"1,913 - Beginning (1)

*From my book "1,913

Logic tells me to start at the beginning because I feel every moment of my life has been building up to this point. I believe most would agree the beginning is a satisfactory starting point. However, it seems rather illogical and boring to start twenty-two years ago. Perhaps I should make a big entrance. Start with a birth, a death, or some monumental, life-altering event that leaks insight into my life and how I came to be this way. Unfortunately, there is no such event.
I’ve given up on writing a real book. My attempt at writing something of substance has been more than in vain. I thought for a moment I could, perhaps, exaggerate and lie through the parts of my life I didn’t find appealing, but why bother?

Some people have linear thought with emotions that connect from day to day. I simply have none. Who really knows where it started? Just like any other story a series of events led to this point, and beyond this point there are more to come.

Nothing makes my story particularly special. If I truthfully thought someone were out there reading this, I would warn him, “Stop now before you recognize what could have been in place of these white pages spattered with black ink. But if you’ve made it this far, you must crave the same agony as I. We’re more similar than you know.”

I’ve only just begun to realize everything I’ve ever written is part of my story. Before, I thought they were separate; short stories, unconnected. I thought I had separate moments when I felt different ways and these moments of my life could not be combined; they were so fundamentally different that my audience would collapse under the pressure of trying to understand one thought to the next. I realize now my separate ideas with different meanings are not extraordinary; they are everyone’s. But I still ask myself, could, or would, someone else be able to comprehend these separate ideas and make them into a whole understanding? Am I searching for someone who can easily understand me?

Concerning my perfect other: I want him to understand my questions, but do I want him to know the answers? I feel as if the search would bring us together. But after the search is complete, will we still be one? How long can two people be one? Does the end of the adventure mean the end of the need for one another?

Perhaps I am thinking too long term. In my life, I’ve had many others: some have lasted years, some have lasted months, some have lasted weeks, days, hours, minutes and some were mere seconds long. Which of these interactions are of importance? Did the man I passed earlier today that said something seemingly insignificant in fact really change my life?

Is it possible the interaction that lasted a few blissful hours was really a beginning, middle and end of a journey? In a way I hope so, but then how can two people be one forever? Must all adventures end? This thinking makes me feel as if we are all doomed to be alone. I can’t help but wonder, though, does that in reality make everyone mortally connected? Could our own loneliness keep us together?

It’s odd to me how one person can make me question my own reality. Then, at a later time, that same person has no real effect on my way of thinking. The questions and thoughts he had produced seem to have no relevance and I, perhaps, even feel a bit foolish for placing these questions so highly.

There are people now, who I no longer hold highly, who have significantly changed my life for both better and worse; good and bad. I also realize there are people who I don’t even remember that have done the same. How do I decide who to remember?

My story is a puzzle I’m trying to piece together. As I write it down, I wonder how the separate parts will fit together in the end. My biggest fear is that I will live my life with the same superficial mistakes made throughout history. There are so many questions I have yet to find the answers to, and I know those answers will merely lead to new questions followed by more answers and more questions. It’s truly hard to stay focused or even put an ounce of care into everyday life with thoughts like these tormenting my mind.

It occurs to me everyone must have a vision of their perfect other. Everyone must think about the qualities they would want in their mate; the ideal other. How many of these qualities must one possess to be a satisfactory other? Which qualities can we forego and which are an absolute?
In my experience, I have found in the beginning all the qualities that fit into my ideal scheme shine and the qualities that go against my desires are omitted. However, it seems to be an eventuality that the qualities and traits I don’t like take center stage, until I’m left with someone who I realize perhaps doesn’t have the qualities I originally thought were nonnegotiable. But surely he hasn’t changed so significantly to go from acceptable to unacceptable. Did I compromise my ideals too much in the beginning or did I simply become greedy half-way through and not hold up my end of the bargain?