tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52320569522281211732024-03-13T17:46:07.916-04:00Never Signing OffThe homepage of author Amanda Li LarsenAmandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06680946124745508334noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5232056952228121173.post-15250558762311536972024-02-04T11:20:00.001-05:002024-02-04T11:20:08.110-05:00Diner<p>I called Jason when I got to town. He said we needed to talk. I wouldn't have called if part of me didn't want to see him, so I agreed. We met at a quiet cafe. The kind with the small tables and high, almost backless, chairs. I asked what he had been up to, even though I already knew. He asked if I went to New York for school, but I told him I had given up that dream. He made a comment about "our" dreams, and how different they turned out to be. I bitterly replied that I had given up dreaming when he gave up on us. We had both been quiet when he reached for my hand. As he did, I felt that rush. That spark. The same electricity I had felt every time his skin touched mine. We didn't bother with words from there. We went back to his parents. Thunderstorms made less sound. Tornadoes did less damage. The time between this encounter and our last didn't matter in the moments our skin was together. It didn't matter who had been me on nights before. Or who had been him.</p><p>In the morning, we went for coffee. We went to the same diner we had our first date at. He sat across the table from me, and traced his finger around the coffee stain left from the person before him. There was a look in his eyes that said "don't take this personally" and a glaze over them from conversations like this with girls who were me on mornings after. He was rehearsed. An Emmy award winner. At least sitting across from anyone else. But he was dumbstruck sitting in front of me. He couldn't bring himself to recite those lines. They had no meaning to me anyway. I didn't need the words, I read his body language, and he made his intentions clear. He looked down at the coffee stain, letting out a sigh. He said he never wanted it to be like this. Followed by silence. It's funny how conversation dies right after a bombshell comment. But isn't that why they call it a bombshell in the first place? I didn't believe a word he kept to himself, but I couldn't stop listening to his silence. We were completely disconnected now, There was too much distance traveled. Too much mileage.</p><p>I thought about the first time we sat in this diner. How I was hooked to his tragedy, and how he brought out my own. If only every disaster looked this sweet. We'd all crave tragedy more than we already do. Life is tragic, but we keep on living. Man kinds real addiction is death and we're all in a rat race to the finish line. It's in the fine print in the contract of life. God damned that fine print. I was too drunk to read it, yet some how managed to sign it. It's the same with love. The only sure thing in life, is the death of everything at some point. There, sitting in that diner, it became clear that everything we had ever been to each other was dead and gone. He confirmed this when the waitress walked over to us and handed him her number. He shoved it down to the bottom of his pocket with all the others. A graveyard of past and future conquests. This was everything he had become. This was what the world did to him. Or maybe, it was me. But personal responsibility had something to do with it, and it became clear, he was set on self destruction. </p><p>He may have had a place of residence, but in every way, he was homeless. Even his body couldn't house his mind now. He was a drifter, and the worst kind. He moved from bed to bed, body to body, heart to heart. All while keeping his locked up. I could see it in his eyes now. The boy I once knew, once looked at the stars and daydreamed with, was long gone. There was a hollow shell of a human being in his place. He relapsed on being a human in only fragments. The night before, wrapped in each others arms, wearing each others bodies, it was like nothing had ever changed. Now sitting across the table from him it was apparent that everything had. But I wasn't there for a romantic resurrection. I wasn't there for false hope. I was there for the same reason he was, and he knew it.</p><p>I broke the silence with his favorite line "might as well drop the bomb, because it ain't love that brought us here". He looked up, cocking a smile. He didn't have to say anything else. Neither did I.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOJ8F8BQoQudtPoyzycVYfoVuKPZmgMuJEtrSqVEW9bcX_U1fDtuRbX6nBRuILjefimMqMwsITr5uF_p7TTbbIcfq1fwXrDYaAxyv0sdNGUDWzdOcCOmANqNZtqeg4rmb20i8CmSnETfGPLWBL-LY2diOxPgpgDQgra2wdgqVf2AODlMmglKyfOHkAg24a/s1920/bomb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1281" data-original-width="1920" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOJ8F8BQoQudtPoyzycVYfoVuKPZmgMuJEtrSqVEW9bcX_U1fDtuRbX6nBRuILjefimMqMwsITr5uF_p7TTbbIcfq1fwXrDYaAxyv0sdNGUDWzdOcCOmANqNZtqeg4rmb20i8CmSnETfGPLWBL-LY2diOxPgpgDQgra2wdgqVf2AODlMmglKyfOHkAg24a/w320-h214/bomb.jpg" title="Might as well dromp the bomb" width="320" /></a></div><p><br /></p>Amandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06680946124745508334noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5232056952228121173.post-86373783995781686422023-05-10T17:21:00.006-04:002024-02-03T13:04:33.115-05:00The Little Things<p><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">ALT: Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About My Writing Starts With This Piece Of It</span></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIQHF8nTPma6aywabKowaP7Ixz3SV8_xvgPeS6c6MlO0g3pSca2OnrgntD3DX7vcWqfIJ_j_bH0VlncgBXTicpvPWfYHL1_AmsGJHN7SBsZWlBikNoiHHUxBMNQNGhA6ls-OFwpaoJ2WUa04ogBp2_4hZyxmu5Rbpx-EWK6LmLfcNtraUpbM95ppK6Smew/s1080/20190205_201042_0000.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1080" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIQHF8nTPma6aywabKowaP7Ixz3SV8_xvgPeS6c6MlO0g3pSca2OnrgntD3DX7vcWqfIJ_j_bH0VlncgBXTicpvPWfYHL1_AmsGJHN7SBsZWlBikNoiHHUxBMNQNGhA6ls-OFwpaoJ2WUa04ogBp2_4hZyxmu5Rbpx-EWK6LmLfcNtraUpbM95ppK6Smew/s320/20190205_201042_0000.png" width="320" /></a></div><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We sat above the park, always overlooking. Our legs hanging over the concrete wall we perched ourselves up on. We didn't “rule the streets”, we watched them. The guardian angels they never knew were even there. We watched children running around everywhere. In the sand, on the swings, rolling through the grassy hills. These were our friends, our neighbors. Lost kids who lived in the projects, looking to find meaning in each other. Skipping rocks, jumping rope, whatever their imagination could come up with. But ultimately, spanning time.</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>There was yelling, swearing from the highway behind us. Horns being whaled on so loudly the sound could be heard over the music blasting from the same cars. These were our influences. Our teachers, and professionals. Parents. Lost adults in the city looking to find meaning in method. Careers or success, cocktails at the bar after work or losing the fight in addiction. But ultimately, wishing back the time the spanned themselves. I think to myself that it's funny how most people grow old, but they never grow up. </p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>A scream and a giggle draw my attention to the path below. One of the local kids found something “sharp”. I said it's a needle, and don't touch it. Then they ask about the “dirty balloon” laying in a ball beside it. We laugh, and the kid scampers off. This is our neighborhood. Crack pipes, heroin needles, used condoms, and people of questionable morals. Broken glass lined the path of broken dreams. Lost souls in life looking for meaning in anything. </p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I'm in quiet contemplation, when he stands up suddenly. I look over at him, and he fakes a smile. His eyes pan over to the park a few blocks away, and I can tell he's feeling a wanderlust. As much as he loves being on my level, he likes being on theirs from time to time. I don't say anything, instead offering a genuine smile and a nod as my response. He jumps over the side of the wall in a swift movement. He turns around, looking up at me, and nods. Then he's darting off. I let out a sigh as I watch him walk away. </p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>There was nothing, and everything, profound in that moment. </p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It was the exact moment I accepted that there is no greater purpose. No grand design. We struggle from the day we're born until the day we die because we're all meant to be evolving. Every day we face trials we must learn from and overcome. What you learn one day will determine your trials for the next. Some ignore their trials. Live mediocre and safe. Some can't rise above them, and bow out of the race. Most of us struggle. Everyday. Just to get to the next. Even when we're sure we're going to fail, we just keep going. Why?</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It's a side effect of the depression, to think that way. But, it's hard to see the state of the world, and not feel this overwhelming sense of “what's the point” in everything. It's only human to feel, lost. But to see the world in the shattered fragments I see the world in... There's a beauty in it, too. It's a curse more than it's a blessing. Still, I can't imagine life without the pain. I can't imagine being the people who worry about public opinions, and change who they are to fit the image. I can't imagine going to school for 18 years, and jumping through hoops to “be” something. I can't imagine seeing in a straight line, and worse, following one. I made my own path, because I had to. There are no previously determined courses of action for the people like us. We walk to our own beat because the record player of the world has skipped over us. </p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>But we exist in the lulls. We are the part of the record that skips. We're the names you can't remember, or the ones you choose to forget. Like the stars in the middle of the day, only there for the eyes that are looking. Always there more or less, but less than more. We are all the lost boys. Abandoned by hopes and dreams of growing up. Swept under the realities of everything being better some day. More hopeful. More forgiving. More potential. We're cast away. Each and every one of us who dared to believe in something more. We hide in the shadows because we're afraid the light will show our true (mis)intentions. We keep our joy inside for fear the world will take the light behind our eyes. So, what's the point? Why bother?</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Because, ultimately, we're all in it just for the moments. You, me, and everyone else. Skipping rope, and after work cocktails, that's all there is. We're all fucked up, and each of us is just looking for meaning in something meaningless. Also known as life. We're all miners in the long run, digging our own graves to find relics of “what it's all about”. Looking for answers, but, they don't exist. We're all just pieces of a puzzle that don't quite fit right but were shoved into place anyways. We are all in this together. Whether you know it or not, you're struggling to find a purpose. A meaning. Because we are all the same at the end of the day. When the lights go out on the show of our lives, they all meant exactly one thing: What we made them mean. The moments we held dear. The people who made those moments. That's the real point. The real meaning of life.</p><p><span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It's crazy to think that I was only 8 years old when I had that epiphany. </p>Amandahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06680946124745508334noreply@blogger.com0