Sidewalk chalk and love letters
I want a love that is as simple and beautiful as chalk art. Work at creating a masterpiece or a master moment, then step back - appreciate, watch the rain wash it away and simply, start again.
-------------------
I have never experienced what a long lasting relationship looks like, feels like. My parents divorce was full of manipulations and brutal lies. It was hurt and pain and walls and insecurities. However, I was a third party. I had no control over the plot twists. I was an audience of one. It was traumatic and sad but something that would take me 10 years to fully understand. My 5 year breakup would prove much more heartbreaking. A personal failure. To realize your best friend has become a stranger under the same roof without ever realizing it until it was too late. That is a tradgedy. At least it was for me. My best friend sent me a photo of my old house in Dallas. She lives right down the street. It was bittersweet. A house I loved, no longer full of love. While everyone has moved on (and I cannot stress enough) for the better, it is still a symbol of a life. A life of love and loss, but most importantly, a life of lessons.
Chalk art. How do two people draw together? Same sidewalk. Different vantage points. How do they find beauty in the disparity and comfort in the sameness?
---------------
Tonight my boyfriend and I got into an argument. It was 8 pm and I hadn't heard from him all day. He doesn't have cell service where he works (wilderness) but I always hear from him when he gets off work at 5:30. This is a good time to point out that while I ran away from conventional routine, I crave routine. I rely on it for purposes of sanity. When I finally heard from him he explained he was with a friend helping him chop wood, which he reminded me he told me last night, and that he then showered because he was filthy and then ate because he was starving. All very logical. However, somewhere around 7:45 I decided I wasn't going to hear from him, he was probably breaking up with me, I'd probably done something wrong and then vascillated between "he's a dick" and "what can I do to fix this" for about 15 minutes. For a girl who's been both an audience member and a lead actor in life breakdowns and breakups I usually jump to illogical first, rational second.
There was a giant chalkboard wall in the bar I was in. I wanted to write something witty or clever or even inappropriate. But the only thing I could think to write, the only thing my hand would write was "I love you". Because really I just do. Love him. It's not in the "you complete me" (fuck you Jerry Maguire) or the "I can't live without you" way. It's not even in the "you give me butterflies" way. It is the kind of love that complements - not completes. The kind of love that pushes me to be better, to try harder. The love that gives me comfort and respite from an at times unkind world. But with this, comes fear. Those walls and insecurities from my parents. The grief and heartache from my own breakup. I am not broken, but I am bruised. I am working on it, but it takes time - maybe even a lifetime. This always brings me back to my one basic and yet impossible to answer question, how does love last?
Chalk art. Nothing is set in stone. Draw. Add. Observe. Rinse. Repeat.
I don't know how two people stay in love. I don't know how they stay the course together without veering off indefinitely. I don't know if there is even an answer......
But I do think chalk art is a great way to start.