The Patron Saint of Losing Sleep

A puzzling thing, the power of words. They create vast complexity, or lay waste to the same vastness. If it can be imagined by a exceptional human mind, it can be put into words, and with words, there are no limits that we can grasp. It is the reason I love the English language. It is arguably the most ambiguous language that has existed, and this gives a writer of the English language the ability to purvey his or her exact meaning and still make his/her message carry duality, or ambitiously many more ‘ality’s, of multiple messages with the words he/she has written. Words are not always this wonderful, however. It has been highlighted in multiple religions, cultures and languages that if an individual is driven to rage, his or her words can be used to dictate an unavoidable doom for the object of hatred the words are directed at. A curse is nothing but a few choice words connected to deadly conviction, a conviction that has more than once proven to have the particular effect of being validated in it’s dictation. There are times when the words an individual speaks seem to inadvertently curse the subject that is being addressed, and I now believe that I have received two curses that, oddly enough, directly effect one another.
When I was young, the primary group responsible for my care was the women of my family, as almost all of the men in my family were master machinists in a time before being considered a mechanical engineer required a four year degree. Being in the positions they were, my father, uncles, and both grandfathers were required to work long hours and subsequently were not around day to day as often as the women in my family. Additionally, the children of these women responsible for my care were older girls as well, so I guess you could say that I was raised by females. When I hit thirteen, I had my first crush and resulting middle school breakup. It was at this point in time that the first curse was put onto me. In a conversation between my mother and her sisters and my oldest cousins (a senior in highschool and a college sophomore at the time), explaining the whole little affair, my oldest cousin turned to me and said “that little girl doesn’t know what she’s missing out on, one day, you’re going to break countless hearts.” This sentiment was nodded to and generally agreed upon by all present. The way the words came to me, however, was in a manner that was unnaturally sharp, and with a slight sting. It was a comment that wasn’t meant to have a biting effect, but the words bored themselves into my mind, and here we are today. I have ended every relationship I’ve ever had, and the reasons still elude me. Sure, some of my girlfriends have been a bit on the odd side, but that was what endeared them to me. The thing that caused me to end every relationship was never apparent to me, even when it was taking place. When asked for a reason, my answer has always been “I’m not in love anymore.”. Every time I can hear those words echo through my mind. When my last love heard these words, she erupted with an outburst that once again bit into me and possessed that unnatural clarity that I came to associate with what a curse would truly feel like. “You will never find another love that fits you quite like me.” I don’t think I really need to say it, but I haven’t found another like her. Were it not for the situation and a few chronic issues, she was the most perfect fit I have ever found. I keep asking myself whether I believe in curses, and I keep telling myself no, but until these patterns change, I’m stuck in the circle of those predictions nonetheless. It seems the one who can prove them wrong will break the curse, or my belief in curses, but either way, she will be the one. I just hope that day comes soon.

The below snippet of article would explain why my mother has always accused me of a pointed passive-aggressive opposition to authority all these years.

For the time being. It’s inhabitants favoring a bustling get together across the street. You and I are the only ones left to enjoy the soft breeze through the open doors, the fading heat moving in and out with every draft. We drape ourselves over the couch, heads floating ever so slightly from a few shared glasses of wine, listening to softer music that we know. I ask if you’d like to dance and you smile, momentary self consciousness shows across your face, but with some coaxing, you relent. There in the middle of an abandoned living room your body slides into mine, and we drift across the floor in time. The words don’t matter. The only thing that I can think about is the next step and keeping you close. Your arms fold in against my chest, and I relax a little. I think to myself in this moment that this is all I need. You still kissed me when I said goodnight.

On all those faces I was getting to know the first day I ever went to school. We were new, our parents all had high hopes for us. We all had high hopes for ourselves. As we grew together, we slowly began to realize where we were going. It was apparent to us, whispering quietly, even if we couldn’t hear it yet. But still the soft tugging at our souls pulled us on, all the way even to today. I go back to search through those faces now, and I realize that somehow we all knew where we would end up, even then. The children that once fingerpainted beside me, all those that were there from the beginning, they’ve always stayed true to the people we were, when we were very small.

Looks like another night of writing and Miyazaki at work. This should be productive at least.

Look out over the distant line of trees, tracing what I think may be the lines of the wind in the dark turned visible for the first time. Only to my eyes has this immortal force of nature exposed itself, only to have me lose it again in the next breath I take. Is this what being human is? To see something that cannot possibly be caught hold of with the biological perception we believe ourselves to possess? Is this what makes a human forever unhappy? It seems to me that we live our lives in the macrocosmic scheme relying not on what modes of perception we take in every day, but a spotty, muddled perception that comes from a mechanism we have not yet identified in science and cannot properly use ourselves. We follow our paths individually through life guided by an organ that points for us, like a compass, but with a needle that wont stand still and never really appears clearly, like motion blur in a photograph, and we sit at the light table for hours, debating in silent councils, salons in the dark parts of our minds, shadowy and filled with smoke and the smells of mingled bourbons and gins, and a tightly packed score or so of half-lit figures we know to be ourselves, who argue without end on whether this needle image points north or northeast, or if that image points southwest or west, presenting philosophical and corollary evidence to support their opinions. And all the while we wonder if our minds really are too large for us to know everything that goes on in them. We begin to wonder whether we can hide things from ourselves and where, and if we as a species really do know everything we think that we know, or if the universe is rising up in shadow behind us, ready to roll over onto us once again to put us in our place. To tell us that nothing is really all we can ever hope to know….