half a bottle of wine in and i’m back to my old self. back the old self into an empty house and the words come surface forward.

now i understand why i sometimes come back from climbing with matt and find lisl almost drunk and cooking something complicated while spewing tv-on-the-computer into the kitchen. i tried coming back to an empty dark house today and found myself here: finally writing in the journal with a mug of wine in hand and broiled zucchini in my stomach.

my hesitations about a relationship with matt: i’m not a writing, circle thinking Alina in his company. I don’t talk  about the things my old self loved to dwell on. Do we need to grow out of an “existential crisis” stage and stop thinking so much about thinking? Is this a mature, balanced version of my self?

one small, tiny, small conversation re-seeded a tree of thoughts and the roots can be found in high school.

i used to think that every conflict had to play out like a novel: both characters tell their side, show their cards and the childhood grievance that gave each adult this complex is revealed. with the cause aired, we should never have the argument again. instead, we are one step closer to repaired. with matt i’ve learned to let things slide back under the surface. we will both pretend we’re not mad and soon believe this.

he tells me: please stop talking; please lets not talk about this and i obey. this request is the most hurtful he can make.

then again, he is right. there is something about living with another person that makes you blame him when you’re tired and hungry and your day at work didn’t go well. i seem to create conflict out of a nothing and it melts back into a semi-nothing even without my usual careful examination. some hurts are not worth wording. or they may do more damage once made explicit.

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