A essay on complacency, what I think might be waiting for me if I choose to not be complacent, and why I think what’s waiting for me is good (in that order of course).
i. beginning
complacency
I don’t hate the idea of holding someone’s hand for a really long time. A guy I know named Bill recently told me that love is letting yourself become complacent. Bill told me that his life got so much easier once he clung to the idea that his complacency made Sarah happier. It wasn’t entirely about Bill being truly happy and comfortable in his big plan or even Sarah being particularly happy herself. Bill wanted Sarah to be satisfied, and she was, because she was getting what she wanted from Bill. The words he used were, Give more than you get and you’ll be happier, you’ll sleep better. Bill likes moving towards people and thinks I move against them; he says it makes me come off as aggressive. I figure that’s because I’ve grown firmer in my want to live the way I think I’m supposed to. I think that’s kind of an interesting thing about getting older, not that I’m very old to begin with, I’m only 21, but I’m at a point where I could have someone making decisions for me that weren’t supposed to be made which I obediently listen to, but if I did that my life wouldn’t really be my own. I’ve done that before and I think if I keep doing that I’ll probably mess up really badly. Complacency, especially in relationships, is the only way some adults know how to manage their children or partners. It seems like the comfortable option for the once-child-turned-adult who wants to feel like they’ve done the right thing. I keep trying to be empathetic for the situations where complacency is normalized because everyone is doing this for the first time and maybe complacency is part of their big plan. I doubt there is much truth in that though. God seems to enjoy the idea of free will despite planning everything ahead of time. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to completely subscribe to the belief that complacency (which maybe some people would call compromise), allowing people to walk all over me because they need to feel in control or because they’re older or have different experiences that are somehow more valid than mine, is the best way to live an adult life.
uncertainty
I am of the belief that the things in my life are predestined to come and go. I think that the environment I’m in plays a big factor rather than how I feel internally. There have been times where I am perfectly happy but in a place that doesn’t serve me well and even with my perfect happiness I’m still stunted. There is, however, more fear if I choose not to live in complacency. If I am complacent to a plan, which in itself is a carefully curated environment, then I have little to be afraid of other than not meeting the plan, which is bound to happen because I made it up myself or had someone make it up for me. I am scared of lots of things but none of them have to do with a plan. I like it that way. I’m scared of holidays and families and loud noises in the kitchen and of dinner—especially dessert where I used to get forced to pick something to eat even though I wasn’t hungry and sugar made my stomach feel funny. I’m scared that I’m not good enough, that I’m not enough at all, but I’m also scared that I’m too much. I’m scared adulthood means isolating myself from people who tried to care in favor of those who actually do care. What do I do when I’m not actively seeking someone’s approval? I worry that I’ll die someday with regrets and I’m worried I’ll die soon. I’m scared of the way I think sometimes. I’m scared of what people are capable of when they have will. I’m scared because I don’t know what to do and because the things I should do never exist in the familial vacuum I’m used to. I’m scared that I’ll cave like I historically do. I’m scared that I’ve lived too much of my life in complacency and now it’s a fallback when things get hard because it’s so comfortable. I’m lonely and tired but I have trouble getting good sleep which also scares me. I cry so often you’d think I’d run out of tears and snot. Apparently not.
My lack of a plan is something I feel guilty about because it doesn’t align with what the people around me think I should have. As I get older I know I’m supposed to have a big plan for my life that makes sense and will get me somewhere five years from now. The plan should have specific details on where I want to live, if I plan on dating and where that relationship would go and when, and what I’ll be doing day-to-day. When I was a kid I really liked planning to that degree. On pink Hello Kitty wide-ruled paper that I only had a few sheets of I would write about what my life would most definitely look like when I was 16, 17, 18, 21, 35. Sometimes I write letters to myself but I threw them all away when I moved (according to plan) a few years ago. When I was little I liked planning out what my life would look like, I loved praying so hard my hands hurt from clenching them, writing things down, and working hard on everything all at once so things would turn out a specific way. It was comforting to think that whatever I wanted, I would get. Life is too uncertain for humans to be doing planning like that. I was complacent within my plans for what feels like a really long time. Now it’s just easier for me to go into things with a loose idea of what I’d like. A boy I met last winter likes to ask me how my expectations of things are living up to the reality of them and every time he’s asked I’ve told him that I didn’t have expectations to begin with. I’ll tell him the same thing: I knew that I wanted something but I didn’t put much thought into it. I think at first he thought I just didn’t want to talk about stuff like that with him. Really, I just don’t have expectations in the same way he does because it’s tiring to have them. I have ideas of what I deserve, what I need, and what I want. That’s all I need to do. I’ll be specific like before every now and then just because I’m feeling romantic. I kind of like the uncertainty and how it questions all of my opinions.
ii. belief
predestination
There is a boy somewhere out there who whispers prayers about me almost every night before he goes to sleep. Who gently kisses my forehead and the inside of my thigh. Who is everything I’ve dreamed of and was convinced I’d have to somehow be for myself. I am enough for myself most of the time but it’s nice to have someone be everything for me just because they want to. Something in me wonders if he willed me into existence with prayers a God I’m sometimes convinced hates me. I cannot pray like he can; again, I’m resolved to the belief that most things are predestined, meaning I have little say. I will cry now, I will cry again, it is inevitable, it is planned. He’s content to feel horribly sad and keep the memory of someone he was allowed to love for a while whereas I would much rather have never experienced anything. I’m somewhat afraid of the things that are coming which I don’t know about. Sometimes I think it’s illogical to love someone because hurt feelings hurt so deeply when it comes to these things. At the same time I also think love is good and it’s what tends to connect back to everything I think about. By that reasoning, love is my fundamental value. I suppose it would be easier if I favored pleasure or knowledge or assertiveness. Then my decisions would be much more logical and I probably wouldn’t feel as bad as I do most of the time. So even though I think it’s illogical to love someone because hurt feelings hurt, at the same time I can sum up what is good about all the things I care about using love as the starting point. I made up my mind two summers ago that I didn’t need to love someone in the way some adults get to do, mostly because my whole thing with everything going back to love made my head hurt. I really didn’t want a boyfriend or anything like that. I thought maybe one day I’d get over the hurt which came with the idea of being kissed by a boy who didn’t want to be my boyfriend because I’d get to keep my convictions made from fear and a lack of belief in the prayers I’ve made over the years.
half & half
There is a boy waiting for me who is the other side of the same coin. Once when I was in middle school I had this dream that there was a boy in my class who had the prettiest brown eyes and curliest brown hair who smiled at me and passed me notes and cared about me. I remember thinking in my dream that we were so similar but I didn’t know why. In college I learned that the brain doesn’t make up people when it dreams, it only recalls, but I’d never met a boy that looked like him or passed a stranger on the street who looked similar. I’m saying this with certainty even though at the moment I can’t remember his face. I woke up very sure that was the boy I was supposed to find someday. I remember that I had the first letter in his name and I wrote it down on a paper which accidentally got thrown away. He’s been in the back of my head since then. I never dreamt about him again until pretty recently. This is one of those instances I’m choosing to be romantic.
The funny thing is how obvious our half-and-half-ness is to the adults who are willing to admit two people are allowed to be happy even if they themselves are not. Sometimes when this boy is talking to me or looking at me or holding me and there’s someone else around I’ll look over and see the stranger smiling at us. I like that I can easily tell how happy he is around me; I like that other people see it too. It’s weird to me that he never forgets me. He sits there and listens and sometimes I forget he’s doing so. I talk to him about serious things as he kisses my neck, as he falls asleep next to me, and when he’s overwhelmed. You’d think maybe he wouldn’t remember but every time he hears me. He remembers the names of the kids we joked about having one day, he brings me the prettiest flowers because I mentioned looking at them once and smiling, he knows the name of my blow dryer and the particular brand of pasta I exclusively eat. I like that I can stop thinking when he’s around. I’m always on such high alert. He parks my car for me just because, he takes my hand and firmly places it on his forearm while he pushes a shopping cart that’s a little too heavy for me. He calls me beautiful instead of hot even though being hot isn’t a bad thing at all (admittedly sometimes that’s what I’m going for). I like the way he looks at me and I like how his voice softens when he tells me that I’d be beautiful in a dress I thrifted or that I look so pretty with pink splotches of acne cream on my face at night. It’s nice to be noticed by someone you’re so determined to notice back.
fortuity
I don’t think he and I are interdependent like he says we might be. I think we’re more along the lines of trying to maintain our separateness while striving to live in the other’s skin. At first it was hard to have my own life and my own hobbies—I have this horrible habit of absorbing the lives of the people I dare to care about. Now it’s gotten easier to not do that and I’m much less anxious about scary things. My dream of him from a long time ago that was filled with desperation has changed to one where I am happily on his arm, smiling, seeing my reflection in his pretty brown eyes. I know that he will assuredly stay for a season since that’s already been decided for me, and when the season ends I’ll be okay no matter what. I know eventually seasons end. There are differing opinions on that of course. This theory doesn’t say how long a season is or when it starts or ends. Does it begin every calendar year? Every birthday? Or maybe it starts on a random Thursday in July and ends five years later mid-winter. God would be the only one able to tell me what a season is defined as, or if the theory is even true, but of course He would never tell. He doesn’t tell me most things and at first that really frustrated me but now I’m kind of used to it. I see no need for a detailed plan that’s going to be scratched anyways. I wonder if this boy is in my big plan. I hope he is. I think he hopes I’m in his and that’s why he prays so often and keeps notes about the things I like and pays so close attention to the things I say at seriously inopportune times like when he’s trying to sleep. I realized my season had started last month when my palms were pressed against his cheeks which were puffy from crying. His hair was pulled back and he looked so pretty and young and hopeless and I wondered if he saw me the same way. It’s one thing for a season to end because God decided it was so, but there’s not much a person can do to stop something that’s meant to keep going. I’m not sure why I tried on behalf of complacency.
iii. wants
good
My dream is to hold this boy’s hand for a really long time while I cross the street because I never know how fast to go but somehow he always does. He slows me down when there’s no sense in running, he tells me to hurry only when there’s a need to. It’s nice to see him across a room watching me walk by quickly, both of us trying to hide red cheeks and a wide smile. I like laying with him on the couch with my head against his chest so I can hear his heartbeat slow down as I pull him closer as best I can. I like how devotedly he wears the things I give him, including my absolute favorite necklace which I gave up in a moment of needing to do so. Everything good that’s happened to me recently has happened with that necklace on which bears my birthstone and a very small diamond you’ve got to squint to see. He wears it and even if one day I’m not allowed to stay holding his hand for a very long time while I cross the street like I’m determined to, at least he has something that’ll be good to him no matter what.
shadows
Part of my dream is to feel something like a woman for the majority of my adult life. I’m not entirely sure what being a woman means but I know that I want it. I read that everyone has their pair, not their other half, the book was very firm in that phrasing: male/male, female/male, female/female. This book said that a very long time ago people were one of these three types (male/male, female/male, female/female) and one day, God cut everyone into two. I think my second person is this boy and I like that he fills in my shadow nicely so I can live neatly in the way I’d like to. This boy makes me feel brave and I think I make him feel capable. This boy makes me consider trying new things that I’ve secretly thought about and told nobody. I just need a push to pick what I’m inclined to. I try to pick the things that’ve already been picked out for me.
iv. end
sustenance
There is a boy with me who, like clockwork, picks the eyelashes off of my cheeks and holds them out on his fingertip for me to wish on, who so fervently expressed the need for wishing on eyelashes every chance I get. He reminds me of my neighbor who told me to wish on the dandelion that was growing in the yard five years ago when I could barely get out of bed. My neighbor told me to ignore the fact that I thought it was silly and to just do it without thinking too hard. This boy tells me that maybe my wishes hadn’t come true because I forgot to say I wish before every one. I’m thinking maybe he was right. This boy lets me sleep in even when I tell him I’ll wake up with him. I like how nice it feels to have him as my boyfriend even though there was a time when I didn’t really want one in the first place because I thought it was wrong for me to have one. Really though, I fantasize about coming home to this boy every night and hope it’s somewhere in the beginning part of my season instead of towards the end. I imagine how he’d cook me soup when I didn’t feel good or get dinner started if I was running late. I imagine how when he got up every morning ahead of me he would kiss the top of my head before quietly fixing the blanket I deserve to be warmed by. I think about how I’d sit with him in bed at the end of the day, my fingers tangled in his hair, feeling his warm scalp, his head heavy on my chest. I like that it’s obvious we love each other. I’m not used to being allowed to show that sort of thing, which anyone who’s known me knows is a problem I have. I am ready to embrace the fact that I am allowed to live my life to the fullest extent I possibly can (within the preset parameters). I want to wear pieces of his hair in a locket that’s set on the thin gold chain I never take off even when I shower. I want to make decisions on my own without apologizing to the people that tell me they’ll be the only ones who love me always even though I know that they only love me when it’s convenient for them. He wants to hold my hand for a really long time while he crosses the street, at least as long as we’re allowed to like I said before because neither of us have much of a say in the whole thing. Maybe instead of praying I live my life knowing things have been decided and the things I want will be there in some way or another.
I wish
