if I fall along the way, pick me up and dust me off

It's an odd thing, relationships. Over the course of the life, I've wanted to be in them, I've wanted to be out of them, I've wanted to improve, or mend, or break apart the ones I have. But I don't think I've ever thought, even to myself, I am looking for a love. It's always something I've fallen into, something that happens almost by accident, or something I actively resist because I just don't need the complication. Because if nothing else, relationships are that--vastly complicated, complex, and emotional things.



I said as much to a dear friend yesterday--that while I love new relationship energy, and I love when the relationship leaves that flushed, first intensity and mellows into ongoing care, I actively resist the actual falling. Part of it is, I think people are far too casual about saying they love each other, but I also know that's only a surface excuse. There is something in me that is almost...how do I phrase this...angry about the falling in love. Everything from how dare you disrupt things to I don't need this right now to...every emotion in between. I think also, a lot of it is I rarely know, once I have fallen in love, whether or not I should raise that with anyone, because...there's a bit of do they know, do they love me back, are they going to refuse me if I tell them, but there's also a fair amount of why would they fall in love with me? Hello, low self-esteem.



Some of it's made easier, at least on the grid, because few of my exes still log into SL. The vampire, the incubus, the occultist, the neko, the opportunist...they've all either fallen by the wayside or changed to alts I don't know. I'm still here. I'm still standing in the pixel space, trying to figure myself, and it, out. And while there are some I would potentially enjoy contacting again, there's not a single one that I would take back. Some because the breakups were just so savage; some because...we lost the feel of each other long before we stopped dating.



But I am enough addicted to nostalgia that I reflect, often. Where are they now? What are they doing? Have they changed? Does it matter? The idealist in me wants to know if they're happy, now, lo these many years later; the pessimist just wants to know if they learned anything from the loss. Not that I think I'm that much of a catch; far from it. I'm far more likely to be damage instead of desire, and I well know it.



But I do wonder. Less 'Do they ever think of me?', more--'What did they learn from me?' Did they learn anything? Did I change them? Because even if it's just in small ways that only I recognize, every love I've ever had has changed me. Some for better, some for worse, but always, always, there is change.



ALways, there's change anyway. Change is inevitable. Change happens whether we will or no, whether we fight it, or give in. I fight change a lot; the change I'm fighting never cares. Change is its own unstoppable process. Perhaps that's why it's feared by so many--because change, like death, is always out there, waiting. The inevitability of alteration; the inevitability of excision; the inevitability of abandon. In this, it truly doesn't matter what road we're on, all roads go through the woods.



My road is somewhere different. Far past time to bring the train to shore. Now we'll see how we fare without saltwater erosion and the weight of water eternally pressing. Of course, this does mean the train might catch fire again, but...I'm used to that, too.