I would speak to you of cool breezes.
You may or may not wish to listen to me, since I am 43 years old and have never. Sex, kiss, date, cuddle, whatever a human might want from another human, slap a ‘never’ on it and that is me. Taking my advice might not be a great idea. But I have learned some things.
Sometimes on a warm day, a cool breeze will come along. It just happens. Or it doesn’t happen. There is no schedule for it, no specific reason, nothing I can do to cause it. It feels awfully nice when it does happen. I don’t deserve it, or not deserve it. I can’t earn it.
All I can do is be out there doing whatever I am doing, and enjoy it when it comes along. That is not to suggest you should be passive, not at all. Exactly the opposite. But you should allow life to happen.
You want to stop feeling. You can do that. I did. It can be done. But there is no way–none, zero, no way at all ever–to stop feeling the bad parts without also stopping feeling the good. You do not get to choose that, it cannot be done. If you numb the bad, you numb the glorious.
Have you ever met a girl you thought was pretty nice, but you just didn’t feel that way about her? I don’t think you can just decide to love her, whoever she was. You could decide to think of her as charitably as you can but you can’t feel what you don’t feel. And neither can they. Love is a cool breeze. You can’t decide whether to feel it, all you can do is decide what to do about it if you do feel it.
You know you will probably never find someone for you. Tempting, isn’t it? To have that final answer, to stop enduring the misery of hope. You are sure. It is nice to be sure. It is nice to have that out of the way and not have to wonder and hope, dream and want, need and yearn. Yearn! What a word. But there it is. Yearning. Sounds like a goddamn sonnet but that is the word for it.
You don’t know a goddamn thing. I am sorry, but the bad news is you probably will find someone. You can try being as repulsive as possible and some girl might like you anyhow, people are crazy like that. Stop trying to be sure, and learn to endure uncertainty. Being sure is like riding a flat roller coaster. Whee.
The bad news is you have hope. Hope’s the rope that keeps you tied in knots–the torture never stops. Even when you find her, and she likes you and she can’t help it and she gets all silly and wants to have your babies and everything, you will still have to hope. It never ever ends. You will hope every day she still loves you. You will hope she isn’t bored with you. You will hope the tests come back negative. You will hope she forgives you. It never, ever ends. Well, until you are dead, and there is time enough for that later I assure you.
There is no solution to hope and uncertainty. All you can do is be who you are and hope like hell. You are not a strategy, you are not an attempt. You are you, and now let’s see what happens.
I still hope. And I will never stop. Failure has no meaning, as I am not attempting to succeed. I am that I am. Who I am does not depend on circumstance or events. I hope, I want, I dream. No matter what, I damn well hope. If I fall from the 87th floor of a building I will hope on the way down. I am hurt, I am disappointed, I am ashamed and miserable and alone. But I will never give up hope. That pain is mine, and I welcome it. I yearn.
