Grave Considerations

This isn't me. This isn't what I do. I don't go to cemeteries where I don't belong. I don't sit at empty graves that say my name but are not mine – never belonged to me. And I certainly don't remain there confessing my sins and my life's entirety up to this point. It isn't logical. It isn't me.

But apparently it is.
Because here I am.

Of course, maybe it is logical; maybe my being here serves to be some sort of twisted closure – this grave having my name on it, being intended for me long before a grave or even a name would have any meaning – long before the concept could be understood.

If I were here for closure, for the end, logical is all it would be. There would be nothing more to it. But that isn't why I'm here. That isn't it at all. I don't know why I am here. I don't have a reason. I can't explain it, but I am here, and it doesn't make sense.

Nothing does.
Not anymore.

I don't know when it happened, when things – everything, life – stopped working. I've never, never, felt this…

This stupid.

If I were being completely honest, leaving nothing out – which I suppose there is no reason not to be, there is no one to hear, only me and an empty grave – I'd say that everything went out of focus when I learned of the existence of this place, this grave. This grave where I seem to find solace in its vacancy. But, see, even then I didn't feel lost. Cheated, maybe, but never lost. I knew who I was – who I really was, not who I could have been, not who I was supposed to be. And it wasn't life, experience, that I felt I was cheated out of, no, not that. Never that. It was knowledge. Maybe that knowledge would have been nothing, maybe it would have absolutely no influence on me, or on anything. But, then, maybe it would have. I could have chosen, or had more of a choice to how I dealt with….

It.

Everything could have been worse, or better, or the same. There is no real way to be sure. I know that. But at least I would have known.

I should have known. I should have had that option and everything that came with it. Should have.

Didn't.

I shouldn't complain.

This…. Why is it that talking to no one – not even someone that once was – convinces me to speak, really speak, say things that I would have never said in the presence of anything familiar? Why is it that this I can see as open and safe and any other option just seems forced, suffocating? This is opportunity; anything else is unwelcome dread. And this in and of itself has no foreseeable logic to it. Here I have no connection but myself, and that connection was never even real. It was a lie told as the truth for so many years. It was a lie good enough – real enough – to create a tether between me and the grave – this nothing.

Of course, there is logic to my presence here. There is. I do have a connection to this place, to this headstone. If the truth had been the story told years prior, this landscape beneath the earth would have been all I ever experienced. This would have been it for me; however, it wasn't. That isn't how everything happened; that sequence of events never occurred. I am sitting above the dirt, not laying within it. So, there is logic here – to this. There is. I just can't connect with it.

I can't say that this excursion was entirely spontaneous: I had been thinking often of this place – of its meaning, of its significance, of its hold over my life. To say I had never considered this grave as more than nothing would be a lie, and I don't lie. Intentionally.

Just the same, I can't say my speaking – my confession – is entirely spontaneous: I had been thinking often of what was holding me back from speaking, and I think I've found the answer. Or, maybe, just one answer. Situations like this frequently have more than only one. I think it has something to do with the responsiveness of the audience. Here, alone in the graveyard, there is no one, only me. I am my own audience, and the only existing response comes from the one speaking. There, news – everything – comes as a startling revelation with no prior warning or indication when truly, aside from those situations entirely unpredictable, most everything has precursors, things that led right up to the moment in question. Most everything has a conclusion that can be drawn on evidence. But there, that isn't the case, and it hasn't bothered me until present time.

Their responsiveness had always been something I've loved, cherished, needed. That kind of reaction had never been a part of my life until I met them. It had always been reserved, careful, and at times cold. This – them – had been something different, something welcome once I had gotten past my original apprehension. It usually was. This time, there was just too much, and that reaction could never have been contained. And I have never been good with that which cannot be contained.

Here, there is nothing, no one – no reaction. Here, the only response is silence, which, I think, is exactly what I need: a little quiet.

Silence, however, does have its drawbacks; silence cannot answer any questions I might pose. Silence offers no insight but itself. But perhaps it is better than the alternative. Perhaps it is within silence that I will find my answers.

I am not entirely convinced that I have any other question aside from the ever so common what do I do? What am I supposed to say? Do I continue in the same fashion that did before, or has there been enough change to require immediate action?

Presumably, like most, I question the actions of others, and I question my own, but those aren't the questions one readily puts into words. Those are the questions we voice with our eyes alone, those are questions so often missed, so often unanswered – if they had an answer at all.

Perhaps they do not have answers. Or, perhaps they do, and we all just neglect to seriously look with the intent to find those answers. Perhaps their answers have never been as elusive as we make them out to be, but rather, we do not have the necessary search in us.

It has appeared that, more often than not, those are the only questions I've found it in me to ask as of late, and, more likely than not, are the only questions I've allowed myself to admit to having. It's been easier – or it was.

Of course, maybe we all see it – those questions – but, like me, none dare speak for fear of the answers. Maybe.

Those aren't the questions that cripple both those that ask and those that answer. No. It's the questions whose existence is masked until one singular moment where we stop – just stop, everything stops – and the question is suddenly there. And it hits us because we had never – never – considered that, and now it was all we could do.

But, it's the simple questions – the immediate ones – that give us the most pause. Those are the questions we have first off but somehow stumble over voicing until it is too late. The time has come and gone. Something makes them impossible to ask – not because of the questions themselves, because by themselves they are nothing, but because of what we mean by them. The real questions – the questions we never consider – are disguised through the simple.

Was it always meant to be like this, or did somewhere along the way everything go horribly awry?
Where do we go from here?
Is it even really 'we' anymore?
What are you doing?
Why didn't you leave?
Why did you stay?
Do you love him?
Really love him?

Where do I fit in in all of this?

Why?
Why?

Why?

It always comes back to that: why? There's the easy answer: because we did – said – this or that and it all led here; but then there's the more difficult, and that's where the answers lose meaning. Why did all these events that lead us here align perfectly in such a way that we ended up where we are?

But that isn't why I've found my way here: to debate amongst myself the intricacies of the word why. No.

I find myself here for the same reason I find myself doing much of anything in recent time.

Jane.

It always comes back to her.

It always comes back to why, and it always comes back to Jane.

But of course it does.

I don't say it. Never. Only that once, and since then never again. I can't. It means nothing, and will never mean any more. And because of that, I've only ever managed to say it once.

I won't say it again.

It was after she told me about Casey and about her. He left, asked her to go with him; she thought about it – really thought about it, but stayed. She loved him, he loved her. She loves him. She was pregnant. Jane was. It was after that, all of that. We had long since finished talking, and the quiet was everywhere. Unescapable. I said it once when I was alone with my thoughts; I said it out of something like anguish, and then, I stopped, just stopped. I remained in silence until morning, long enough that Jane asked if I was alright.

I should have been asking her that.

It doesn't surprise me when I think about it logically – despite so little of thing being logical. Looking at it, it was nearly always there: the way we spoke around each other, the way we act, the lingering glances, touches, company, the looks meant only for the other. It was there, all of it. For me.

But we only goes so far here.

My we doesn't exist but with me.

I went through all the motions, trying to rationalize. I told myself that I had to consider the possibility of it being an irrational reaction to the situation. Because Jane had just told me that she was not in fact leaving for Casey, the man that holds her love. Because Jane had just told me she was pregnant. So, I told myself that it was a lot to take in at once, and that was from where it came. But, that isn't true, is it?

I don't think so, no. No matter how much I wish it was.

If it had been just an irrational response, then there wouldn't be anything more to it. We all do, say, think things we don't really mean. They spill out in the dark where things are easily misconstrued, but in the light of day, they trickle away into the shadows.

There is, of course, more to it. That irrationality had to have come from somewhere, it had to mean something, and that meaning, I think, lies in the fact that all of it – all of this feeling – is irrational in and of itself.

All of that being said, an irrational response that meant nothing would have been greatly preferable to the rational response that meant both something and nothing simultaneously. It was rational given the circumstance, given the feeling. It was rational only after taking into account the irrationality of feeling emotion, feeling anything.

I do know what it means, and I do know that it changes things – my saying it, admitting its existence. Now, I have confirmed what had been there for some imperceptible amount of time. I know, and it changes things.

A lot has changed though, lately. Too much.

I should be asking her, again, if she is alright.

She lost the baby. Something happened, and now that particular future is no more. I have asked her before if she was alright; but, it's times like these that I think the question would mean the most, times when I know she is alone When she is by herself, times are the worst, I think. Jane would never admit that, at least not in present time. I am not, however, with her. Instead, I am here with myself and myself alone.

It is true. A lot has changed. And those differences between the past and present aren't just our own personal afflictions; they're all around us, within us.

Some things don't change. Some things take their meaning and hold on to it. Never let it go. They remain with the same significance of the initial blow, even when that first strike meant nothing. It first meant nothing, and it continues along, carrying that very same meaning.

And, it was because it did mean nothing that spurred my aversion to it. See, there was nothing to come of it, nowhere that it could go. The change around us never lifted a hand to this. When this longing for we comes from only one, it may as well be felt by none.

It always comes back to her.

Well? Thoughts?

(It's been a while since I've been here, hasn't it?)

xBecca