unnecessary sadness

There are moments that make all the other moments OK. The moments of resolution and understanding, of at last seeing the point of all of this! at the end of so many moments spent combing through endless uninspired words describing cash flows and future risks and debt revolvers. Words you never imagined existing until recent memory, and now seem to take over your entire existence.

Any meaningful and authentically challenging experience, they all say, will come with very high highs, and very low lows. You are taught that you must learn to be more comfortable with feeling uncomfortable. You wonder if this is all true. You bury your uncertainty in layers of sweaters and jangley silvery necklaces. Leather boots in fall, various shades of brown marching down Newbury St. with LA Burdick cup full of pumpkin spice in hand – and try to decipher what it is that seems so vaguely sweet, but unmistakably sad.

You think about purpose and calling and helping people and making a difference and being happy. All of these words that people toss around. Words with meaning, words without meaning. Meaning – as the soul to instantiate the sounds that fall out of our mouths.

These days I walk out the door and in a storm of envy I secretly judge all the tourists decked out in film noir-esque black leggings, black drapey sweater and black finger nails. The only thing that is not black is the brownish LV tote bag that seems to take over their entire frame. And sometimes the bleached reddish brownish hair that tumbles in smooth locks over all the black-ness. I wonder what will become of all of the contents of all of her shopping bags – probably relegated to some corner of her vast and expansive closet filled with other monogrammed Louis Vuittons.

I will probably never be that kind of woman. My own shopping bags are more modest in nature – still unsure of the woman in the idea that I would like to embody. Enigmatic, perhaps – but what does that really even mean. After you have lived in a language for a while, words start to take on their own meaning in the context of your own experiences. I wonder how much my concept of words and phrases actually overlaps with Webster’s storied definition.

Is that what you are looking for in me? That mysterious quality that rubs off in the layers I shed as I tell you I love you. The soul that is hiding behind all her layers of expensive black fabric, beautiful but falling apart at the seams.