My life used to be so tender. Looking back at four or five or six years ago.. I feel like I cared more. I feel like I was quieter, softer.
The reason I feel this way is because I was thinking about a couple people that used to be a big part of my life. One is a drummer, one is a pastor/doctor/surfer. The relationship with these two men were nothing close to sexual, nothing close to "more than friends", nothing close to "hmm.. maybe". When I think about the relationship with them, I can feel my mind and body going back to a certain mode, a quieter sense of being.
I don't know, maybe there was something more.
Pastor/doctor/surfer. Talk about sex, about relationships, about friends. How appropriate it is to be lying in his bed in the middle of the night in New York City--Harlem to be specific--at 16? I shouldn't even be saying these things because I don't know who reads this, but I need to remember these things. So many emails have been lost. So many texts. So many letters. But I can still FEEL a time with him.
It's weird. I have/had these relationships with these men who were significantly older than me. We'd spend nights alone, conversations over coffee, drives to no where.. and yet even now, I don't see these moments as a "more than friends" moment. Maybe they did, but I never did and I still do not. And let's remember I am 15-16-17. They felt so natural, so fluid.
I think that's the way my relationships with men go. I am the girlfriend without everything else that comes with being the girlfriend. I'm the person to talk to, to hang out with, to love. That's how I am with Nick. That's how I am with RJ. That's how I am with Jake. I will love my men 'til the day I die the only way I know how--with all of my goddamn heart. So much that I don't see that our relationship being inappropriate when a girl comes into one of their lives. To the point where girls hate me or fear me or envy me or despise me. I will love this way forever.
But I don't know why my relationships with boys are this way. I don't know why and how I can be such a passionate girl-friend and not mix the girl-boy relationship into a fuddled mess. And I don't know why I love these boys in a different way than I love my girls. Perhaps there is some great Freudian explanation for why I am this way, but I could care less. Let's not mistake that I love my girls (the few girls that I love) with all of my heart, but I will never have to compete with their boyfriends. And it's not to say that a competition is in order with the potential/existing girlfriends of my men, but I want those girls to understand that I love their boyfriends like my brothers. More than that.
What's my point? I need to stop rambling. My relationship with the pastor/doctor/surfer and the drummer were friendships I will tell my grandchildren about (when they are older). Stories about love and quietness. Stories about deep friendships. Romantic friendships of love letters and kind thoughts. What I remember most about these relationships is the importance of words. I think the biggest part of my relationship with the pastor/doctor/surfer were letters and notes and messages and emails. Hundreds of emails across the country. And the drummer's poems. His stories. When I think about them I think about words like the words you're reading, more than I remember moments about hanging out.
I need to stop. I feel like I'm just going in circles.
And this goes without saying that my boyfriend, also, understands my relationships.
It's too early for this.
