Thursday, January 1, 2009

The Winter Walls

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs.
The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side.
It comes to little more:
He is all pine and I am apple-orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Spring is the mischief in me,
and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down!"
I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there,
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the topIn each hand,
like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."
-Robert Frost

Oh man, all the walls I build.
I meet people face to face only for a brief encounter and then focus on how I'm going to keep this wall up between us...and this winter I think a lot of mine have taken hits. There are holes. There are stories I tell that don't add up. There are things I've kept to myself that come bubbling to the surface.

In time the walls I build become more of a labyrinth, and I get stuck in the middle.
And I've lied. I lie in a frail attempt to stay detached from myself. I figure maybe if there's a part of me that I can't change that I can just bury it in lies. Maybe I'll get stuck in my own maze, maybe I'll become so lost that I forget what the truth is.
But I know I won't.
This is me trapped in the same spot by walls of lies.
It's zero progress.
It's nothing I want.

Vulnerability is never easy, but I think it's essential.

Lying is a habit.
I started telling Lauren the truth, but as soon as I started drinking I threw in about four other lies. I guess it's kind of like"I'm giving you the truth. But not all of it! I'm still guarded! So there!"

But what does that do?
I go to my room and lay there staring at the ceiling knowing that there isn't a single person who knows me.
I feel like the loneliest person in the world because I've spent all this time trying to protect myself from having anyone really see me for who I am--even if I'm not proud of who that is--even if I haven't been the greatest person this month, I guess I just want to be seen.

I think underneath all the lies, I might be a good person.
New Year's resolution? Less drinking, more productivity, more reading,more expanding on things, more delving, more truth,more fun, more depth, more connections, more finding me.

I need to find myself instead of trying to shut pieces of me down.

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