From the misty past

[FallingLeaves]

He'd had a grueling time in child hood, into early adult.

Earlier in the evening, he had hit the second major turning point in his life. When asked whether to just stop and have a nice life, or go on, he basically said a nice life was a bit too sweet. Maybe he was still somehow playing 'what is wrong with this music' and found something wrong. I dunno. But he kinda felt, he had to go on, but alone.

So a half hour later when he found himself looking into her eyes, he was a bit off-kilter from the whole thing. Maybe there was some disappointment at the decision he had made, I dunno. But looking into her eyes... he had never gone that deeply before, and afterward didn't have the desire to do it again. It was kind of like, what was the point after that?

What he thought at the time was a bit on the odd side, but then wasn't he always kind of odd? It was like, he had never known a female that wasn't entirely shallow and somewhat mean. So looking into her eyes, he thought, here we go again. Just another variation on the theme. But that one time in his life he was willing to make it different, was willing to make it a goodbye as well as a hello, to not take it seriously, to just walk away. That had never been possible before and was only possible now because he was basically, extremely tired and didn't want to put up with people any more.

Well it only took her two and a half months to show that she was anything but shallow, but even as his admiration for her grew he was cautious. He felt he didn't have anything to give, and it would be totally unfair of him to give her empty hope when there was nothing more. Better to leave her with nothing than push that off on her. And besides, for the first (and as it turned out only) time in his life he felt a sense of peace and didn't wish to rock the boat. So he masked his admiration. Which was easy for him at the time as he'd spent his whole childhood masking simply everything. But at the same time all this was happening there was a thought, if maybe, later? But he was eventually to be punished for the thought.

Well she being the strong person she was, she eventually sussed him out... she saw completely through him! That was new, noone had pulled that one before! Noone had gotten him so off-balance as to show something real like he did that one time! Let alone gone on to come to the obvious conclusion!

He still didn't want any part of it though... and was getting so used to the idea that nothing could come of all this (which he hadn't known for his entire childhood but was coming to like) that he just dismissed it. Of course another month and she did the completely unthinkable, and then he was like 'man did I ruin this' because up to that point in his life he had been all about giving everyone the benefit of the doubt and the one time it might have payed off he had stopped doing it! But for once in his life he felt realistic about it, it was gone, let it go and walk away. Much later he realized the whole thing was stupid anyway, if he'd given her the benefit of the doubt she would never have done what she did. But it would have hurt to do give that. Again. Life is so confusing.

Anyway then she shows up at the mall a little while later and looking at her that time pretty much changed his mind, and after that he was disastrously lost on her. And 30 years and a lot of pain later he doesn't even try to find a way past it any more. Wishes he could! But the whole thing just is part of life. In some ways, he reflects, a kind of curse placed on him. Because now he feels, the whole thing was rigged. No matter what he did, no matter what decision he made, no matter how he tried to relate, it WAS going to turn out badly. There was just no hope of getting something desirable out of the situation. But he was stuck with it anyway... a curse... sigh...