These Nights Never Go As Planned

vie immobile | via Tumblr

The night starts in a burst of excitement. Your heart beats in a way it hasn’t in so so long, reminding you that all these years spent on a dream refuse to slip into the past in vain. What about all those nights, you wonder, when it seemed like things were going to go differently, like you weren’t just trying to convince yourself that it would play out in one way, but that another wanted it that way, too.

But still, you know you’ve nearly reached the point where you’ve  grown tired of wishing and hoping and just want something new to come along and excite you. The narrative of several years has exhausted you, the characters familiar, comfortable, and seemingly easy to understand, yet nearly worn out. Haven’t we been here? You wonder. Didn’t I let this other one go? Another part of you churns with anxiety to move on and forget.  It can hurt to hope, and you’ve been hurt before. Telltale signs turned into misconceptions. Encouragement from others into comfort that they were wrong. Are you willing to go there again? Are you wiling to risk so much pain?

And so, it begins to dawn on you, in a place where the lights are soft and the music is low, that this one thing you once thought you wanted so much is just not meant to be. Finally, it seems, you are coming to terms with months and months of evidence that the past is the past. Signs rush all around you, but another part of your soul desperately tries to ignore them, believing that your desire is enough, your wish is enough.

So the night continues. Stories are told, eyes locked, whispers exchanged. Your mind sways between the one side to which your instinct directs you and the other side to which your desire pulls you.

And with such questions swimming in your head, the night ends in a blur with an impenetrable confusion come morning. What you thought would solve it all has only confused you more. You wonder if it was worth it, or if your blind, impulsive wish can ever be anything more.

Maybe the confusion is clarity. Maybe the tension between instinct and desire can be reconciled.
Or maybe it is time to let it all go.

Oh, how these nights never go as planned.