I met my new neighbors last night, as the sun set over the
orchards and I returned from my walk past the hazelnuts. They were planting new
flowers in the hopes of beautifying their front-yard landscaping, though they
admitted to little knowledge in the horticulture or floral department. As I
walked past my neighbor’s house, they were lamenting that they’d done a good
amount of work, but could not finish because their compost bin was filled to
the brim, and they couldn’t just leave the extras lying in their yard for two
weeks.
I offered them my compost bin, seeing as we’d failed to fill
it in our recent two weeks, and found the opportunity to discuss lives with my
neighbors, learning about their church, their gardening naiveté, and their
excitement about trying something new with flowers. I sensed, too, their relief
at the opportunity to finish what they’d begun, and I understood their
sentiment.
For me, this is how life is in everything. I’m terrible with
endings and embrace them too soon, and understand the necessity of beginnings,
and rush towards them the moment I see an ending in sight. I also struggle
starting projects without knowing I’ll have time for finishing.
My entire childhood, and mostly in high school, I focused my
entire night around dinner time. This wasn’t because I was constantly starving,
but because I didn’t want to begin projects or homework before dinner unless I
had enough time for finishing it before dinner as well. So I’d often find
myself meandering around the kitchen, munching on chips or cookies, waiting for
dinner so that I could get on with my life. Often, by dinner I wasn’t even
hungry anymore due to all the snacking I’d done (this still happens).
But this is how I am. I want to devote myself fully, to
grasp the horns of problems and wrestle them to the ground without any
time-outs or ‘hold on, Mr. Bull, while I wipe the dust out of my eyes and take
a short siesta’. I never understood the intuitive individuals who tackled so
many projects simultaneously, and often finished few of them. I focused like a
laser and picked off projects with precision and planning.
The problem is, I never liked transitions. If I knew that a
project in school was worth nothing, there wasn’t a reason for me to lose blood
and tears over it; knowing high school was ending and I was already accepted
into college, what did it matter if I got a few A- grades or even B+’s perhaps?
These are tame examples, and the real problem is that I carry these over into
matters with greater gravity: social interactions, friendships, dreams, loves.
I remember that as I neared my end in high school, I stopped
hanging out with some of my friends, knowing I’d never see them again. And I
haven’t, but perhaps I might have maintained closer connections if I hadn’t
severed contact with them so neatly, even when we still saw each other daily? I see the endings drawing closer, and I think
to myself: “this will be painful, won’t it? Maybe I’ll embrace the pain now so it ends sooner. That way, I can
begin the next phase of life without having to wait for it.” And with this
attitude, I truncate the ending and swallow the pain immediately, while
floundering for the nearest beginning, any beginning really, as long as it has
something tenable to latch onto.
I remember thinking once, in my last days of college, why
make new friends now, or interact with people now, knowing we’re about to split
off in a thousand directions?
This has definitely brought me trouble in the recent past,
as I’m writing and forging paths for different projects, wondering whether I’ll
finish them properly or hurry on to the next beginning; or in friendships, and
in the phase of my life where everyone is getting married and starting new
paths while I pursue different dreams that those espoused seem not to
understand (for reasonable reasons, I suspect, but I’ve never had occasion to
find out).
So I’m truncating strings right and left, chopping off the
yarn before the sweater’s done, and I’ll be showing midriff all winter long,
with a mighty cold belly, I suspect, and only because I didn’t have the heart
to finish what was begun.
By dawn’s first light, it’s already night
to my eyes, and to my eyes
your every hello echoes goodbye
goodbye as the fawn born begins to die
as the summer arrives, the days shorten
as the birds rise, gravity reminds them
how soon everything must fall;
the universe expands, Alvie,
so don’t hold onto it all
the apple ripens the moment
it’s time on the branch is no more
and the core dreams already rotten things
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