the sun is setting, and it feels like spring, it was so warm today. there are new leaves and cherry blossoms. even when it gets dark i can smell the sun coming off the grass. the dawn is breaking on another trembling world.
here is a little epilogue to yesterday's entry, which you should read if you haven't. this is something i wrote to gabe in january 2001, which i never gave him. it was a brief history of my life. i'm giving you an excerpt. keep in mind that this was written two years ago, it's a little embarrassing, especially the beginning, but it gets better.
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I wasn't aware that my daily life was the raw material, the fieldwork, that I would try to define and explain and preserve. I fell in love with you at first sight, I'll never forget the way you looked that day. You are the reason that year is so perfectly preserved in my memory. The part of the year before valentine's day was like one endless moment of anticipation. I woke up every morning to see you in class. Every movement I made or word I said, that was actually completely meaningless, became infinitely important because you were there.
Those months were like the moment right before you kiss someone for the first time. Until the moment, everything that happens is merely leading up to the moment, and after your lips touch, time starts again and leads away from the moment. But right before you kiss, when you know for sure that in a half second you'll be kissing, that second lasts forever. You know everything rapidly: that everything you wanted will soon occur, what everything means, and you notice every detail of how it's happening. Your head is getting closer to theirs, and your heartbeat is suspended, and you can't hear anything.
That year, I felt like I was floating in that eternal moment before everything becomes real.
After valentine's day, when we were in love, was the single happiest time of my entire life. My happiness was like an extraordinarily bright light, so white and pure that it's blinding. If it could possibly have been better than the endless anticipation, it was. It's too bad people only commit suicide when they're sad: if I had died then I never would have known pain.
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ah yes, obsession. such a beautiful thing. right at this moment i can't imagine wanting anything besides freedom, complete and endless freedom. i suppose when i find the right person i'll know, but i'm so much happier alone. for a long time, even when i wasn't with someone, i wanted just to have someone to sleep in my bed with me at night, it would have been comforting. but i don't even want that anymore. i like sleeping alone. and with that, i will say goodbye. i love you!