Tangle of Thorns
It has been widely documented throughout my life that there's nothing like blowing money in order to make me feel better worse. But is not the actual blowing of the money that makes me feel sad, which anyway I could always return to the store whatever I got, or the next pay check will cover those few bucks spent, or I could put whatever shit I got and don't want on ebay and get some of the money back, so it's not about the money. What prompted me to go on a shopping spree and the specific items that I got is what lies at the center of my behavior and feelings today.
So let's begin from what I bought today: a Playstation 2. You read it right, a PS2. And I can hear the thousand of readers that I have in this little blog thinking "Are you fucking out of your mind Jean-Francois? Did you go like into a coma early this century and have just waken up? Dude, the PS2 is on its way out, even more so, there's a new one coming up next year and if you have read any front page of any news service lately, you would know that there's a new xbox hot out of the oven waiting for you! Why the hell did you get a PS2 so late in the game?!"
But let me give you a little insight on mycompulsive purchase carefully planned purchase decision today.
In one hand I'd say that the person I like the most within my nuclear family is my little sister [younger I should say because she's already 26] and we spoke on the phone yesterday, for her birthday. Among some of the things that we talked about was the time when she got the PS2. I was in South America back in those days, and I remember that I flew to my home town just to hang out with her and her boyfriend and to play PS2. We sat for hours in front of the TV, battling not just bad guys, monsters and reckless drivers but also complaints from the rest of the family because they wanted to watch la novela or this or that show on TV. . . but the TV belonged to the PS2 crowd! Even though today I consider a whole afternoon spent in front of the TV playing video games as a waste of time, when I look back, those were just great days.
On the other hand, when I miss someone I usually give her or him a call or send an e-mail, and maybe if that someone is extremely fucking special I'll send a hand written note. But when I long someone, those aforementioned channels of communication don't do the trick. What I do is that I try to bring back memories of that person in different ways: sometimes I would look up pictures; or I'd re-read old e-mails that we've exchanged, or notes, letters and postcards; or sometimes I'd Google that person's name; or I would read a book that reminds me of whoever I'm thinking of [that's how I got into N. Sparks: Steffi told me about him]; or watch a movie that we watched together; or perhaps I'd do something that reminds me of that person [my friend Sandra used to drink café latté, so I'd order one of those -minus the sixteen bags of sugar that she liked to add], or. . . well, you got the idea.
Longing is a very strong feeling and it goes beyond just missing a a person. You long someone or a situation that was very special, but that now is gone; even more so a moment with someone, in time and space, that from the perspective of the present seems so warm and sincere, so expontanues and true, that the feelings become a complex tangle of thorns and memories.
I got me the PS2 and the same game we played for hours and hours that afternoon as a way to bring back to life those moments I shared with my sister, and the special memories that I keep in my heart. The truth of the matter is that I miss her a lot and a simple phone call, or ten phone calls in one day don't do the trick to me. And I'm also afraid that if I call her and mention this to her she wouldn't even know what the fuck I'm talking about, maybe the memories that she links to longiness run in a different, yet parallel line that I wouldn't even remember. And I feel bad because the whole PS2 experience just made me miss her more, and made me miss also South America and my friends and life over there and a lot of other stuff [and well, also I should mention a two hundred dollar set back that I could've been spent somewhere else].
And besides this longing, I have a lot of despair and restless in my heart right now. And the reason is that I got, unscratched, to level thirteen of the game and I'm stuck in there, unable to get all those cops out of my tale and delivery my cargo! I've been driving like an F1 pilot through the hills of the game but after 20+ tries I can't pass that damn mission. Which made me also realize how fucking out of shape I am in the whole gaming experience. Better keep practicing.
So let's begin from what I bought today: a Playstation 2. You read it right, a PS2. And I can hear the thousand of readers that I have in this little blog thinking "Are you fucking out of your mind Jean-Francois? Did you go like into a coma early this century and have just waken up? Dude, the PS2 is on its way out, even more so, there's a new one coming up next year and if you have read any front page of any news service lately, you would know that there's a new xbox hot out of the oven waiting for you! Why the hell did you get a PS2 so late in the game?!"
But let me give you a little insight on my
In one hand I'd say that the person I like the most within my nuclear family is my little sister [younger I should say because she's already 26] and we spoke on the phone yesterday, for her birthday. Among some of the things that we talked about was the time when she got the PS2. I was in South America back in those days, and I remember that I flew to my home town just to hang out with her and her boyfriend and to play PS2. We sat for hours in front of the TV, battling not just bad guys, monsters and reckless drivers but also complaints from the rest of the family because they wanted to watch la novela or this or that show on TV. . . but the TV belonged to the PS2 crowd! Even though today I consider a whole afternoon spent in front of the TV playing video games as a waste of time, when I look back, those were just great days.
On the other hand, when I miss someone I usually give her or him a call or send an e-mail, and maybe if that someone is extremely fucking special I'll send a hand written note. But when I long someone, those aforementioned channels of communication don't do the trick. What I do is that I try to bring back memories of that person in different ways: sometimes I would look up pictures; or I'd re-read old e-mails that we've exchanged, or notes, letters and postcards; or sometimes I'd Google that person's name; or I would read a book that reminds me of whoever I'm thinking of [that's how I got into N. Sparks: Steffi told me about him]; or watch a movie that we watched together; or perhaps I'd do something that reminds me of that person [my friend Sandra used to drink café latté, so I'd order one of those -minus the sixteen bags of sugar that she liked to add], or. . . well, you got the idea.
Longing is a very strong feeling and it goes beyond just missing a a person. You long someone or a situation that was very special, but that now is gone; even more so a moment with someone, in time and space, that from the perspective of the present seems so warm and sincere, so expontanues and true, that the feelings become a complex tangle of thorns and memories.
I got me the PS2 and the same game we played for hours and hours that afternoon as a way to bring back to life those moments I shared with my sister, and the special memories that I keep in my heart. The truth of the matter is that I miss her a lot and a simple phone call, or ten phone calls in one day don't do the trick to me. And I'm also afraid that if I call her and mention this to her she wouldn't even know what the fuck I'm talking about, maybe the memories that she links to longiness run in a different, yet parallel line that I wouldn't even remember. And I feel bad because the whole PS2 experience just made me miss her more, and made me miss also South America and my friends and life over there and a lot of other stuff [and well, also I should mention a two hundred dollar set back that I could've been spent somewhere else].
And besides this longing, I have a lot of despair and restless in my heart right now. And the reason is that I got, unscratched, to level thirteen of the game and I'm stuck in there, unable to get all those cops out of my tale and delivery my cargo! I've been driving like an F1 pilot through the hills of the game but after 20+ tries I can't pass that damn mission. Which made me also realize how fucking out of shape I am in the whole gaming experience. Better keep practicing.
Jean-Francois was drunk at 10:06 PM
5 Comments:
mon chere, on dit "longing FOR"
estoy de acuerdo, extragnar a alguien es dificil pero hace mucho tiempo que no "anhelo" (?) por nadie. pero hay que saber distinguir entre el anhelo y la obsesion... y hasta hoy dia no se cual era.
Si estuviste en una relación, y tras una separación extrañabas y anhelabas estar con esa persona, por qué pensar que fué simplemente una obsesión?
Obsession for me is a patological deviation of a feeling, and I don´t like to use it because you can end up brushing off any real feelings that you had. For me to refer to a relationship as an obsession, is to say that it [the person and the relationship] wasn´t worth the time and the energy invested in it [wasn't worth a f*cking dime].
And com'on ms e, acerca de no "anhelar a nadie", yo me imaginaría que una niña tan linda como tu debe tener una lista larguísima de admiradores, no?
Dear W: do NOT rain my parade MF!
necesito mas espacio que un comment para explicar mi comment ;-)
i liked this post alot, i get tremendously nostalgic at this time of year and I'm not really sure what does it...I miss the PAST.
Reading your post put into words that longing to recapture that which cannot be revisited.
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