i've taken to posting cryptic messages on Facebook; sentiments constructed from multi-layered (and often nested) references which, if you unpack them with an understanding of context, expand into essays-length descriptions of my headspace at the time. For the rare person who can decypher the re-de-re-translation of a thought had in a particular moment in time which was inspired by a particular circumstance.
Usually just me, but we live in hope that somewhere, someone gives enough of a fuck (not to mention carries the weight of shared experience and influence) to understand.
It's abject wankery which even i only manage to justify with a blithely-offhand gag about how i enjoy playing with language, or about speaking in hybrid-Tamarian (see Star Trek: The Next Generation S05E02 - Darmok). "Oh yes," people think when another goes up, "there's Pete being humorously opaque. NFI WTF he means, but I'll click 'Like' because at least he's still alive." (Source: spot-surveys of viewer feedback)
What can i say? i feel the need to vent/express/release/cathart, but if i don't veil things people start to do that awkward 'random' "Hey man, are you OK?" thing, and unloading the depth of grief, pain, and despair invariably leads to that look of "Oh shit, what have I gotten myself into... just nod and look sympathetic and say 'Man, that's shit' and maybe it'll stop."
Because people want to help, and they do genuinely care, but unleashing that on the unsuspecting is like watching someone taking a sip of that fast-food-chain coffee, replete with the "CAUTION, CONTENTS MAY BE HOT" warning, and thought "Eh, how bad can it be?"
13 months and 4 days since Kat left, an hour and change after coming out to where I was sitting knocking out some work and saying "We need to talk." For a year i kept the door to what had been her room closed, opened only to throw something i'd found her hers in there (closed again quickly, lest the Rancor escape), or to make up the bed for someone who wanted to crash. A year and counting I've been sitting here, processing that day, and the 1400 days that came before, and the 1459 days before that. 36.9% of my adult life. Joy and loss, wonder and grief, culminating in 400 days of introspectively-stagnant Now.
"Lies, damned lies, and statistics," said Mark Twain.
"Numbers don't lie," said the ATO.
Either way, they all lead to here.
"You are the sum total of everything you've ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot - it's all there," said Maya Anglou.
"Nosce te ipsum," said the Romans, stealing from the Delphics.
Chatting with a friend this evening i made a joke about being resolutely single, and she asked how how long had it been. i had the answer (coincidentally Dear Reader, i assure you) off the top of my head.
"The time is now," she said, leaning in so close i could smell the 'too drunk to drive' blood-alcohol reading.
"Erm..."
"I've never been single for more than 6 weeks since I was 18," she informed me, "I don't like being alone. You need to get back out there."
"That's (horrifying/impressive/illuminatory/somewhat-overly-suggestive, i didn't say)... brief. Honestly, i'm good where i am. i'm sorting my own shit out, plus i find the best things in my life have come from Utter Tragedy, and when i Stop Looking; actively searching for what i think i want means i'm not ready to catch when the Universe provides what i really need."
"Hmph."
"In the Envoy Corps, we take what is offered," said Quellcrist Falconer in Altered Carbon.
But if we're convinced we need 10,000 spoons, how will we notice when the universe offers us a knife?
So i decided to stop looking, STFU, and listen, and in 400 days i have heard a great many things; the linkages atwixt the songs i gravitate to, the stuttering of my breath when an event reminds me of That One Time When, the echoes repeated in unrelated conversations, the screams that wake me in the night and the thunderous silence of once again waking up alone, the susurration of pieces falling into place, patterns which only emerge from the chaos of experience when you abnegnate and expunge the self.
i guess that saying "i've spent a lot of time in my own head" would be a mild understatement, but when you've spent the best part of a decade years rebuilding, then reimagining, then recreating oneself... is one tenth of that spent reincorporating and redefining really that much of a luxury?
"Remember who you are," said Sandra.
And therein lies the rub, i realised from yet another unrelated-but-suddenly-relevant conversation; i know 'what' i am, but 'who' has always seemed elusive. i've found a certain comfort in accepting the 'what', because 'what' is the foundation underpinning the 'who', but when one's benchmark for 'who' is "a cunt, but not a fucking cunt" you're left with a fair bit of slack to play with.
So where does that leave us? After all; nothing changes on New Year's Day. You, me, anyone, it's still the day after yesterday; another day that ends in a 'y'. Another day i bash another cryptic message into another keyboard. Another batch of nonsense generated in my Quixotic quest of self-comprehension. Another cavalcade of bullshit.
At least it will signal, in a "quis custodiet ipsos custodes"-sense, that i'm still learning, still working shit out, and still alive...
