Tonight I'm sitting with the artificial light from my tv casting shadows across the living
room floor. The incandescent glow from my computer screen washes over the small space I've occupied all evening. These are my Friday night lights. And it is in this strange illumination that I remembered something I promised myself minues before this year was born. I promised myself that I'd start to share a few personal posts along with my regular musings about writing and literature.
I'm not really sure why I made this promise. Thinking about it now, it seems crazy. I've never been the type of person to share my feelings openly. I rarely do it with friends and family and almost never with acquaintances. So I'm not sure why I promised to do so with all of you invisible readers out there. Maybe it's easier because I can't see you reading these words, because you won't be able to hear my voice waver.
This fear is one of the things that makes me a writer, I suppose. It's so much easier to hide behind imaginary people with words that often feel too real, too much my own. But this year, I decided it was about time to start conquering more of my fears. And I thought since some of you might read actual books by me some distant day, that maybe you deserved to know a little bit more about me. Or that maybe I deserved to share this with someone. So here it goes.
This week, my sister said goodbye to her boyfriend. He's going into basic training. He'll be away for seven months. They can't talk again until the end of March. Her heart is broken. We've watched countless episodes of One Tree Hill all week, had too many minutes of silence, and I can feel her heart breaking a little bit more each day.
Now I'm not sure I would call this boy the love of my sister's life. I'd like to think she's still too young for that. I'd like to think that maybe I'll find that one great love of my life before her because she's three years younger. But I'm not sure either of those thoughts are realistic. He's gone. She's sad. I'm kind of sad too. It's all been very strange. It's all made me wonder too much about my own life and my own heart and the idea that having a broken heart is a bad thing. A broken heart is certainly scary. Absolutely terrifying. Years of watching Sex and the City and reading books have taught me just as much. But there's something that only my sister could teach me without trying that I now know to be entirely true.
I think maybe, sometimes, having a broken heart is the best thing a person can have. A heart in pieces is a heart that's loved. Love is that all powerful thing that writes books and poetry and songs and even some really bad movies. Love is what I want. Love is something I'm not ready for. I should be. I think everyone kind of wonders why I'm not IN love with someone right now. And I guess sometimes I do too.
But then I see the way my sister just kind of stares at the tv without really watching, like maybe she's stuck in a memory that's so much better than the two of us. She told me about this time when her and her boyfriend just held hands and talked. It seemed so beautiful to me and I tried to tell her. Really, I did. I wasn't sure I could take her tears anymore because then I would have to cry too and I know she'd be even more upset. So I didn't say anything. I'm kind of hoping she'll read this even though I know she won't.
We've been living in this strange kind of limbo where she says things. Small things. I nod and smile and try to say something that will make her feel better. I know nothing I say will help her. For the first time in my life as an older sister, I don't know how to help her. I want to tell her she's lucky. I want to tell her to hold on to the slivered shards of her heart, to remember how awful love can feel so that when it's good again, she'll know. Maybe that's stupid. Maybe because I've never really had that feeling I have no right to say anything. Which is why I haven't. I love her so much. She's my best friend and I feel like I'm doing a pretty shitty job of showing it.
This made me think about all the other people in my life that I love. Family. Friends. How many of them have I loved too much and never showed such feelings for? How many times do I have to read that Robert M. Drake quote before I start to find myself in its words? For someone who writes about love, I'm not sure what it means anymore. I think it means sharing a favorite book, writing a letter, staying up late when I'm too tired to really be awake. I think love is buying Buncha Crunch before a movie because I know how much my best friend loves to mix it with his popcorn. I think that's love. I hope in those moments my people know how much I love them.
My sister bought a book of Robert M. Drake's poetry this week. The quote above comes from Beautiful Chaos. She's read it a few times and I'm amazed. I've read through it twice now. I think, maybe, I'm just trying to find her between the pages. My sister's not much of a poetry reader. But maybe having a broken heart makes us all into people who seek the intensity of poetry.
In a poem called "One Day," Drake writes:
One day someone will inspire you and a love
will chalk over your walls and the sun will
love you and follow you. You will walk in
sunshine. And you, too, will inspire and
continue to be inspired and you will never
destroy these moments where you and the
light meet. You will never end.
I hope Robert M. Drake is right. I hope there comes a day when I find that someone. I hope maybe my sister will too. That all of us will find the person who makes us feels better and worse all at the same time because we love them too much. I hope you find it too.
xoxo
K.K.