Housekeeping Notes

There are now two blogs. This particular blog is for writing exercises. The other, found at http://jakofalltrades.wordpress.com, is for academic thoughts ranging from classes to other projects that make me seem entirely precocious, like paper proposals, etc. There will not be any posted assignments, such as papers...because I feel like that will do nothing good for me.

Happy reading. And better yet, happy thinking.

Thoughts to my Counter

The new extension is the embodiment of the corporate world, and I have never felt more out of place. Which, if you think about it, is an odd sensation for me, since I usually love open space. But the granite. The geometric leather sofas. The mountings for plasma tv screens that haven't yet arrived and hung on the walls for NASDAQ scores. There is no paper.

And it is my world all the same. The part that I do not belong in. Because it is her space. Her chosen space.

We've been paired for so long, that hate of our own togetherness festered into all-out brawls. And yet, in my dismal hours, since I was five, I cried for her, for her company. And she came and rolled her eyes. What? What? Emma, I want to go play.

And I reluctantly let her go. And I harbored my pain, mooring it while the storm passed. Her and her gap toothed smile. Her good grades. Her charm, her work ethic, her good behavior. Everything I was not. And yet her space was my space. We were the same.

One birthday I remember the fights. At that point, all you want is for it to stop. We hid in our rooms, with the lights off, the doors closed, hoping that if we closed our eyes, if we held our ears, it would end. The pain washed over me, the embarrassment. Then it happened on hers.

Rage filled me for the first time at them, they who would dare mar her happy day. My happy day was gone, ruined. But hers, hers could be, couldn't it? Why would you have to hurt her too? Isn't my pain enough? I gave my day so that it would pass. I stripped myself of hopes for well wishing, the joy that a birthday should be. But why would she need to as well.

I remember her tears and my own bitter despair at seeing them.

I forgot them soon.

Years later I found myself in the granite space, staring at a row of flags and a stair case. Her granite space, that meant nothing else to me other than something that was not mine. And I thought of her and her black cardigans and her pearls. I thought of her goofy grin when she told a really dumb joke.

I thought of myself, displaced. My university hoodie and jeans, trainers that would be threadbare and showing sock before they were replaced. The books that lined my walls, the ink stains that appeared on everything I would ever own. Never would I walk these granite halls for an hour lunch break between meetings about numbers. I would probably never wear real pearls.

I smile and wonder, after all these years, are we really the same? I am bound for a university lifestyle, a profession to which calls to my ambition like a siren. But are you not as well? Everything I am, you are not, and everything you are not, I am. Were we not meant to be exactly as we are?

Saussure says that words only have meaning in the context of other words. One could then extend that idea to value, which is another definition of meaning. What then would be my meaning, without you? I am, because you are.

We will never be the same. We push apart from each other even as we cling to our sisterhood, our bond. And we will forever be a pair, as we always have been, as we always are, from one eternity to the other, eternally anti. Mirroring. Parallel. Opposites. Bonded.

Rivalry is a petty description for emulation.

Reconciliation

I cried, and in my tears, he was there. In a red sweatshirt, and jeans. He wasn't smiling, not quite. It was a smirk. His warm brown eyes dancing with amusement. He sat back in his chair, his arms stretched and resting behind his head.

"You thought you said you loved him" he observed. I grimaced.

"I know."

His smile broke from his suppression. There was a hint of regret. Sadness.

"Did he feel like me?"

"Not in the least," I answered with an arched eyebrow. I sighed and mirrored his pose. Looking at him, his intelligent warm eyes, his chestnut hair that curled out from underneath this dirty, well-worn, used to be white hat, his cheekbones that were barely chiseled, his seemingly delicate mouth that was bold enough to say anything, all of him. The carelessness and ease that was Warren sat in front of me, content simply to be. I ignored the familiar stirring within my chest. No, if anyone felt like him, I knew to run.

"I suppose our sitting here means you aren't over me" he began. I laughed, interrupting him.

"Oh, I would never come back to you"

"You never left" he pointed out calmly.

"I left. Oh, Warren, I did leave. And I will never go back."

"What are you looking for, may I ask? What in the world were you using this boy for? You couldn't have been in love with him, since you're still in love with me."

"I'm not!" I protested. I scowled like a child at him. His smile was gone again, his face impassive. We sat like that, watching each other, until I sighed and gave in. "I loved the relationship. The closeness. The imitation of what I could not have with you."

"Ah" he said, nodding with understanding. "But?"

"But what? Why do you always have to know more? You pry too much in places you should never have been in the first place."

"You were the one who fell for their TA."

"Don't remind me please" I rolled my eyes in contempt. "The whole thing was a mistake."

"Yes," he agreed, "but was it unnecessary?"

"No" I admitted with another sigh. "No, I knew he wasn't you. I knew I wouldn't feel exactly the same way. He's not exactly Mr. Dreamy. But I suppose it is something of the same. I wasn't in love with him, but I was in love with something. It was so easy to forget you, when there was something else. Not someone, but something. I did feel this then though too. The need to not stay still. When you left, it hurt because I loved you so. And it hurts now. But the pain, it is not unfamiliar, and it is not unbearable. It is heartache to change. I only hope I can take it better than I did the last time."

"And not find yourself another boy to use you?" he supplied with a smirk.

"I used him just as much" I shot back. We glared again before I let it go and sighed. Silence fell between us, just as it had before. Unbearable silence that we both suffered through, stubbornly.

"Is this goodbye?" he asked the silence, looking away from me. He never could look me in the eye when he wanted me to leave.

"Is it ever?" I asked as I stood, shaking the hair from my face, an act of familiarity for him and for me. He chuckled and watched as I left, letting the door close behind me. I hoped I would not be back.