So You Won't Forget About How She Loved You So Long Ago Once Upon A Time, Now She Has Grown, Grown Up, And You Can't Take, Take It Back

--"I Always Knew", Tilly And The Wall

Standing With My Blue Eyes Tilted Toward God

when standing with my blue eyes
tilted toward God,

I watch the waters fall from
the metallic head

of a shower I've gazed up
at since early ages.

I wonder how it ever
appeared so tall once.

I wonder how the waters
used to fall so far

before striking me, angled
just so to tickle

me into fits of titters
and bouts of smiling.

now the waters merely fall
squarely on my skin.

dw

----
I always knew it would come to this. I always knew one day I'd be leaving here. Gosh. I just never expected it to prove so difficult. When one reaches the end of two-plus year journey it doesn't ever feel truly like the end. It's as if I took a walk of ten thousand steps and now I'm struggling to realize that last step really is the last step. It feels like I could take a thousand more. It feels like I should take a thousand more. When the slope's facing downward and the wind is at your back you can run forever.

I want to run forever.

But I gave myself a deadline. I told myself that the summer before college I was going to live for me. I wasn't going to place myself under any type of obligations or responsibilities. I was going to be a kite in the wind, blowing to and fro. And though I don't think of writing here as a real obligation, it would tie me unnecessarily to something more corporeal than I envisioned. I don't know where the season is going to take me. I am eager to find out, though. That can't happen if I'm constantly looking behind me at the life that pushed me through high school. That can't happen if I'm constantly lost amidst the reflections of a dozen's dozen of postings. That can't happen if I'm constantly checking in with those who I've forever been around. I gave myself a deadline to unattach myself from anything I have ever known in order to explore some of what I have never seen before. It's time I got back to being less of the person who hoards her joy like a Grinch and more of the person who is open to finding little joys in little boxes. It's time I got back to being the woman who doesn't postpone joy.

I've said good-byes to a lot of my friends. I've said good-bye to Jack, to Françoise, to everyone else at DuPont Manual. I've even begun to start saying my good-byes to my beloved Ilsa. It's time I said good-bye to the friends I made here, Patrick and Breanne. I can't be a part of something that I can't be a part of fully. And I know that in the upcoming weeks all I'd be would be the ghost of someone people used to know, I can tell you that much. People wouldn't even be able to recognize me under all that transformation. It'd be like looking at the world after day had turned into night, looking at the ocean before and after a winter storm. I shall be unrecognizable. I want to be unrecognizable. My fondest hope is that the woman who drives herself to South Bend one day shall be nothing like the woman who used to dwell in the room where I now rest my head. I don't want to be anything someone could be their finger on. I want to be the brand new show, not the revision of the program which has already ran its course.

I've waited so long for this. College was always my demarcation line. It was the point where everything changed for the better. For the best. Everything up until has just been prelude. Now is the time I shine. I can feel it.

I'm not someone who regrets often. It isn't because I don't have any feelings. I possess a vast ocean of surface, but I pride myself on always keeping the majority of it below the surface. On the surface I try to maintain the same bright shining smile, bright blue eyes I've always held firm as my countenance. It wouldn't do to explain a piece of the puzzle when the enormity of the puzzle is the only way anyone ever gets to see the whole picture. There just isn't time to show myself a piece at a time, hoping someone can comprehend it all in those mere moments. So I hold the majority of what I know and what I hope back from most. And even those who feel they have made a connection cannot begin to believe they've put it all together. I regret if by pulling back I've hurt some of these people, but all in all I don't feel as bad as any of them. To me I don't assert that I've connected with any of them as much as they've connected with me. They've fulfilled their roles admirably. They've enriched my life. But there's no such thing as an inexhaustible source of bliss, there's no bottomless well of fulfillment. No one person, achievement, or endeavor can hope to be the last renewable resource of happiness. That's why I don't feel bad for moving on when the timing is right. That's why I don't lose people as much as they feel they have lost me. You can't lose something you were planning to leave behind from the onset.

No, I didn't have a fixed time I made a commitment to writing here. From the beginning I told mojo that I would write as long as I felt up to it. I informed him that my time here was ever going to be temporary. From the beginning it was obvious that of the three of us I was the least necessary. I kind of liked it that way. The best stories here have been the ones which centered around the rich tapestry that is Breanne and Patrick's friendship. Like the masthead says, I've only ever been the guest player here. Now my time here has unfortunately come to a close. It's not a condition to be sad over. It's not a condition I wish to deliberate over. Time is time, and when time comes you've just got to heed it.


one day I'd leave,
leave,
for good

Besides, I'll be back next year. I don't know when, but there will come a point where I'll have something new to say. Then it won't be like I shall be returning the same old mores that categorized my past efforts here. It will be like a new person writing. She'll have the new stories. She'll have the new insights. By then I'll be happy to return because I shall have accomplished my goal of establishing a new identity of the woman named Toby Frisson. That name, hopefully, will have new meaning to it and, hopefully, it will mean something wondrous and worthy of remembrance.

Gosh. That's the thing about me. Yes, I say farewell to most everyone I know, but it's never really farewell. I may not want to see right now or soon. But I have never fully cut someone out of my life on general principle. I'd rather leave a rip in the fabric of the blanket that's spread over the both of us. It lets me know that one day to come back around to mending it should the need arise. There's always the slight chance that once I've moved onto the next stage of my development, the same old people who enriched my life before may have a new way to enrich it further... sometimes months or even years down the road. I don't count on that fact, I can tell you that much. But I'm nothing if not open to the possibility of possibilities.

When I was younger, my sisters labeled the three of us after characters from The Wizard of Oz. My oldest sister was The Tin Man, nicknamed to Choppers, because of her metallic teeth and the notion that she was so under control as to be robotic. The middle sister was The Scarecrow, because she was the flighty one. And I was always The Cowardly Lion because, naturally, I was always thought as being too timid to really take chances. As I got older people started applying that appellation to the manner in which I handled relationships. They said I was to scared to let anybody one truly deep. They said I had a lock on my soul and I had thrown away the key. I always resented being compared to a coward. I was never afraid. I was merely pragmatic about the existence of honest human connection. I think it's possible to forge friendships and relationships that last decades; I merely think it's impractical to go into a new connection believing that will be the case. I also think it's foolish to hold onto something or someone if your heart, your mind, or your soul just isn't it. You shouldn't have to fix anything in your life that's more easily cast aside.

That's why I think I'll be returning here.

That's why I think I'll see Jack again.

That's why I know I'll always stay in touch with my family.

So far, those are three of a mighty short list of endeavors in my life that it's still easier to fix than get rid of. Everything else, all the hypocrisy, all the hype--it amounts to very little to me. Sometimes I feel like I'm looking down upon a world that was meant for someone else. I'm just doing my best to make due with surroundings that I was clearly never supposed to survive in. I felt like that all through high school. My hope is that that mentality will start to change once I get to Notre Dame. In fact, I'm banking on it.

I'm not afraid of being on my own for the first time in years. I'm not afraid of starting from scratch. What I'm afraid of is being marginalized because I got complacent. I don't want to settle in. I don't want to make the best of a decent situation. I want to be happy from moment to moment. And if that means going from moment to moment as quickly as possible then that's what I plan to do. The worst thing I could do is stand still. The worst thing I could so is tie myself to someone or something that isn't me, that isn't a part of me.

My place is at sea, never on land. My place is always over there, never right here.

----

I will miss this place, though. And if I'm missed a little too, gosh, that would be okay too.

dw