| Past Grievances |
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Just when you think all is well ...
Adult Fairy Tales
Can you read this?
Merry Christmas!!!
It's CHRISTmas!!!
Male Intuition
Eureka!
Who Wants To Know?
My Next 30 Years
Healing Power of Writing
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Saturday, March 11, 2006 |
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Other Side of the World
(03-11-2006):
1. Other Side Of The World - Kt Tunstall
I fell asleep around 11 p.m. tonight and woke up just a little bit ago to my phone ringing at 1:33 a.m.
Apparently, I’m not so used to the ring tone on my new cell phone yet that my subconscious can just ignore it, allowing me to sleep through it.
When I heard it, I thought for sure it would be Shahirah. She had tried calling a couple times in the last few days, but we kept missing each other, so I assumed it was her calling and waking my ass up.
I would have never guessed in a million years it was Greg! I was pretty shocked when I heard his voice instead of hers because I don’t think he’s ever called me this late.
We’ve been friends since 5th grade and he’s never called me this late … that I recollect. Not because of me, it’s because of him. I can pretty much be reached at any time by any one.
For some reason, I have a feeling if everyone I knew read that, they’d laugh their asses off.
Anyway, he called because I had left him a message while he was at work. After spending a few minutes discussing why I left him a message in the first place, we spent the rest of our two-hour conversation talking mostly about music and our new cell phones and what you can do with them.
He’s done just about everything with his that we can do. Meanwhile, I have yet to add a contact to mine. I haven’t even checked voice mail in about a month! I haven’t even changed the annoying ring tone!!
He’s already bought a “Micro SD/Transflash” memory card, downloaded a game, downloaded music, downloaded ring tones, and I don’t know what else.
I have made and received calls with mine! HA! 
Eventually he makes me crawl my ass out of bed because he wants me to view this link he sent to my e-mail, which I haven’t checked forever.
The link was to some music videos of KT Tunstall. I had never heard of her, but soon found that I have heard her.
The first song was “Other Side of the World.”
"Other Side Of The World" (Live) by KT Tunstall
Over the sea and far away
She's waiting like an iceberg
Waiting to change
But she's cold inside
She wants to be like the water
All the muscles tighten in her face
Buries her Soul in one embrace
They're one and the same
Just like water
And the fire fades away
Most of everyday
Is full of tired excuses
But it's too hard to say
I wish it were simple
But we give up easily
You're close enough to see that
You're the other side of the world to me
And on comes the panic light
Holding on with fingers and feelings alike
But the time has come
To move along
And the fire fades away
Most of everyday
Is full of tired excuses
But it's too hard to say
I wish it were simple
But we give up easily
You're close enough to see that
You're the other side of the world …
Can you help me
Can you let me go
And can you still love me
When you can't see me anymore
And the fire fades away
Most of everyday
Is full of tired excuses
But it's too hard to say
I wish it were simple
But we give up easily
You're close enough to see that
You're the other side of the world …
Oh the other side of the world …
You're the other side of the world to me
Right away, it sounded familiar, but it wasn’t until near the end of our conversation that it hit me I’ve heard that song on a commercial advertising the TV show “Smallville.”
Damn, that actress in “Smallville,” Kristin Kreuk, is soooo freakin’ HOT!!!
Whoa Baby! Love that look!!
I can't believe that's Matt Damon! Kristin is so freakin' sexy in this photo!!!
 
Love those eyes and that beautiful smile!
Oh baby!
Anyway, while listening to it, he says, “This song reminds me of you and Shahirah.”
For some reason, I instantly got sick to my stomach and had no desire to ever speak to Shahirah again.
I wanted to ask him why the song reminded him of her and me, but all I said was, “I never had her love.”
Apparently, I said it in a tone that let him know I didn’t want to talk about it because he changed the subject. He started talking about how awesome and cute he thinks Tunstall is.
I have to agree.
Anyway, even though I didn’t want to talk about it, now I couldn’t help but think about things.
First, I was wondering why this song reminded him of Shahirah and me. I put the lyrics I think he relates to her and me, by things he has said in the past, in red.
For instance, we ARE the other side of the world to each other … literally. That’s a no-brainer!
Plus, I know he thinks I gave up easily.
Right after I stopped talking to Shahirah, he would say, “I think you should go over there and find out if there’s anything between you two.”
To which I’d reply, “She DOESN’T want me there! I’m already half the world away and that’s still too close for her … she’s made that clear. Besides, I’m not going to force someone to love me, either they do or they don’t. She’s the one that wants it this way, not ME! I’m sure of my love for her and so is she, so I don’t have to prove it to her, that’s why showing up won’t work. If anything, she has to prove her love to me … so the ball’s in her court.”
“Still,” he’d continue, “it’s so obvious to see how much you really love her. Are you going to give up that easily?”
“What it comes down to is this. I’m part of her past and she’s trying to start a new life. She can’t become the person she wants to be with me in her life because I tie her to her past. So even though she can’t fit me into her new life, she doesn’t want to entirely let me go, which means I get treated like a photo album … something she can drag out of the closet whenever she feels nostalgic. The problem is, that works fine for her, but not for me. When she treats me like I’m at her convenience, she makes me hate her. So it’s best we’re out of each other’s lives. End of discussion.”
Now I realize why I feel sick at my stomach and like I never want to talk to her again … yet again.
The reason I started talking to Shahirah again over a year ago had a lot to do with Mom trying to convince me to do so and because eventually I started to feel sorry for her.
I know I wrote about this before, but somehow Shahirah got my cell phone number and left a message. I honestly didn’t think I had any feelings of sympathy for her. I felt better that she was out of my life.
Then I got her voice mail and the sound of her voice made my heart break. I was so pissed and so confused.
I was confused because she told me herself in an e-mail it’d be best if I stayed away from her, but yet here she is calling me, trying to get in touch with me, and sounding like she’s been crying.
I was pissed because in that moment I felt that I could hold her because I couldn’t stand the thought that I might be making someone I once cared so much about feel the way she sounded. Although, in retrospect, I’m sure if she was crying, it was over someone else and she called me hoping I’d be the dumb ass to actually be there for her.
In any case, as much as I wanted to run to her rescue, I managed to fight it. Being extremely busy moving and stuff at the time helped. It still wasn’t for over a month that I’d actually come to talk to her.
So why did I finally start talking to her? There are several reasons.
First, she kept leaving voice mails!!! If they didn’t break my heart because she sounded sad, they’d make me laugh because she was funny, and even caused old feelings to resurface momentarily when she was being cute. Plus, I figured if she was trying so hard to get a hold of me, then maybe she really did care and I was the one being unreasonable.
Secondly, even though I already wrote about this, I talked to her online at Greg’s house New Year’s morning 2005. It didn’t go well at first, but by the time we were done talking, I thought it went really well. In fact, for the first time, I actually felt like I might miss her.
Lastly, the main reason I decided to talk to her again was because I really believed if I did, she’d blow it and end up making me feel I was at her convenience like before and I’d be able to once and for all avoid her totally guilt free.
She didn’t blow it. In fact, it seemed there were times she went out of her way.
There were a few close calls though, like the time we were talking about me staying with her in Perth and she said she’d have to talk it over with her Mom. Then when I asked her if she did talk to her Mom, she hadn’t … which led me to believe that once again she was saying things that weren’t true.
Not to mention the fact that she had some other asshole live with her without telling her Mom.
I think I went a month or so before I got over the anger of that. Who am I kidding? I’m still not over that. It still fucking pisses me off to no end! 
Anyway, for the most part, she was able to keep a good balance. Making me feel she wanted me in her life, but not pissing me off while doing it.
The only bad thing is, that made it to where when we talked … we really didn’t talk. I’ve often wondered over the last year why she bothers to keep in touch because we don’t talk even when we’re talking. I know I don’t like the way that feels. And I know she has to see it too.
I don’t think the fact that we don’t REALLY talk is totally based on the fact that she feels she’s walking a tight rope with me. I think part of the reason is that she treats me more like she treats a parent and not a friend. At least that’s how she made me feel the many months prior to me pretending she didn’t exist. I was definitely not her friend, at least not in her mind.
Anyway, those are the reasons I started talking to her again. So now why do I feel like I did two years ago … like I want to forget she exists?
This is the thing, the way I felt then and the way I feel right now doesn’t have to do with losing her love. Love comes and goes, I can deal with that. Besides, I knew it’d never work out. There were too many obstacles.
What really bothers me and what I can’t let go of is the fact that I let myself believe something that was never true.
I can live with the fact that I really did love her. In fact, that’s probably the only positive thing about the whole experience. It felt really good to be able to feel that way about someone, even if she didn’t deserve it.
I can live with the fact that I always knew it wasn’t going to work out. The thought of it at times seemed so ridiculous to me, but I thought I was doing her a favor by entertaining the possibility.
So I have no regrets loving her and letting her know how much I did. That was me being true to myself and I would never change that. Besides, I doubt she’ll ever find anyone to feel the same way I did about her, so it was probably good that she could experience it once in her life.
I’m not saying she’s not worthy of being loved or that she’ll have trouble finding someone to “spend” his life with her. I’m just saying what I felt for her was the “real” thing. It would have been the easiest thing for me to spend the rest of my life showing her how much I cared for her. Like I told her sometimes, “I think I was born to love you.” I really meant that. That’s how I felt.
So if I’m fine with all my feelings towards her and I’m fine with the fact that it was never going to work out … what’s my hang up?
What I can’t let go is that I let myself believe that she really loved me.
How do I explain this?
It’s not the fact that she said she loved me and then changed her mind, that I can live with. What I can’t live with is the fact that I REALLY believed it when it was never true.
It’s not that I just took her words at face value, it’s the fact that I believed what she said so much that I’d stake my life on it. That’s how much I believed her.
I knew how much I loved her. I knew how great the love in my heart was for her. I didn’t think anyone could love anyone that much. Yet, sometimes when she’d say those three words, she made me doubt that I might actually love her more than she loved me.
That’s how much I believed! That's why I get so angry at myself.
So when it ultimately didn’t work out, which was no surprise, I thought if we both really felt the way we said we did … we’d probably be closer to each other than our own spouses one day.
That was one of the last positive things she said to me. She said, “No matter what, you’re my best friend.”
That made my heart feel good and I even felt that that was probably better than anything else we could have.
In fact, the whole time I knew Shahirah, I never really thought of her sexually, even though I wanted to, and I don’t know why. It’s like the love I had for her went beyond that. I didn’t care about sex with her, not that I wouldn’t have wanted it, but I wanted so much more than just sex.
Do you know what that’s like when you’re a guy and the last thing on your mind when it comes to an attractive member of the opposite sex IS sex? It’s weird!
Before, I guess, it’s like my heart was in control. Before, I put the love and all the little things before sex because those are the things that made my heart swell with love. Like I said, it’s not like I wouldn’t wanted to have sex, I would have so wanted to … but it’s all the little things that brought us closer together that I looked more forward to.
I guess to me, sex is just sex. It’s not an expression of love, it’s an expression of lust. I don’t have to love someone to satisfy that biological imperative with her.
Spending time together, however, and bonding on a non-physical level … that’s love.
So yeah, when it came to Shahirah, the thought of spending time together doing anything from watching TV to hiking up Mount Kinabalu was more satisfying than just sex. Being able to talk and get into each other’s Souls and hold hands and communicate how we feel through non-verbal communication, like through our eyes and body language, that’s what I looked forward to more than anything.
What’s funny though is that now, it’s just the opposite. Now it’d be easier to think of her sexually than in that loving way. And you know what? That breaks my heart because if I feel that way, then that great love I once had for her must not be there any more.
If I feel that way, it’s like saying all I’d want is just sex and then move on to sex with someone else, which is how I’d say a guy typically thinks. So not that there’s anything wrong with thinking that, it just hurts to feel that way about someone you once would have rather got to spend the day with than just have sex with.
Maybe I feel that way though because I don’t see her as that same person I was so in love with. I mean, before, I thought she was honest and I thought she wasn’t like most other women when it comes to guys. Now, I see her as I do most other women in the fact that she loves getting attention from guys.
Not that there’s anything wrong with wanting attention from the opposite sex, but there is when you do it to the point most women do. It’s like they base their whole life and their SELF-WORTH on getting attention from men. I find that repulsive! But I do like the fact that it makes it easier for guys in the end. 
On the other hand, when I see a woman that’s so CONFIDENT in herself that she knows she can turn any guy’s head, but doesn’t try to and is disgusted when guy’s hit on her because she knows if it wasn’t her it’d be some other woman … I find that so damn sexy!
I’ve only met a few women like that though. They’re usually the ones that are so easy to talk to and so intelligent. The only bad thing is that they’re usually intimidating.
Anyway, I guess I feel that way now because I don’t see her as the same person. Like I said before when Greg accused me of being so cold towards Shahirah, I told him it’s like the Shahirah I knew died and was replaced with someone else … so it was easy to feel nothing towards her any more.
Well, I guess that’s not entirely true. There have been several times since we’ve been talking again that I find those old feelings of love resurfacing, even if only for a few moments.
Like when she was so competitive with Minesweeper, I found that really cute, which brought out those old feelings. Plus, she’s left a few messages on my voice mail in which she sounds so goofy. When I heard those, I saw her as the person for whom I had those feelings.
HA! I didn’t end that sentence with a preposition! Woohoo!
So yeah, maybe those feelings are still in me somewhere. It’s just that, except for the rare occasion, I don’t see her as the person for which they were meant.
Whether or not those feelings are still buried deep within me, I still have to face that there are other feelings buried within me as well. I still have to face the reality that I feel the way I do right at this moment.
During my conversation with Greg, something was triggered to make me feel angry, cold, and distant.
The anger isn’t directed towards Shahirah or even at Greg, it’s directed at myself.
Several people have told me I need to see the movie, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” I still haven’t seen it, but I know what it’s about.
I think the people that have wanted me to see it, see me in Jim Carey’s character, Joel.
The problem with that is that it’s not entirely accurate. Sure, there was a time I would have loved to erase Shahirah’s existence from my Mind. Over time, however, I realized if I did that, I’d probably make the same mistake again.
I realized how valuable the memories of my experience with her were because they’d help remind me to never be that stupid again.
The problem I’m having now is, other people remember!
I can live with remembering myself. I just don’t want anyone else to remember. I don’t want anyone to remember how I felt, how I acted, or anything I said because even though all those things were true from my heart … they were based on a lie. That makes me feel foolish.
I think that’s why I’m feeling this way right now, since Greg said what he did.
I guess as long as I remember, I can view it as a valuable learning experience, but when someone else remembers … I see myself as being stupid and pathetic.
It’s like, I know how I felt and how true those feelings were, so in the context of my own Mind … it was a very special experience … even though it brought a lot of heartache.
When someone else recalls that experience, however, I see it in such a negative light. Even though it’s not presented in a negative way, that’s how I see it. Even when someone recollects the experience and puts a positive spin on it (which is ALWAYS what happens), I can’t help but see myself in a way I don’t want, and I don’t know why.
I guess it’s like this, if someone else reminds me of what happened, then they saw it. Even though I know what happened, know what I felt, and know how I acted … there's a certain amount of denial I can exercise to make the whole experience seem less real.
When someone else brings it up, then there's no denying it.
I can deny things in my own Mind, but how do I deny something from someone else’s Mind? If someone else saw it, then it makes it real to me. If it’s real, then I have to deal with it, instead of being able to fool myself into believing my memory of what happened is inaccurate.
So if someone else remembers it as I do, and since I came to the conclusion over two years ago that I never had her love, the only possible explanation as to why I thought so in the first place must be because that’s what I wanted to think.
That’s what I can’t live with!
If, however, I allow myself to believe that she really did love me as much as she said, then I can avoid that conclusion, but I just can’t bring myself to believe that either.
The only possible solution is to erase everybody else’s Minds.
So I guess it would be more accurate to say, instead of erasing my experience with Shahirah from my Mind, I would rather have it erased from everyone else’s Minds … including hers.
Ya know, I honestly don’t see how we can be friends. She’s a reminder to me of something I don’t want to remember. She’s a reminder that I let myself believe in a lie. No matter how much I want to, I can’t seem to let that go.
I pride myself on seeing more than everyone else around me.
For instance, most people only see things one way … how it affects them. That’s it. And because of that, they tend to have a myopic view of reality. People like that tend to blame everything wrong in their life on “other” things instead of realizing that they’re in control the whole time … not under control.
So imagine how devastating it is to someone like me when I realize what I thought was reality and what was actually reality weren’t the same thing. Once I get snapped back to reality, the thought of ever having believed the false reality is unbearable and intolerable.
I’ll compare it to “The Matrix.” It’s like one day you’re going along and believing reality is one thing, and then you wake up in a pod covered in goo and realize the reality that you’re nothing more than a battery.
For me, I believed that she loved me so much it scared me! Then one day I wake up to find that that was never true.
I can’t deal with that.
I’m not saying I can’t deal with I felt she lied. I don’t know if that’s true, I can’t say. For all I know, on some level, maybe she did love me … or at least thought she did. Maybe she really believed she did. I don’t know.
What I’m saying is, even though I knew that kind of love didn’t exist, I let myself believe it.
It makes me sick to my stomach that I could be so stupid.
One time when I made that statement to Mom, that Shahirah never loved me, she chewed my ass out about it. She was trying to get me to talk to Shahirah again, but not making any progress.
She eventually asked, “How can you be so cold towards someone that you once loved so much and that loved you?”
I laughed and said, “I may have loved her, but she never loved me.”
She barked back, “Don’t even try to tell me that! I heard some of the voice mails she left you. I talked to her on the phone. The day she called, after you told her that you two couldn’t be anything more than friends, she sounded hurt and panicked and said, ‘I think I really screwed up.’ If she didn’t love you, she would have never called, so don’t give me that bull crap!”
After a short pause, she continued, “Why do you think she’s trying to get back in touch with you now?”
Sarcastically, I replied, “Because she’s a sick sadist and she’s not through torturing me?!”
Shaking her head in disappointment, she said, “I give up.”
“Thank God!”
With a sly smile on her face, she adds, “You know, God says if you won’t forgive someone that sincerely wants it, don’t expect to ever be forgiven yourself. Why should HE show you compassion if you can’t show it to someone else?”
“I can live with that.”
“You’re impossible!”
“I take that as a compliment.”
“And a jerk.”
“Another compliment.”
Weary, she asks, “Honestly, isn’t there anything she can do to prove to you that you’re wrong about her?”
After some thought, I said, “Well, I guess her first mistake was ever saying those three little words. Her second mistake was convincing me that she really meant them. So I guess if she could reverse time and take all that back, we’d be good.”
Disgusted, she asks, “So in your smart ass way, you’re saying there’s nothing she can do?”
Feeling the urge to be even more of a smart ass, I added, “I guess since time travel isn’t a possibility, she could spend the rest of her life with me proving to me how much she loves me and with my last breath I’ll forgive her completely.”
“I know I raised you better than this!”
That was over two years ago!
Here I am still struggling with the same thing.
Why do I feel this way, right now, at this moment? Why do I feel so cold towards her?
Is it because she’s a reminder that I let myself be human for a while?
Why do I feel so cold and numb about everything?
-sigh-
Honestly, I don’t want to cut her out of my life, but unless I find a way to deal with what I’m feeling … I don’t really see how we can remain friends.
Heavenly Father, help open my cold, dead heart and guide me to make the right decisions.
*I realized in the course of writing this that I saw myself in the song's lyrics . That person I was a few years ago seems like the other side of the world to me. I don't want to feel this cold and dead inside.
Posted by: Shane
Posted at: 5:54 AM
0 comment(s)
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| MARVEL, SPIDER-MAN, DOCTOR OCTOPUS and all MARVEL character names and distinctive likenesses thereof: TM & © 2003 Marvel Characters, Inc. All Rights Reserved. MARVEL and SPIDER-MAN: Trademarks registered in the USA and certain other countries. © 2003 Sony Pictures Digital Inc. All rights reserved. |
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