wonder, ponder, think, oh my

Barenaked Ladies ‘Everything Old is New Again’
Ben Folds ‘Bruised’

Good things come to those who wait. Maybe I do have too much time to think but certainly not enough air to breathe. I am so tired, I am so ready to leave behind all familial and familiar and sleep alone in a small town where I can get by paying my bills and a few bucks for a rainy day. Who really plans something extravagant on a rainy day? No one…wonder where that came from.

I can’t say there’s only one person I could ever spend my life staring back at with such adoration as I see on their face. It’s true I’m a monogamist by all my single girls’ agony between one boy at a time (one after another). What I can’t say for sure is if I’ll win. In life, I mean. There’s a story in mythology that if you are condemned to Hell in the afterlife your punishment is carrying buckets of water up a mountain and emptying them out. The buckets to carry the water are full of holes and you have to return for more water before you make it to the top of the mountain.

I feel like I’ve been climbing, and will be for quite awhile. I’m not so concerned with getting some bucket filled, but I want to be fulfilled. Even if I find the perfect niche, the perfect guy, job, house…a harsh wind comes through and blows it all away. Or divorce, or layoffs…can you honestly tell me you’re happy? Or that you don’t worry or wonder why all the little things snowball into one disaster that knocks you on your ass, winded and rewinded?

Who’s to say I’ll ever be in that place to get married. Who’s to say he ever will? I wonder if right times, positions, security will ever come. Being happy now is one thing. It’s one thing to be happy and grateful for. It doesn’t, however, always last forever. The odds are against it.

little black dress

I was restless, surfing youtube, when I came across the new video Katy Perry put out. To shift my focus briefly, I will say I’ve always admired the style and times of the 1950’s so the video itself had a particular charm and draw for me regardless of content.

The video is for Perry’s song ‘Thinking of You’, for reasons of my own (tenfold perhaps) I relate to. It is a touching song and a meaningful, sweet, and nostalgic tribute to the wives and girlfriends of their men. Rarely do I cry (though of late my frustrations and silenced thoughts spill over) but the portrayl of affection overwhelmed. I remember the days, and every evening of my torn emotion and regret, waiting for him to come home.

There were days I’d wonder how he fared through those conditions, surrounded by heat and foreign soil. Over the summer I found myself crouched in the sandbox at the playground in my neighbourhood pushing my jeweled finger in the hot sand until it all but scorched. All I could do is wonder how he was after his letters and satellites stopped coming through. All I could do is pray when the death toll rose, and as the car pulled into the Matthews’ driveway, all I could do is don black. It’s a dress I’ve not since worn, the whole outfit infact, which is a shame–even in her grief, his mum told me what a vintage doll I looked to be. Now, years later, all I can do is remember, and be thankful for being able to remember him at all.