Algorithms

If only there were algorithms for life. Some sort of guarantee. Some way of knowing how you will get there. Not that I would use them. Not that I believe in those kinds of anything. Not that I listen anyway.

Autumn is here. My nose is cold but I like wearing the sweaters. I like the staccato to the days.

These past months I have talked endlessly to my friends about love. The how-do-you-know. The can-you-be-happy. God knows I have not always had the kindest lovers. I have passed years with hands that only wanted to hurt me. Josh was the safety net after all of the turmoil. And I needed that net. And I loved that net. And it felt good to be held. To not have to give anything back. But I need more than a place to lay my head. I need more than a hand that locks the door behind me. After California I swore off any love that could ever fufill me... because I knew, then, how it feels when that love leaves. And I didn't think I could lose even one more thing.

But I need to survive. I need to more than survive. I want someone so completely for me they can tell me to stop, to start quicker, to quiet down. I want someone who can see me. Who I can tell anything too. Someone who will still be there for me. I am tired of living with one body and secreting my life in letters and text messages trying to find the words that i need.

Because all those years before that is what I did.

To not feel alone.

Some people, some "friends", some strangers act as though I am not trying. Like I should make it work. Like some vow made during broken times is worth living a life of loneliness. Quiet. Despair.

And it's not that I won't put in the time. I am not afraid of the commitment or the ways that love changes. But I married someone because they made me feel safe. Because he took me to the hospital and physical therapy and on wheelchair outings to the mall. Because he didn't seem to care about the medications and the crutches and the tired way I passed my days. We have been through it and I love him for that but I am not in love. I am not fufilled. I am not getting the wifely things that I would need to be happy today, tomorrow or five years from now. And I won't drag out the good-bye to say I tried hardest. And I won't spend my life resenting someone because they aren't the person I want them to be. And I won't make it work just to prove that I can.

Because I am not afraid and I would rather be destroyed than never feel happy.

And the streets of Kazakhstan and the streets of Central Square, they are full of faces who every day are making hard things work. Days spent running circles around circles praying to an unfair God for some break, some chance, something to take them away.

And I don't have to do that. And this is something I can change. And if everyone just made it work because they could there would be no revolutions. There would be no civil rights and there would be no walks on Washington.

You don't have to go along just because it's what the rest of them do.

And I will never walk that road just to be more like you.