So I had a Comp Sci teacher in high school who was very well educated, having had a graduate degree in the field, but spoke broken English. It was a pretty disastrous class. The students were disrespectful. He was constantly frustrated and harped on seemingly irrelevant details and examples. He even called me by someone else's last name until the very end of the year.
I arrived at his memory this morning in the indirect way that has become typical of me. This past week has been momentous. Not many things actually took place, but I spent a lot of time in my head and I went to bed last night with this feeling of enlightenment. You see, romance has become a black hole in my life in the past year. No amount of thinking or action has been enough to satisfy a lingering and (somehow) impending sense of failure. In reality, I haven't really met anyone or spent enough time around anyone or been interested enough in spending all my time with a particular person. Those seem like harsh things to say, but they're mostly the result of needing time to find satisfaction in my work and my own life... and are also the result of the luck/chance that shade all things, of course. Over the past few years (I jokingly refer to it as 'the better part of a decade' at pity parties), I have shied from inquiries (of varying degrees) and have stayed "out of the game." I have spent (I'll call it an investment when I come to believe that I did anything more than spin my wheels) countless hours worrying about qualification and proper perspective. I have wasted many hours trying to understand and measure the ever-widening gap between expectations (theirs' and mine). I have spent a lot of time investigating and analyzing the circumstances under which others have found their mates and thinking about my own experiences. And while none of these things have been enough to scratch the itch, I believe they have been instrumental in my own maturation and my own acceptance (a - I could just as eagerly call acceptance resignation here; b - maturation and acceptance are the same thing here) of how romance works.
Romance works like everything else in life works. You approach it with great excitement and proper respect and you're 90% of the way to success. The other 10% comes from the sense of astonishment and adventure that accompany a two-person endeavor into uncharted territory. Sure, you're not necessarily making history for the world, but it still feels historic.
I remember now, quite vividly, talking to a friend late in high school about what amazing an experience it is to look across a room and to know you share this private, effectively secret world with someone else. I also remember, in as incidental, impersonal a way as possible, that this observation holds true. I know what a stretch it might be to believe that this single thought and its associated visceral activities were enough to inspire me, but they were. It's the fine details that distinguish and define things after all. Knowing that I am capable of finding pure excitement and happiness in a common experience that is universally enjoyed regardless of variations in physical, spiritual, or material qualities means that I, in my own eyes, am ready. To paraphrase my old teacher, if I can "be like that one" or "be like that way", then I have nothing to worry to about. I can trust my intentions because I know where I want to go and I know why I want to go there.
So that's my story. Now that I've prattled on for bit and said all the things I wanted to say in the way I wanted to say them, let me get to the bullet points.
1) There are two sides to every coin. Every lens is built in such a way that it simultaneously focuses and scatters. Be happy.
2) One's story lives almost entirely in other people. There's something incredibly heavy and worthy of appreciation in this fact. Be kind.
3) You can respect someone while making fun of them so long as you've made it clear to them that your mockery is an integral part of demonstrating impact.
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