Answers

"The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything."

-Oscar Wilde

I knew everything.

I had all the answers to every question that could cross my mind as a 17-year-old, as an 18-year-old I could profess a faith in innumerable things that I just knew to be true. I was not shaken, weak or unsure. Everything aligned perfectly with my worldview.

But then I grew up.

The questions got harder and kept piling up. The pressures arose and I tried to fumble for my faith that was only as big as the questions I once had as a 17-year-old. Nothing worked like it was supposed to. I was left confused, unsure of whom to believe. The way my faith was built on people's perceptions of things failed me miserably, because people. They change, they fall, they get their own difficult questions that they fail to answer.

I became infuriated, filled with rage and scorn over the loss of my precious peace of mind. Nothing and no-one could sedate me. I needed my answers. I needed my peace. I just lacked the patience and perseverance to look around for some.

Now I'm numb. I'm waiting for something to happen to change the way I live. I miss my answers and my peace of mind, but I don't have much of a fight left in me...

Take: One

I never watch the same movie twice.
It's a terrible nuisance when someone asks me about a movie I watched years ago, and I can only give a vague account of what it was all about. I mainly remember what I felt like while I watched it, or how the story left me feeling afterwards. I can never state its plot matter-of-factly; I'll always be blinded by my biases.

I recently discovered the same rule applied to a person I fell in love with.
I never looked at the way he really was, but was always entranced by how he made me feel the first time I laid eyes on him. Reruns of his words and his actions had little mattered under the influence of the premiere. It was like my brain was in a hurried loop to go back to that time when we first met, play it over and over again, and bury deep all the heartache his mere presence in my life caused.

He was not a bad person. He was every bit as intelligent, vulnerable, brave and scared as I was. Many a time even more so. He bore strong resemblance to how I imagined my knight in a shining armor to be when I was a young girl. And I was tremendously thankful to have crossed paths with him.

But the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced we wouldn't have worked out. Our attraction was the kind of insanity that causes people to die for each other, not the foolery that drives them to live with each other. It's the kind -I personally believe- that should be experienced once in a lifetime, but not every day for a lifetime. He was someone I wanted in every way to be with, just not someone I would risk everything I have for.

I pray time can reveal what emotions obscured...and maybe a rerun with a clear mind and a passionless heart.