No such thing as happy endings...

You know how the story goes. Prince A meets Princess B and they fall in love. Soon afterward, some hideous beast interrupts their budding romance and marriage timeline by appearing and kidnapping Princess B. Prince A swoops in and rescues her, felling said beast with fair words and sharp sword, or magical battle hammer, or whatever. Prince A and Princess B shorten their courtship, realizing that another delay could really crimp their style, and go off to live happily ever after.

But this is real life, not a fairy tale. The boys at Disney don’t tell you about the fact that Prince A has a castle with a leaky roof and bad plumbing. They haven’t told you that Princess B has an abandonment complex and that Prince A has intimacy issues. No-one even wants to talk about Princess B’s mom – or as the Prince sometimes says “The Mother-In-Law” or “Your Mom.” To be fair, they won’t talk about the Prince’s dad and his foibles either. No, the fairy-tale tellers won’t tell you about the servants revolting because their pay was too low, the Prince falling off his horse and breaking an arm, or the Princess falling ill and having to stay in bed for days. In fact, though the Prince and Princess are actually going through a rough spot, and the strain it has put on their rushed marriage is rather great, the fairy tale authors are quite mum now. After all, they have told you already, “They lived happily ever after. The End.”

There’s no such thing as the fairy tale ending. Life, whether it be that of the Prince and his Princess, or it be the solitary peasant, is a daily, sometimes hourly, struggle. Don’t get me wrong, the work can be pleasant as well as vexing, but the fairy tale ending doesn’t let you know anything. Take a look at couples who have been together a long time. Talk to them a bit and see how much pain and trouble they went through. You will also notice with so many of them how little they count the troubles, and how much they value the love and companionship they have. The struggles were but a labor of that love. They don’t live in the fairy tale, but they make their own happy ending daily with the work they do for one another.

The labor only makes the final reward that much sweeter.

The Conversation, Part 2

This is my new addition to the previous post. I think I shall cross post this over on my pleonast blog as well. Enjoy!

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“My life-style determines my death-style! My life-style determines my death-style!” Jim loved the stereo in his car – it was quite fun to drive with the windows down and the stereo loud. It was so loud he barely heard his phone start singing, “Maybe I’m crazy, maybe you’re crazy…” He pressed the “pause” button on the stereo.

“Talk to me.”

“Hahahaha, hey Jim.”

“Hey Emily, how are the kids?”

“They’re doing fine, Mike and I are taking them to Chuck-E-Cheese tonight? What are you up to?”

“That depends on who wants me around.” Jim laughed. “You never know where I might be – the wind blows so many different directions after all.”

“Come keep us company then, you know how Ben loves to play with his godfather. We’re going to celebrate Jenny’s birthday tonight since we are going to be in Atlanta next week.”

“Wow, she’s going to be, what, three?”

“Yeah, amazing how they grow up so fast.” Emily paused. “So, Jim… what’s going on?”

“Oh whatever do you mean?” Jim feigned innocence as well as anyone.

“Uh-huh, spill it.” Emily chided.

“I wondered how long it would take you to get around to asking. What precisely do you want to know?”

“You weren’t sitting together hun - that usually means something big.”

Jim sighed, “O.k. I’ll give you the shortened version – I don’t feel like reliving the whole conversation. I finally told Amy I didn’t want to be her best girlfriend anymore.”

“Huh?”

“You know, being the close friend that hears everything, goes everywhere, blah, blah, blah. It’s been driving me crazy – I mean, seriously. You know how I feel about her, have felt about her. I have had enough – enough going crazy, enough worrying, enough trying to be something I am not. I’m tired.”

“Are you happy?”

“Do I sound happy?” Jim quietly answered. “I don’t have much of a choice though – stay “friends” which annoys me to no end and leaves me both inside and outside at the same time, or choose to put distance between us which will at least give me room to breathe. Besides, she really needs some girl-friends. As if it weren’t emasculating enough…”

Emily laughed. “You always have the most complicated relationships and the funniest ways of describing them.

“I wouldn’t be very interesting if I didn’t know how to speak.” Jim chuckled. “I’ll see you tonight dear – what time, six as usual?”

“Yeah, see you tonight.” Emily hung up, shaking her head. That boy has the worst luck. No, that man - tease as she might, she was only six months older. He just always seemed younger than that. There had to be something she could do.

Jim smiled. Emily had always been like an older sister to him. She was more like a best friend than anyone else. He was only slightly jealous when she had married his roommate, but his love for both of them long outstripped any other feelings. “It will be nice to play with the kids again. I just hope Em knows to leave well enough alone this time.”

The Conversation, part 1

This is actually a repost from my pleonast blog

from August of 2007. Enjoy!

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Jim looked down at his cell phone, he had forgotten to take it off the silent setting and its buzzing had reminded him that it was in his pocket. It was Amy calling. A wry smile crossed his lips - this could be unpleasant.

"Hey."

"Hey." he answered trying to not betray the tension that had been building in him.

"So what are you doing Friday J?" Her voice was perky. Why was she always so perky at the wrong time?

"Ummm, nothing, probably just hanging at my place, watching some T.V., playing on my computer." This was going to be hard.

"Sounds like a plan, but how about a better one?" She was a sweet girl, really, but didn't she know she was killing him? "That new Matt Johnson movie is out, and since you've been taking me out alot recently, I thought I'd repay you the favor."

"No."

The silence was deafening.

"Ok." Her voice sounded suddenly strained. "Is there something you want to do - get dinner, hang out?"

"No." He had heard it got easier saying no after the first time. It wasn't.

"What's wrong?" Amy's voice was now showing definite concern with a shade of upset.

"This whole thing is wrong..."

"But!"

"Hold on Amy, just listen for a sec, don't get upset on me, just listen." Jim was beginning to feel sick. "How long have we been friends Amy? How long have I been here for you like this? You keep asking me to act like I never felt anything for you, like we never had anything. I watch you date these guys, these... How can you date guys like them? Then you expect me to just be here whenever and act like everything is great. I can't do this anymore."

"But Jim..."

"No, I can't do this any more. I'm sick of playing the big brother, sick of being the best friend." He paused and looked disgusted for a moment. "I'm not saying that it isn't a worthy thing, a good thing to be friends, I just can't be this for you. I've had to bury all these feelings for so long - it's tearing me apart from the inside."

She was crying. Jim wanted to shoot himself - no that wouldn't be painful enough. He never could stand to hear a woman cry, and hearing Amy, who had been so dear to him for so long was tortuous. And he had made her cry.

"Amy... I can't... Please stop crying. I can't describe to you what you have meant to me or how much I care for you. The one time I tried, you nearly ran to get away from me. But you can't care for me the way I do for you, and I can't keep being this close to you - it's killing me. Please, just please, let me go."

Feeling a bit lost...

...he picked up his pen again. It had all been so much easier when he had been just thinking it through.

Dearest Jennifer,

Was that an appropriate way to start? Was there an appropriate way to start.

We have known each other for so long. I've been your friend, your confidant, your advisor, your jester - I've been whatever you needed in the situation. I've been so close to you and yet kept at arms length. To say I have admired you from afar is a cliche that is neither true nor false. I have loved you from the moment we met...

"No wait, scratch that line... grr... another piece of paper, maybe I should write this in pencil." His thoughts seemed to tumble over one another neither falling in place nicely nor accentuating one another. "Why is this so difficult?!"

But it wasn't that difficult. At least it wasn't as difficult as it should be, and he knew it. In person was another story. There was no way he could form the words - his tongue and lips, so loquacious when shaping the words of any trivial matter seemed paralyzed when faced with the mere idea of telling her how he felt.

"A pencil indeed." he muttered to himself.

Pencils have erasers after all, and this was going to require a bit of on-the-fly editing.

Scribble-scribble-scribble-snap!

"Broken lead." A wry smile crossed his face and he grabbed a mechanical pencil from the little jar on his desk. "Hah! Problem solved." Was it really?

A few lines later, "Viola!" He held up the page in mock-victory and shook it. Reading it over, he grimaced a couple times at particularly clumsy wordings. "It will have to do though."

He reached over to a shoebox, dusty and weathered, sitting under his desk and opened the top. One last loving look at the letter he had written - the slight twinge he felt no longer that deep pang that moves and motivates. "Into the box you go." He smiled as he said it.

There they were, the loves of his life, gathering dust with the years.

Starting new, all over again

The frustrating part about starting something is not knowing how to start, what to include when starting, or whom to let know that I've started. I have so many things to write and to say and yet so few at the same time. Should I post fiction, non-fiction, humor, poetry, prose, or what? Maybe I should do them all. Maybe I should make this my place for my fiction and make another blog for my political commentary. Sounds like a bit too much effort to me. Besides, this is my first blogger post and I am rather unfamiliar with its interface yet. I already have a personal blog elsewhere... I suppose I shall make this my creative place and lump all my writings together here - or at least all the writing that I don't think anyone will bother to plagiarize.