How we Love

I find some people in the quiet moments of my life. And in the proud moments - the times when in the flash of an instant, I see who I am becoming, who I want to be - and am reminded of certain individuals that inspired, pushed, loved me - toward those goals. (What goals? Claiming to have goals sounds like there is a purpose, which there isn't. I float.)

And I have a difficulty, differentiating between hero-worship, and love, and other kinds of bonds. Maybe this goes back to something in my childhood, I don't know. We overexplain things, trying to define ourselves and decide why. There's no need. Beautiful creations, we all are. For whatever reasons.

I needed to write for the memory of one particular person. He comes to mind often, and I wonder if I ever cross his mind. If I'll see him again. (and if I do, how each of us will react). What did he do to inspire? An interesting question, as we were both thrust into roles at a certain point, and not told any details. Looking on his situation from this older perspective, and about to be in the shoes he was in, I wonder if he was scared. I wonder what he saw, when he looked at me. What he thought. From what I saw, he embodied perfection. I was an idiot when I was around him, and he loved my writing. "you can go all the way to _______ and back, and not find someone like her". He said this quietly.

I remember being nervous, I don't remember what we were supposed to write about. But I know what I wrote was naked and true, and I shook as I walked to the front of the room, sat on the stool, faced my peers with a sheet of paper, and read. Truth used to make people stop ( I have two examples of this in my life). I remember after I was done reading, I looked up and was going to move, and then was terribly frightened when no one in the entire classroom was breathing. Then one of my classmates made a comment about how he didn't want to go after me, or something mundane, I don't remember. But I wowed him. I know I did.

Becoming what he is, maybe that's why he's been on my mind so much lately. His music, his words - I've wondered how he's altered his teaching style in the years since I saw him last. If he's still teaching. If he's married. (that shouldn't matter). If I would ever get to work with him, as a peer.

I always wondered what it would be like to look at him on that kind of level - if it would feel any different at all, removed a few years from where I had been.

Some people get into your soul, for whatever reason. Well, everyone does, actually. Every single person you've ever interacted with has affected you in some way. Changed you. I love that. I love how we are our own person, and at the same time - we are everyone else. We takes pieces of them with us, whatever they are so kind enough (or otherwise) to give in our short connections.

How can we not love, when we take and give pieces and we are whole but only because we have given and taken so many different parts?