i was on tumblr and came across this and it totally got to me.
WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU FALL IN LOVE WITH A WRITER?
Lots of things might happen. That’s the thing about writers. They’re unpredictable. They might bring you eggs in bed for breakfast, or they might all but ignore you for days. They might bring you eggs in bed at three in the morning. Or they might wake you up for sex at three in the morning. Or make love at four in the afternoon. They might not sleep at all. Or they might sleep right through the alarm and forget to get you up for work. Or call you home from work to kill a spider. Or refuse to speak to you after finding out you’ve never seen To Kill A Mockingbird. Or spend the last of the rent money on five kinds of soap. Or sell your textbooks for cash halfway through the semester. Or leave you love notes in your pockets. Or wash you pants with Post-It notes in the pockets so your laundry comes out covered in bits of wet paper. They might cry if the Post-It notes are unread all over your pants. It’s an unpredictable life.
But what happens if a writer falls in love with you?
This is a little more predictable. You will find your hemp necklace with the glass mushroom pendant around the neck of someone at a bus stop in a short story. Your favorite shoes will mysteriously disappear, and show up in a poem. The watch you always wear, the watch you own but never wear, the fact that you’ve never worn a watch: they suddenly belong to characters you’ve never known. And yet they’re you. They’re not you; they’re someone else entirely, but they toss their hair like you. They use the same colloquialisms as you. They scratch their nose when they lie like you. Sometimes they will be narrators; sometimes protagonists, sometimes villains. Sometimes they will be nobodies, an unimportant, static prop. This might amuse you at first. Or confuse you. You might be bewildered when books turn into mirrors. You might try to see yourself how your beloved writer sees you when you read a poem about someone who has your middle name or prose about someone who has never seen To Kill A Mockingbird. These poems and novels and short stories, they will scatter into the wind. You will wonder if you’re wandering through the pages of some story you’ve never even read. There’s no way to know. And no way to erase it. Even if you leave, a part of you will always be left behind.
If a writer falls in love with you, you can never die.
i want to explore the other side of this, the not-so romantic side.
this relationship i'm in is the first very real real one, and before this i never had to deal with sharing myself with another, much less having to share a bed, a closet, a room, a bathtub...a life. before sean, i've just dated and flirted, nothing serious (didn't really want anything of that sort of commitment), and i wrote about things with no sense of consequence. heck, i didn't tell any one of the guys i've dated that i kept a blog, or even wrote anything other than class essays at that. i wrote about very explicit things, private things, confusing things, life things, relationship things, things people had confided in me about (in a form of a very well-written story, of course), things i wanted to confide in somebody about...everything, without really having to think about who it would affect (i mean, honestly, no one really knew about my favorite pasttime...people didn't even really believe that i actually sat down and read books on days i were free).
but not this time.
i've always been very vocal about the things i've been/went/go through. whether it was on my tumblr (which i now just primarily use for images), my twitter (oh, ranting grounds), my facebook, and my various wordpress and blogspot accounts. and that's just always been me, too, floating around various blogging websites because i couldn't choose which one i liked better. i've talked about my experience with having been repeatedly raped as a child, with having an abusive parent, having to fend for myself due to neglect, high school issues, emotional/self-worth issues, my attempts at suicide, family issues... for the most part, i've always been very straight-forward about these. no beating around the bush about my thoughts and opinions. no hiding behind anything. i've always offered nothing more or less of myself--stripped bare and naked to the very core, since in life i always had to act like i never went through these things (in my korean culture, it's taboo and considered shameful to vocalize these issues).
so why would the matter of my heart (love) be treated any different? (which is very minor, compared to my life experiences.)
if you guys have been following my writing for a while, you'll remember the numerous posts that kind of hinted to the things that were happening to me in real time. story of a girl, all those one-liners, the angry and most direct i found a girl who sounds like me..., left behind--they were all things i wrote as release of all the heartache i was going through. some partially fictionalized, some as a reflection of the situation i was going through... i remember someone asked me on my formspring account, "how does your bf feel about your blog(s)?"
back then i casually answered, but thinking back on it now (and especially after a few run-ins with sean about my writing), i can't help but to wonder.
don't get me wrong, i've quieted down a lot. i can't help but to feel that if the old me sat and talked to the person i am now...she'd call me a little bitch. she'd wonder why i'd stay quiet in situations she'd normally speak up in. why i'd refrain from going in too deep on a topic, or why i'd censor a few things here and there. and it's true. back then, i would have totally written about how infuriating it is, having to deal with an ex-girlfriend who's motives and hostility i totally don't understand, after dealing with/going through so much for him in the first place (not to mention vocalizing my two cents whenever there's a snide remark from those lips of hers). i would have totally written about how hard it was to stop obsessing over and comparing my relationship with sean to the relationship sean and _____ had. i would have totally written about how hurtful it was to hear somewhat recycled endearing comments and such, how insecure i felt about myself and the kind of commitment i was getting myself into with someone who at one point pretended like i didn't exist, or how i was just so sick of knowing everything (and i mean everything). but, at the end of the day, i take him and his feelings into consideration (my words, if used in full potential, is definitely not good news).
the things i have written were revealing enough, and so now i wonder how much that may have affected him. and even if my once very revealing and honest writing has taken a milder tone, i'm still going to write certain things he may or may not be comfortable with. so, with that being said...would that ultimately contribute to the downside of being in a relationship with a writer? especially when that said writer is unafraid to so freely express her thoughts in the vast public eye that resides in the internet?
and do i, in turn, have to kick it down a few more notches?
ultimately, my goal in writing of all those things isn't to insult, lay guilt, evoke pity, or anything of that sort. it's to express the things i won't be able to vocalize thoroughly (or to my satisfaction), and as therapy. but i can understand just how it can be taken as otherwise.
i think this is the first time i've ever questioned why my outlet had to be in the art of writing. it may sound funny, but it really helped me through a lot. i don't even think i'd be here if i never wrote about everything that weighed down my soul.
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