Still
For months or years or I-don't-know-how-long I've been afraid to move. My mindset is one of stillness and stagnation; of one person, one place, one pursuit, one life. Maybe it was the first long-time relationship, the first girlfriend I lived with. Maybe I learned to constrain my love and my life.
I used to have many lives I lived, within me and in reality; yet I forgot them for a singular pursuit that was outside of me; my ideas from life as an artist, life as a lover, life as a musician, life as a painter, life as an electrical engineer, all given up for life as The American Dream™.
These multiple lives, these loves, I've always compared in my writing to a woman. Any beauty in the world is “her.” The trees blowing in the wind: her dance. The sun shining on my face: her smiling. The sound of birds or rustling leaves or crashing waves: her song.
I guess if I were to imagine an anthropomorphic god, I'd rather it manifest as all the best parts of all the women I've ever known in my life; some free-spirited, infinitely wise creature of unending love who can create an entire universe without wanting anything in return (better her than a bearded old dude who thinks he knows how I should act).
And in a way I am “her,” in those now-rare moments when I recognize her. It's a one-ness with everything within and without. It's acceptance of the entire world; taking all the good and the bad in and saying this is me — and this is us all.
I need my many lives back. I can't live limited to one love — whether a career or a person or pursuit or place. If I'm ever going to survive I need to be free to love all that I can and all that I'm able to.