It's a strange thing - being caught between two worlds. For me, in particular, it is something new and something old. (Though the experience itself is completely new and wholly unusual.)
Something Old.
Something Old is something familiar, something known, something easy. Still, here I am, looking at Something Old with new eyes and fresh smile. Something old has become something surprising, something warming, something easy.
I first met you three years ago in Africa and since then - I must admit, have thought rarely of you. Perhaps my life here is to blame - when your life: all the way over there is distant and unfamiliar. Still, I thought of you sometimes - looking heavenwards towards the stars and thinking of that night on that pier under the Milky Way where our potential energies swirled and sighed and then dissipated. (Because I was being a good person and I knew you understood.) But now things are different. Potential has become kinetic. Kinetic energy reveals distance and anticipation and missing. Kinetic energy demands attention.
Something New.
Something New is not something new at all. Something New is something newer than old that aged but never really ended and is now, again, like twigs to kindling. Something New is exciting, flirty and a little bit secret.
Something New once told me that he understood that he had the 'emotional range of a teaspoon' (my words) and even that was 'being generous' (his words). Something New doesn't want to hurt me again but I think, at the same time, cannot seem to pull away.
To you: I want you to grow up and become the wonderful man I know you're capable of being. I know you can be self-aware and self-deprecating but I want you to use those as tools to grow - not just tools to charm. You're so young and the world has so much to offer you - I want you to embrace it, like I do, and see the beauty and joy in the world. You're too young to be sitting in dark rooms drinking Scotch and bemoaning the state of the world (Leave that to us old folks). I have so much faith in you but I also need you to be a man for me. To be stable, secure, confident without the self-deprecation.
It's the ultimate privilege and curse to have such choice placed at my feet. And yet such choice has spoilt me. I want Something New to have the steadiness and ease of Something Old and for Something Old to have the giddiness and banter of Something New. And I yet not know if I can have either.
And through this all, I look forward I maybe see that neither will be that Something I need. And I am at peace with that. To be given this is gift enough. It is just enough weight, rested gently above my heart, to remind me where my feet must touch the ground so that I can keep walking forward together or alone.
So, I ask the Universe, am I strong yet?
