Ego: October 2003 Archives
"The gentlemen pronounced him to be a fine figure of a man, the ladies declared he was much handsomer than Mr. Bingley, and he was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust which turned the tide of his popularity"
It was back when I was thirteen, perhaps fourteen, that I finally came to read Pride and Prejudice, and ended up being drawn into a fervor that saw me through most all the novels of Austen, as well as those of each of the Brontë sisters - comedic, tragic, belletristic without fault. For reasons tied perhaps - perhaps not - to my nature, they came to be amongst my most favoured of reads, the hardships faced by their heroines - and it had to be a heroine - rousing a crush of empathies within me, and I would live out that part as I read on, through high and through low, to its satisfying finish. And I would invariably, though not always as I'd expected, get the man, and I would be pleased.
Difficult and draining will come and go; things can always get worse, but by the same right, and more often than otherwise, things can and do get better. I remember quite clearly the days when my parents came to part company; my mother always came across as strong and more than capable of dealing, but even when I was tiny, I could sense when all was not right beneath the stoic surface of the most precious person in my Universe, and I cried for her. Back then, of course, I wasn't quite so aware of all that life can be, and saw only the sorrow, not the liberation; having the benefit of people that you can depend upon, even the smallest of purchases, can make all the difference. Things will pull together for you.
...Chicago was my home-away-from-home, a city in which I felt pretty much at ease and a place that I knew, at least in relative terms, better than many. Tied to what was my longest and most enduring relationship before now, the mere mention of its name can, and does, bring forth a real flood of memories; many are invariably fond, some not so, yet whatever the history she and I might share, hers is a skyline, a brand of living, toward which I can feel only affection.
Though little now remains for me there, I did leave a very dear friend behind, one of those "Bloody hell! Dude, I feel like I've known you my whole life - or should have" kind of people - we all come to know one or two of those along the way - one with whom I have some very peculiar things in common. He's not someone I expected to see again any time soon, and indeed it has been a couple of years, but that all changed today, sometime after four; it has been a seemingly brief, but altogether wonderful afternoon and evening of catching up. As a matter of circumstance, occasions like this are few and far between, whether or not their succession rests in our own hands, but it happened, and I am as chuffed as a chap can be.
This post comes handwritten, courtesy of a busy but tedious afternoon waiting for agarose gels to set a hundred times over:
Daft.
It just has to be said that stupid as this planet can be, at times, I really love people. Fuck, am I sleepy.
