sticky and gloriously sweet.

You covered me with it. You did not disappoint. I was breathless. On a regular basis.

Tearing down the highway in the middle of the night, we were giddy with the summer breeze. We made our way to the reservoir. We stripped down and jumped off the rocks into the icy water below, a full moon illuminating our mad passion for the moment. It was the way we always did things: jumping right in and ripping the meat off the bone, stripping it down until there was nothing more and collapsing in a puddle of delirious exhaustion when we were through.

It was a difficult way to live life all the time, to be sure. I started to run low on fuel. Our exploits began to test my limits.

I remember a night; a night when I began to truly see.

We were sitting on a veranda, overlooking the water, the sky full of stars, and our spirits were filled to the brim. I raised my glass, made a toast, and pitched my glass over the wall and into the sea. That moment was meant to exhibit a deep sense of joy and instead, upon seeing your face, gazing detachedly in another direction, I felt chills run up my spine. You had become a drug to me. You were everything that an addiction could be: destructive, blinding, and all-encompassing. I had become addicted to the exhilaration that I felt as a result of your burning. I began to lose sight of my own values. I was replacing them with placebo emotion cloaked in adventure.

Why did it never occur to me that I wouldn’t be enough for you? Was it an ego issue? Was it misplaced trust? It may have been a lethal combination. Whatever the case may have been, I was buying it, whatever you were selling, for the longest time, because I wanted the goods. Your excuses were immediately received with faithful ears, apologies accepted with expedience. I needed to believe that you needed nothing more than me because I was giving you all that I had and reaching beyond that to give you more. I was betraying myself, time and time again in order to submit to you. I knew better. I didn’t care. I wanted more and I was going to get it.

And there is a price to be paid for such arrogance. The price is steep. Experiencing such dismal disappointment in yourself, seeing it laid out in front of you, trying to sleep at night; all of these have price tags.

Once I passed through my anger at you, at your insatiable appetite and all of your lies, I had to deal with myself.

Because you see, I knew better. I saw you coming. I bit anyway.

Play Today The Moon, Tomorrow The Sun’s ‘We Were Wild’

-

Tara – not Aric – has written forty-five others like this. forty-five. that’s a lot. you should read them.

girls, you’ve not been kind. in fact, you’ve been downright unfair.

god knows how long we’ve taken flack – and how equally long you’ve hidden behind it.

I don’t even know how this conversation began – or what got me thinking about it. it might have been Jules posting the [many] common mistakes us boys make in bed. or it might have been Paul and I giggling the other night when LeBaron said ‘it is our duty.’ [hint for the girls here – it sounds like ‘doody’]. or maybe, just maybe, these Occupy _______ Street’s have gotten me rethinking about the misbalanced justice scale being used on us.

we are the 51.3%.

girls, you’ve not been allowing us to do the same thing you tell us you need to be able to do.

we are men. and we are boys. and we are both.

[help me prove my point here by silently exhaling a ‘that is such a guy thing to say.’]

[thanks.]

you take a long time to get ready to go out.

you sometimes need extra cuddles.

you like shiny things.

you like eating out.

you need to talk on the phone.

you need to spend ungodly amounts of money on things for your face and hair.

you need to cry.

you need to be with your BFF.

[etc]

now – are any of those bad things? do any of these make you a horrible person?

no. they do not. they make you a girl.

a pretty princess who grew up making cakes with mom, whose daddy and brother would beat up anyone who tried to kiss you. you dreamed of Ken and ponies and castles made of peppermint, built on the mist of fancy perfume and clouds bought at the carnival.

we are not these things. we are boys.

tough and tumblers who grew up swinging wood at fast pitches, stomping ants and making forts. our makeup was that of camouflage, just in case that shit from Red Dawn ever happened. we chewed gum loudly and pulled your hair ‘cause we liked you. our knees were covered with proud battleground reminders and if we could eat everything with our hands, we’d be that much happier.

so why, pray tell, has it come down to these two statements:

you need to let me be a girl sometimes.

[and]

god, you’re such a boy.

yours – a defense. a rational explanation for when we don’t understand. said in a way that makes us feel even worse for not realizing it. you need time to be exactly what you are and shame on us for looking at you funny when that happens.

ours – a passive-aggressive insult. reminding us that we never grew out of our GI Joe posters. we revert back to the simpler times of laughs – when humor hurt no one, unless someone tried to hold a lighter up to it; but we need to grow out of this, so insinuates your tone.

your need to be heard sounds to us as a need for something to be solved.

what Michael Buble is to you, Michael Jordan was to us.

high-fives do mean – despite your worry of being a ‘bro’ – as much as a hug sometimes.

you look good naked, but choose to wear clothes. the exact opposite goes for us.

poker nights that end in tequila warrant the same annoyance that your Mother visiting does.

we. are. boys.

and you. are. girls.

therein lies the magic, the mystery – the wonderful adventure of betting a lifetime that the two can mesh.

but there is a difference. in anatomy, in thought process, in comedy, in sharing, in loving and in hurt. and it’s time you all stop referring to our childlike times as a lack of maturity, while using yours as a shield to insensitivity.

we are men.

but first we were boys.

the two make us up in equal parts.

we argue loudly with the umpire… at our son’s baseball games.

we worry about our parent’s declining health… while still worried that we’ll be grounded.

we make a mess of the kitchen… when trying to impress you with our chili.

we drink too much beer… when celebrating with friends.

all we’re asking here, is that you see both.

…

and meet us in the middle with this Poop Discussion, admitting – in the very least – that it’s a funny word.

a.s.q.

-

things are going to be a bit quiet here for the next month or so.

I hope you understand.

it’s early in the morning and my little bag is as packed as much as a little bag can be packed.

there’s less clothes, more toys.

hopefully, this will all make sense soon.

so, until then – if you’ll excuse me…

I’m off to go make something beautiful.

a

-

I asked you to enter

and then I made you crawl

and you can’t be holding on

to what I’ve got when all I’ve got

is hurt.

-

 I used to imagine a far different outcome; an end far better than the one we made for ourselves. It was a terrific fantasy simply because of the absolute implausibility of it. In this alternative story, you have mercy on me. You respect my feelings. You treat my heart gently. You look into my eyes and you say those things, but this time, you mean what you say. You accept the weight of those words. The gravity of them moves the both of us and we are swept out to sea together; holding on to the other, swimming to shore as fast as we can; eager to begin anew.

And in this story, you apologize once more. You do it the same way: you collapse your head into my lap and you weep. You show me your wounded heart. You beg my forgiveness. You tell me that despite not being worthy of my love, you want it all the same; that you need it. But in this story, this moment heals us. It gives me the strength I need to let go of the pain that you have caused me. It gives me the confidence to start believing in you, in us, again.

But a story such as this is just entertainment in the end. It is no kind of salvation.

Just so that I make myself clear: it is not a wish to never have lost you. That day that I packed all of my things; that day that you followed me from room to room and cried, begging me not to go. No, you deserved that day. Had been building up to that grand finale for so very long. No, the fantasy is for this benefit alone: had you been kinder, had you been honest, had your love been real, you would not have turned me inside out the way you did. You would not have left the scar tissue that I am reminded of each day when I realize how hard it is to trust someone, to let them inside, to truly love them. You would not have left these jagged pieces with which I must contend as I try to move forward with another.

Some day, I suppose I will come to a place where I will be grateful for the ways in which you destroyed me. It will make the rebuilding of me that much more joyous.

I am not there yet.

Damien Rice ‘One’

[this is Tara's forty-fifth post. that means she's penned forty-four other ones. you might have just met your new addiction.]

-

“How did I get here? I’m not who I once was. And I’m crippled by the fear that I’ve fallen too far to love.”

-

When I was fourteen years old, I fell into a dark period. Obsessed with the works of Virginia Woolf and Edgar Allan Poe, I began writing extremely morose poetry. It was nothing more than a coming of age eccentricity, but one that alarmed my mother when she discovered the journals that I kept those scribblings in. Where on earth were these moody and somewhat disturbing thoughts coming from? My suburban and sheltered childhood was one of privilege and comfort, so this side of me seemed incongruous, to say the least. In my case it was just a brief phase, and a harmless one at that. With the exception of hitting my head against a wall until I blacked out (an unfortunate habit of this period of time), I outgrew all of those angsty tendencies. Like many young adults, I was trying on a persona. It didn’t fit. I moved on.

I have a beautiful niece. She is a strong-willed courageous little person. She has also been struggling with mental illness for years.

It is difficult to definitively diagnose children who are developing, but it is widely believed that she is bi-polar, amongst other serious issues. The last few years have brought she and her family much pain, confusion and drama. She has spent time in psychiatric hospitals, residential facilities for troubled children. She has been on a mind-boggling number of drug cocktails. Just when they think they have her sorted out and she starts to get on track, she goes off the rails. Her body seems to build a resistance to whatever she is put on. So when she starts to feel better, when she starts to feel like a happy kid again, my sister (her mother) gets nervous because she is waiting for the other shoe to drop. It always does.

One thing that her psychiatrist is very happy about, believes to be a major plus in her case, is the fact that she has the ability and the willingness to articulate her pain to others. She has always attempted to communicate her feelings through music. Over the years, she has shared videos with us; asked us to watch them because she believes the lyrics so clearly speak what she wishes to say to all of us. This has always not only led us to a greater understanding of where she is coming from, but also reduced us to tears.  The video attached to this post is the most recent plea from her. I watched it through her eyes and, predictably, cried like a baby. It made me want to hold her and make it better. If only it were so easy.

The helplessness that I feel as her aunt can only pale in comparison to what my sister must feel as her own mother. All you can do is hope against all hope. All you can do is continue to love. All you can do is continue to fight. Just when I fear that all hope is lost, she rallies and pulls through; surprises us all once again. She wants to live. She wants to live a life in which she doesn’t hurt herself and the people that she loves. She wants to triumph against the darkness.

Some people make it. It’s the ones who don’t that haunt me.

All we can do is continue to hope.

Click here to view the embedded video.

(*dedicated to my beautiful Asha)

]]> http://www.aricwithana.com/2011/10/tuesdays-with-tara-volume-forty-four/feed/ 2 http://www.aricwithana.com/2011/09/just-a-moment/ http://www.aricwithana.com/2011/09/just-a-moment/#comments Fri, 30 Sep 2011 18:23:33 +0000 aric http://www.aricwithana.com/?p=4562

oh man, I wish I could just come out and tell you what’s been going on here – why not a lot has been posted as of late.

can you trust me it’s something special? ’cause it is.

in the midst of the beautiful haze that is a newcomer’s experience living and working and breathing in new york fuckin’ city, a lot has been going on behind the curtain.

see, a long time ago I had an idea. and then last year I had a lunch with someone who helped me with this idea. and for the past 5 months, this idea has been slowing being created by people much smarter than me.

some people here. some people not here. it’s a bit of a gamble, but that’s what makes it kind of exciting.

uuuuggggghhhh. more soon. more soon. soon.

-

“Find me inside the calm of the storm where lovers decide what comes with the dawn.”

 -

I knew exactly what I was saying; exactly what I wanted and didn’t want. I knew with a certainty what would come of it, having slugged through it before. It exists for us, anyway. It refuses to dissolve. Each time it gets stirred anew, it calcifies that much more; hardens before my eyes.

It is the one place where you cannot see. It is the one place where you cannot hear. It is your own personal fight. It is your battle of the wills. You are fighting against yourself. It is something you will have. You will stand your ground. You will not relent. You will never truly hear. You will not seek understanding. You will get what you want in the end because I do not want to be a part of this war. I never did.

But there’s something that you should know:

You will get what you want. Not because I will let you have it. I never had that kind of power, nor would I want it. You will get it because you can’t fight someone who has lost their will.

You begin this thing, this tug of war, and my heart beats frantically like a bird trapped in a small space. You come at me with daggers pointed, jagged defensive and hurtful words, and you are not the person I fell in love with. You are someone else entirely; someone I don’t even want to know.

I have given my heart to you in its entirety. You cannot return the favor. Such is my lot. It may ultimately be the decider of our fate. I may decide that I deserve better. I may be right.

There’s something else you should know:

You will get what you want. It will come with a very heavy price tag, so I hope it will all have been worth it to you.

I will love you less.

And this is exactly what you will deserve.

The Irrepressibles – ‘Forget The Past’

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our girl’s penned 42 more of these. you should read 42 more of these.