Portia's stomach ached.
Too much caffeine was most likely the culprit. That and the fact that she had trouble with loss. She felt like she had lost so much over the past two years. She didn't know what the hell she was doing and, as long as she'd tried, she couldn't get used to this feeling. Sometimes, she just thought she was totally full of metaphysical bullshit. A way of trying to assuage the gnawing feeling that she had totally fucked up her life and there was no undoing it. Hey, if she was on a "journey" and was here to learn some "lesson" then it must be the right thing, right?
In all truth, she was faced with the same old Lady and the Tiger conundrum. Behind this door was Fear. Behind that door was Everything Else. She stood there, staring at the doors wondering behind which the Tiger of Fear paced hungrily waiting to consume her. Then it occured to her, that perhaps, just waiting and wondering, unable to put her hand on a doorknob and turn, meant she was already in the death grip of Fear. Perhaps in choosing either door, she would be Free.
She didn't know anything, anymore, if she ever did. And all that kept sliding through her head was "what if this is all there is?" She didn't like that thought. It made her sad.
It was funny.
She knew that she was living a weird life that did not feel authentic. When asked if she knew she was loved, she would say, "Yes," but the answer was actually, "well, what do you mean by you love me?" Because she was pretty sure it wasn't what she meant when she said those three words. And so, in reality, she did not feel loved. She felt, well, stupid.
"Stupid is as stupid does." Forrest Gump's Momma used to say. Portia knew she did a pretty fair impression of Stupid these days.
Her head ached.
She bought some incense online that was supposed to help clear her head. Like that was going to help!
Bottomline:
Her stupidity couldn't come to the surface and be recognized until she finished one thing so she was completely in the other. Then the truth would surface in the form of "I love you, baby, but..." As any good writer will tell you, nothing before the "but" counts. And then she would be off on the New Adventures of Being Alone for real.
She hadn't been there in awhile and it looked a lot scarier from where she was today than it had 25 years earlier. Now she knew a lot more of what could go wrong. And now she could spot that exact moment when girls really became women and boys really became men. Adults with all their idiosyncratic crap rather than idealistic kids Becoming. Men and Women have Become and it ain't all rosy by a long shot. There's lots of sticky goo there.
She wished she was still Becoming.
And as soon as she wished it, even as Stupid as she was, she knew it was True. But the feeling was fleeting and hard to hold on to because that's just the way Truth is for those who are not ready...
and if Portia didn't know anything else, if she was honest with herself, which she tried to be but seldom was, she wasn't ready for this Truth.
The question was: How long could she stay in this place of indecision without losing everything. She'd already lost so much but there was more that could be lost. Much more...
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Wallace had some stomach cramping of his own. This time, for once, it was the acute prostititus more than the regret, angst and fear.
He returned just recently from the doctor, with diet advice in hand. A "low oxalate meal plan" to be precise.
The cramping, he hoped, was temporary.
The grand thoughts of lonliness and the overabundance of stress weren't so overwhelming right now. Wallace was almost certain it was a first-day placebo resulting from the uppage of happy yellow pills the day before. Or the lack of antibiotic pumping in his system.
This wasn't to say Wallace was happy. The aforementioned uppage was related to sadness and depression, if anything. He was, hopeful. He kept up a dialogue of hope that had been fading. This was a plus. Everything else seemed to be failing.
Wallace missed so much. He missed things he's only briefly touched, and some that he'd never even known the sweet taste of. He perhaps missed those the most. The idealised image. So many times Wallace was so well aware that the journey was all that interested him. The destination pointless. Wallace wanted one goal that was worth getting to. Wallace wanted a destination as blessed and robust, sensual and mysterious as the path getting there.
That's all he really wanted...ever.
Portia often thought of Wallace although these days they seemed intertwined in their own webs of angst and fear.
She considered his lack of interest in the Journey in favor of a Destination worth his pursuit. Portia considered this a new twist on a phrase usually meant to appease one with a definite problem with delayed gratification, "It's the Journey, not the Destination."
"What the fuck ever!" Portia thought. She was weary of all Journey and no Destination. She had Journied for 20 years and guess what? She ended up at a destination she had not set off for at the onset. Kind of a rude awakening to say the least.
Portia agreed that the only point of going on the damn Journey was to have a Destination worth arriving at. I mean, then, at least, you can stand the delayed gratification and look back at the "hard times" or the "pitfalls" or the "forks in the road" and feel like they meant something. You learned and you got where you were going.
All Wallace wanted was Passion. To feel such passion for a pursuit that it was worth Journeying toward.
Yeah, Portia, could lob some metaphysical minutia over his way about how we are here to Learn and how relationships are mirrors held up to ourselves so we can see things inside of ourselves. Not that she didn't believe that was true. She just didn't think it was particularly helpful information.
She, herself, was just lacking Faith in the possibility- not the certainty, mind you, just the remote possibility- that her current path could lead to happiness and a deep companionship and closeness. It just seemed unlikely. But then again, what the hell did she know?
It's not like she was the Master of Great Relationships.
Portia wanted to hold Wallace's hand and tell him everything would be OK. She could see how it might work out so well for him. She really could.
But if she followed the advice she would give to him, she, too, might have a hope at a happy ending. But first there were all kinds of matters for her to tend to.
Portia had been busy building up piles of impossible scenarios around herself. It was almost as if she planned herself into the most difficult palce to live.
Portia wanted a place to call Home. A Partner in Crime to back her up and to back up on their way to whatever adventure they might be pursuing. But in her experience, Life was an "every man for himself" affair. She didn't like that. Not one little bit.
But, alas, the World played by the rules of Universal Law... not by the World According to Portia.
She supposed that was a good thing. She was fairly certain Wallace thought so, too.
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