things realized & embraced over a weekend

dearest divine readers, it has been one power-packed weekend of enlightments. (at one point i thought of stephen dedalus from joyce's "portrait..." and wished for a brief moment i was in ireland, in a pub, being enlightened by lovers with irish accents. it was a bried moment, and i embraced my place in cleveland, as it offered its own form of inspiration, despite its mistake-by-the-lake reputation. that was one long winded sentence, in parathesis nonetheless.)

first realization: i love old friends. when i say old, i don't mean senior-citizen old, though i do love those old friends too. i mean old in the sense that you have known them since/before puberty, and you have watched them as they have watched you, twist and turn into adult selves. i love that i have witnessed these young boys go from small, hanger-thin collarbone, zit-faced, braces, sex-on-their-mind-all-the-time jocks, raging college alcoholics, to late-twenties men. many are still the young boys from fifth grade, but some have transformed so beautifully into men. and i'm floored when i see them. i love their hugs. i love that i learned to kiss on so many of their lips. i love that they still call me mo (a nick-name i inherited when my nieces couldn't pronounce my name, so i became aunt momo, mo for short.) and then their are the girls. oh the girls, and how nasty we girls have been to each other over the years. how we fought over those zit-faced, braces, sex-on-their-mind-all-the-time jocks. i will admit that i somehow stayed out of many of those cat-fights. i hated conflict then (and still do), so i put aside any potential conflict-raising feelings. i was passive. very passive. anyway, i love seeing them too. i love having watched them sprout into young women, and the passage through the ugly-akward face that all of us endured. how really beautiufl their faces are, and have become with age. aging is rougher on women than men, i think. but i personally love to see the wisdom in wrinkles, than the fear in face-lifts. not that anyone our age should even consider face-lifts, but some will. i know they will. and i hope they don't. anyway, i'm off on a tangent. i love seeing how the social dynamics of high school girl friends are suddenly brushed aside by most, and friendship is no longer about popularity, but about real support and giving. granted, i love this and realize it's not the case with all. some are still wrapped up in a high school mentality. and that saddens me a bit. but there is something quite beautiful about these connections. something that makes me giggle when i'm with them, the way i giggled when i was in middle school. there is something so comforting in seeing their faces. i feel lucky. at one point, i wanted to leave behind everything from my past because i thought i had grown up, improved, saw many truths, been enlightened by culture in ways that nobody from home has. and i have. but i realized i can still love them, i can still embrace them, i can still revel in the connections i have with them, and be the 'changed' individual i have become. those connections don't change, no matter how much i have. that's beautiful. that's why i feel lucky. and then there is the beauty of making new friendships, which also rocks my heart happy. but there's just something about old friends. mmm, mmm good.

second realization: though i have recently ended a relationship of 5 1/2 years, and am quite engrossed in grieving the loss, i realized this weekend how f****** awesome it is to have loved someone. (i'm not sure if you swear on your blog, divine) i was in love. and i feared many years growing up that i would not be able to love another human being. i knew i could care deeply about someone, but i just had this issue with feeling like i wouldn't be able to open myself up enough to really love another individual. i was quite guarded, having been hurt quite deeply growing up. anyway. i did love. i still love. i loved/love L. so much, and i feel the need to celebrate how amazing this love is, regardless of it having ended in the shape it existed for so long. how brilliant existence is that we can come across a human being who dives into our souls head-first and swims within you to every corner, hidden or not, challenging you, embracing you. i love love. and i hurt. but i still love love. and i realized this, and it's important to do so when you have lost something so extraordinary. because if you don't, rather if i don't, i could very well become a bitter old maid. and that just can not happen.

i would love to go on about my realizations. however, my niece just informed me that her 9 year old sister (who i'm psuedo babysitting) just shaved her legs while taking a bath and cut herself. THIRD GRADE! SHAVING HER LEGS! do third graders really need smooth legs? what the FUCK!?!?!?! (divine, i had to swear about this. i'm completely baffled!)