I allow myself to like what I like; when will I allow myself to change those likes, to become activated by new stimuli, something without the baggage and history I carry with me now? This baggage, after all, is not just a collection of memories but a curator, one that has learned to favor the muted tones of the familiar over the dazzling, disorienting glare of the new. I can't stand the new. I miss the dull luster of something that's been worn in to the point of becoming so familiar, I take it for granted with every breath.
The first collar I ever gave out didn't mean as much as I had wanted it to, but it was a fun game. It was a symbol played at being a symbol, lightweight because we had not yet accumulated the shared gravity, the dents and scratches that would later make such an object feel less like an accessory and more like an anchor. When it was thrown away, I wanted to be mad, but couldn't. It wasn't a token of anything, just a toy. Just like we were toys for each other, and for the time, that was fine.
I am broken in ways I cannot describe, but I do not feel broken at all. It is a knowledge I possess but have no proof for, and need no proof to show. I rather enjoy my brokenness because it means I have sculpted myself successfully and can only blame myself as the artist. This is the power I've been looking for all this time, that I was far too afraid to even pretend to exercise on others. Even when I felt it would be for their own good; always, I restrained my mind and hand, and I believe still it was the right choice. Better not to have their regrets weighed down by my name.
What is all this to say? The lesson that I've taken away is detachment. Not from the present, but from memories and old desires. The less I expected, the more I've gotten - more than I felt worthy to ask for. It is oh so hard to restrain my expectations, most all of others especially, but still, we struggle, do we not?
Yes, we struggle. We struggle because to expect nothing feels like a betrayal of human nature. But it is in that empty-handed space that I finally stop trying to collect the future like tithe, and let it arrive at its own pace.