confrontation

i do aight with confrontation depending on the conflict. i'm not very confrontational. but in general, a little conflict usually makes you stronger - shows you something about yourself and others. you can learn from it. especially when the one confronting you is you.

i'm switching my internet service, and i was going through my e-mail account trolling for addresses i wanted to notify about a forwarding e-mail address. see, i don't keep address books in my e-mail accounts, 'cause that woulda made too much sense and made things too easy for me right about now. so, i'll looking, and clicking and scrolling through my inbox, jotting down the names of folks i don't want to forget... then i switched to the "sent" box.

from the beginning of this two-year-old account, i see stuff i haven't thought much about in... well, two years. starting with e-mails sent to an old paramour. bless his heart. i was enamored with him but he got bored with my personality and annoyed by my affectionate nature, so he moved on. nothing wrong with that, it's just the way he chose to move on - as i read through the e-mails, i could see the blossom of a friendship in full bloom, turning into a flower needing to be watered more often, turning into a plant with weak and struggling roots, to a corpse sitting in a dusty pot. the view of myself then from where i stand now was so hard to see. i didn't see his messages, i only saw mine. the things i said evoked memories of how i felt and what was going through my mind as i willed myself to have hope that we could get back the wonder and joy of the best of times, though i should have let go with the same resignation and understanding that he did during our decline. my idealism and openness make me who i am, but it was through that relationship and its aftermath that i learned the true meaning of, "wide open wide, the mistake was made," and understood the plaintive, painful, wistful tone of jill's voice as she sang it so real - real enough to lay the regret bare, while leaving the longing to be loved intact.

then i felt a worry flutter through my mind and gut. i thought about my relationships and wondered to myself if i've truly learned the lesson... if i have retained the innocence and idealism and openness that come naturally to me... if i have gained the ability to avoid the wide open wide mistake... if i can trust myself to make the right decisions when letting someone into my life. yes, i know that i can do the best i can, and get it all right on my end, and still get hurt, because not everybody is for everybody. but it's not so much that i don't want to take the chance ever again so much as it is that if i do hurt at another man's hands ever again, i don't want to feel afterwards that it was only because of what i allowed. i don't want it to be my fault for allowing something in my life that i shouldn't allow, all in the name of trying to force the hand of happiness and being loved. there is bending to accommodate, and then there is compromising the self - compromising the better judgment - compromising the standards i deserve. and those are two different things. that relationship taught me that, though it was a hard lesson. i pray that i can put it into practice from now on and balance myself better.

i also found a lot of poetry i'd written that i'd forgotten all about. i didn't take the time to read it all, but it was nice to remember that poetry has been with me all this time, since even before this spurt i experienced in months past. and that i've gone through phases of not writing much before, so what i'm going through now just has to run its course. it was reassuring to see the pattern in my past and know that the words haven't left me. they'll be back when they get back. in the meanwhile, i e-mailed all the poems to myself in another account, so that i can read through them later and re-feel what i felt then. assess my writing to see if or how i've changed.

the last thing - and perhaps the most monumental. there is an address that i have decided not to send my forwarding address to. some past you just need to leave in the past. two years ago, i found it appropriate to keep in touch. but now, as i become more and more who i was born to be, i can see that "appropriate" can change over time. it has for me. and now i need to keep it moving.

my past me confronted my present me last night, as if i were reading one of my old diaries, and i'd say it was a good thing.