The trip was originally for two weeks, but the first week was solid travel for work; Boston, New York, and Woods Hole. This week has mostly been talking to family about the future; mostly about my father and his health, but also of property and family ties. K said:

you should do this
you have this place
that sounds really amazing
with your history already there
that’s a rare opportunity

I dug through my box of old photos here, which roughly covers the time period from ten years ago to five years ago. It contains reminders of people and road trips that I hadn’t thought about in years, and people I used to think about differently. As I wandered between members of the family, some clarity came about parts of me, the parts of me that bind people together, or at least form a bridge between them.

A couple of friends came out to visit last night. It was meaningful that they did, as nobody goes through the trouble to come out to see me. That is, I am always driving around trying to see everyone myself on their time.

Time flows. As I search my email for an old note to myself, I periods of time in the form of relationships go by as the search results aggregate entire periods, past loves, into a few emails.

My mother texted me that my aunt was feeling down about missing her family as they are currently estranged. I went out to see her unannounced and she cried when I arrived. Another Aunt mentioned a rumor about how I felt about this estrangement. I shrugged, indifferent. Where did this indifference come from? She offered that it was part of growing up an only child.

I stopped and talked to M’s mother for an hour. It was good to see her. We had strangely frank conversations about how Seattle treated M and I differently, and how that reflected on the kind of people we were. She brought up my being an only child as well.

My father was 28 when my parents married, and 30 when I was born. As his health wanes, as he dies, this narrative feels heavier, solid. I walked Bean Field Point on Thursday and was reminded a lot of Lunkasoos. I grinned at how I was grinning. I was wandering through the woods with no particular destination but for the region and the time there. Maine holds secrets, my past, to who I am. It is a shame that few ever get this, because it’s shadows otherwise. Reflections of glimmers of another time and place.

My grandmother and my “first cousin once removed” (only 6.25% genetic relationship?) found one of my old forts. I got laughing about it’s history. It as a small firepit made of spare concrete from the chimney of the house. We didn’t so much have camp fires here as we just had fire though, as “boys will be boys.”

Dad mentioned that next year this house is twenty years old, which reminded me that nineteen years ago our house that formally stood here burned to the ground. What of that? Another shrug.

How did I achieve so much without a strong direction, without particular desire for property, wealth or success? Any desire for approval was subtle beyond that of those I loved.

Which will likely never make any sense, but that I loved them. Every day life becomes more about embracing the consequences of the choices that I make under much consideration.

I was up most of the night last night working on a side project related to Chef. I woke up late, but spun up and got to work only a few minutes late in the end. While I wasn’t passing out from lack of sleep per se, I could tell I was tired. Why wasn’t I exhausted like one is from staying out to last call at a bar? Could it be doing shit that I love all night instead? Having figuratively seen the world, part of me wants only to stay up all night solving problems again.

Today was rather hectic, with a lunch meeting with a coworker, then running off to meet K for coffee before therapy. I’ve really enjoyed the couple of times we’ve had coffee and it’s reminding me the importance of that happening regularly. We talked for a while about approval in a way that made a lot of sense in regard to M which further solidifies my confidence and happiness in my current relationship status. K mentioned multiple times measuring the change in herself over years, so I of course when into my bit about life redeveloping biannually.

So here I am, awake again, back on the P, playing the olides and spinning up for another night.

ten days?

I bought a BMW motorcycle. I repaired the XT and rebuilt the carb. Good friends are in town staying here, and that’s been awesome. J and I talked extensively about relationships, and things are awesome with K. On a related note, I’m done with M. *sigh*

I went for the first ride past the block on the XT tonight, and ended up at a party on capitol hill with a bunch of tech kids because today and tomorrow are Bluehat. Shit, I forgot about all of that. I love techies.

G and I went for a spin on the BMW between meals tonight. More.

It made me happy to spend time with M. While I expect that, I suppose part of me was hoping it wouldn’t. Whatever, I guess I’ve given up on trying to make any sense of my feelings. Not that I don’t still find value in articulating and expressing them, but they’re operating in another reality.

Or maybe I’m just happy and it’s easier to not be bothered when it is sunny out.

Tanya and I drove to a Safeway. In Seatac. I’m that absurd right now.

I took time to go replace my motorcycle gear this weekend, and nearly bought another motorcycle. I’m fixing the XT, but it’s taking some time, and I discovered another class of bike I liked that I had passed over previously.

As I think back to when I bought my first motorcycle, I try to remember what was going on in my life that drove the purchase, so I can relate to what I’m feeling now. I had wanted to for a while, but something clicked then. I was having problems at work and at home.

But today is a totally different set of problems. Work is awesome. Home is, well, relationships are a problem, but not in the same way. Back then I was starting to recover from moving out of my ex-girlfriends and finding my self esteem again. Now I’m discouraged about relationships on a meta level, it doesn’t make sense. I keep reassuring myself I’m trying too hard. I think that’s it.

So I want to escape the trying, and I think that’s why I want to be riding right now, why I wanted to be riding last night, and the night before.

I just want us to be friends.
Funny, that’s the last thing I want us to be.

When M asked me what was keeping me from doing what I had talked about, I said it was because those where experiences I had wanted to share with a partner. At some point hence, I wrote about deciding to do them anyway. Now, I’m not sure it’s loneliness, but, it’s like that discouragement, the settling, it took something valuable away with it.

I keep trying to hit windows+v to paste because I’m growing accustom to apple+v on the MBP. Pushaw.

you are amazing too. i wish i knew how to say more about this. you have a lot going on, and it’s clear that you’re committed to figuring things out and working on them and being present for yourself and other people you care about. most people never get there.

I’ve been debating bringing this here. In between, I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Remember all that talk about what someone would say at your funeral about who you were; and how I wanted it to be more than “he was fun and could really drink”? Well, I guess that’s it.

I tune last.fm to Lucero.

Where did we leave off two weeks ago, J? Everything has been great. What could I possibly have to complain about? I’m always bringing up Frankl. I had to walk to the bookshelf to remember his name. I saw my precalc book from last year. I forgot B’s name for five minutes today while talking to J. It’s going, slowly. I bring up Frankl’s theory on there always being something else to mourn, beneath that which seems the worst. The case for tragic optimism.

Ben Nichols comes on.

Various memories stick with me. I’ll always remember my father’s roommate Stan telling me about his never-satiated quest for higher pay grades in the Navy. He tells me this to send home the message that it’s always something else, to just live.

When did that sink in for me? Then? Before? I feel like it always has been. I used to joke that I had all of life figured out except relationships. I used to think I was broken, that everything else wasn’t worth bringing up in therapy because it was just hard, but it was life. That it was only relationships that needed fixing. But no, it’s all just hard, some are just easier than others.

My fear of ending up sad and alone like my father has driven me in many subtle ways; too subtle to attribute. What happened? When did dating level out with everything else? When did it become as easy as all the other hard stuff? Did I admit defeat?

I told J today I couldn’t think of a happier time than walking into M’s living room and seeing her. We were talking about how to tell if I felt I was afraid of settling. What is that? I mean, I had to have had fun, but was it all the sort of riding bikes and drinking fun that isn’t particularly meaningful and fades into the forgotten past?

The more I do, the more achieve, the less it seems to matter. Where do you find someone whom has realized that, standing silently next to you, looking down. You walk into the woods.

T and I talked extensively about my pondering about the stereotypes of bitchy girls, and how nearly everyone I’ve dated, especially the last couple of years, has been incredibly nice. I wondered if the stereotypes were bullshit, which was mostly a leadin to realizing that I’m specifically attracted to people I’d describe as sweet. While I think some of the people I’ve dated might take offense to that, behind closed doors they’d probably admit their hearts are much bigger than they’re willing to expose to the general public. How do I have an eye for this? Today, xkcd has the antithesis.

Shits been making me feel old, and partly as a consequence, it has triggered reconsideration of a few aspects of dating. I got an email from K the other day wherein we were discussing our schedules for the fall and how we can probably only hang out on weekends. This reminds me of my recent conversation with C about how dating is usually seeing someone once or twice a week and his surprise at that. Which leads to recalling M’s assertion about not being able to manage that amount of time, more weight on her being confused and not being able to deal with trying to figure it out. It wasn’t ever about spending time with me being a problem, but confronting the issues that my feelings were bringing up.

I once dated a girl, who…

The knees hurt pretty regularly. I guess I’m getting too old to be mashing high gear ratios on the fixed gear. Hrmf.

Long conversation, well, long period of thinking out loud, today with T about dating and worrying that dating is ultimately prematurely giving in to a desire for intimacy. I’ve been pretty self-deprecating lately, I must be tired.