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crash and burn

April 12, 2006

maybe - no, not maybe - there is there's something beautiful in the crash and burn. there's a sort of truth and release in the staccato clamor and shriek of metal being strained and rent, interrupting the smooth predictability of the beat and rhythm of life.

and there's the flames, blue to orange to the invisible burn of exotic fluids. light and heat, and flash and flicker, shifting shadows by the second, shifting perspective and glow.

we talked about it all, tonight, my friend amber and i. we had played pool as we often do. and as i often do, i played well, then lost. repeatedly. she's a slightly superior player, but not enough to explain the won-lost record. i can be up five balls, then lose on a bizarre eight-ball scratch. or, i scratch on a break. there was a certain unfailing, inescapable sense of inevitablility to it all that transcended mere ability or even psychology.

i'm a little on edge lately. i tried to hold on to it all - she had never seen that side of me. but she saw it a little. and i knew, again, that it's one of the reasons i don't deserve the relationship i crave. that ugly side of me, the angry side, the side that's done things i can't admit to, things i can't ever, ever live down.

we talked about it when i finally won a game, and stopped pumping quarters in to the pool table. amber wanted a cigarette. the upside of my obsession with winning tonight was that it delayed her smoking for much longer than normal.

i told her that i'm ashamed of that side of me. it breaks things, i hurt things, i hurt myself. the only saving grace is that i've never hurt a human being i've cared about. but the line is just short of that, i'm afraid.

at the same time, sometimes i actually wish people could see that side of me. people have always seen me as a pussy, a pushover, without confidence - weak. Weak. Weak. Weak.

when the other part takes over, it's a failure of control, another sort of weakness. i know that. but at the same time, the person i become is part of who i am. i'm a force. i'm strong. i will not stop. i do not fear.

but it's not enough, and not a good thing. it's most often triggered, ironically, by knowledge of my own weakness.

i've come so far, but i can't get past needing to prove what i'm worth. i won't get past it - thinking i've gotten there seems like a cop-out, a failure in itself. i was told for too long that i was less, that i was a failure. you learn to demand more of yourself than anyone else will, so that no one can hurt you more than you can hurt yourself.

so i play basketball. i give it my all, hate myself for failing, contain the frustration, fail to let it build to rage, i break my hand on a gym floor, in the corner where my teammates won't see. i break a windshield after a basketball game. rebreak my hand on a refrigerator after losing at foosball.

foosball.

i don't even know how it's spelled.

i fail to contain my self-hatred playing pool, trivial pursuit, anything where i might have a chance to shine, to prove myself worthy.

and yes, i live, and i fail at that, and i become frustrated and angry, and i break myself, over and over again.

we talked about what is attractive in people, and men, and we talked about who i am. and i know, and i can act, but it seems that if you have to ask the question of who you need to be, then you simply aren't that person. and that is a failure, and i hate myself for that, and i become frustrated and angry, and i break myself, over and over again.

and really, i just don't want to do it anymore. the oldest flaws, the latest missteps, are all just points on a curve, on the parabola of results derived of the equation that is me, the variables varied and infinite. but the infinity of results forming that singular shape are so clear, and finite, so well-defined.

and this, i know, in my heart, is god's universe - the mathematic and spiritual not in opposition, but each proving the other. it's been the basis of my own peculiar spiritual beliefs, and tonight, i see the implications, the consequences, the truth. i see the parabola of my life, the shape it will yield, and the lines it will approach but never touch. my free will creates variables, but they are bound by the equation that they're entered into. the curve is always the same, in shape, and form, in meaning.

the meaning of it all, in 8th grade algebra. right in front of me.

i'm tired. i just don't want to do it anymore. there's so many choices, and so many things that will arise from those choices, but the values are at once infinitely varied, and so constrained. i am this parabola, this curve.

it's not all about what's going on right now. it's not about money and career and love. it's not about this single point in space that i'm in. but it is just another point on the curve, and i see that. it's all the same. more and more, i see that i can't seem to be happy. i can't seem to maintain it. chemistry, psychology, reality, all of the above... it doesn't really matter, does it?

amber and i talked about pushing oneself, about trying one's hardest. amber believes that people rarely push themselves as hard as they think they are, that they comfort themselves and excuse themselves of their flaws by thinking they've done their best, when they really haven't.

i told her that was what was so important about what happened after the 20-mile race, when i got my little ambulance ride. it was proof, almost complete, that i pushed myself as far as my body could go, under the conditions that i placed it under.

the only greater line, the only complete line, is the absolute one, isn't it? the big red-line. when you go there, when you push yourself to code blue in a race, no one can question what you gave.

so we talked about this, and amber bought the running applicaiton, but didn't entirely buy the extension to the rest of life, but nonetheless, i wondered, and still do. some folks no doubt gave up too early. kurt cobain was the one to come to mind. maybe he was selfish. maybe he could have toughed it out a bit more.

but i wonder, too - are we being unfair? what if he ran the race all out? what if he didn't show up to the race with the best experience and training behind him, but he still ran the best he could with what he showed up with? what if he red-lined it, gave it all he had, and there was nothing left? what if he saw the truth of it all, saw his curve arcing through space and time, and knew that in the end, the last variables he entered into the equation in that seattle apartment just didn't matter?

i'm not there. this is not a note, not a message, not a warning sign. at least not now. but it is realization, and maybe the beginning of acceptance.

Posted by Rob at April 12, 2006 02:24 AM

Comments

Posted by: Maz at April 16, 2006 09:27 PM

Posted by: kitty at April 30, 2006 11:53 AM

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