Beginnings

Cosmic Love
We don't eat

have got to be the most stressful part of any relationship. I'm sure that some people would argue that endings are the most difficult. But endings are easy. Finite. They may be painful, surely,but they're short lived. There's also a sort of beauty in the chaos of endings. Something primal gets satisfied in the separation. The fight or flight. The lone wolf mentality. The build up of emotions, and the explosion that sets the two apart like the Big Bang.
Beginnings are tough though. I'm not sure why they still are tough for me, but they are. Throughout my long and arduous dating career, the beginnings have always been plagued by the same set of uncertainties that seem to draw out insecurities and anxieties. Never at any other time in a relationship is so much self worth based on a single text or phone call.
"okayy" with two 'y's'. Must mean she likes me.
No response for two hours. Must mean she's not interested.
Random texts saying hey. Must mean she's thinking about me.
Asking to know what I'm up to. Maybe she's too needy.
All of this agonized over for hours. Trying to connect faint dots, and draw on past experiences, to try and  guess what the other is thinking about.
Then there's the obligatory lapse in communication. You don't hear from her for a few days, so you reach out. Finally, at what seems like the 11th hour, they return your call or text.
I lost my phone. I fell asleep. My battery died, and I left my charger at a friend's.
This seems to be a constant. No matter the girl. No matter the relationship. A gulf opens that threatens to swallow your feelings, pride, and future plans inside of it.
So what causes this? These same feelings threaten even the most minor of relationships. Sometimes I'll not even have a desire to continue a relationship, yet still that gulf opens up, and I find myself wondering how I can live without her.
This from someone who goes out of his way to be alone. To have time to myself. To keep people at a distance.
I think it's my need to understand people that drives this self doubt, this need to analyze. I need to know what to expect. Because uncertainty is the bane of my existence. The thing that keeps me up at night. The things that drives my fears. It's not sharks that I'm afraid of. It's the uncertainty of what's lurking below me, next to me. Show me an enemy I can fight, and I'll rise. But put that same danger behind a door, and I start to defeat myself.
The thing about a relationship is that it's not just one person. I of course know how I'll react in any situation. How I am alone. But you lose that when you enter a relationship.
There might be strength in numbers, but it takes time to get there. And while I know my strength alone, it seems to take a hit each time someone tries to join their strength with mine.

Stop Time

Higher Love
Someone Like You

I know scent is the strongest sense tied to memory. Although I only went there a handful of times when I was very young, I still get taken back to my Grandparents house in Cambridge when someone just comes in from smoking a cigarette.  The smell of cum trees takes me back to a spring day when I was riding my bike up Kimberwick (a street I would later be arrested on on the same bicycle). And the smell of a certain cologne reminds me of dead fish, because my brother used half a bottle of it to cover up the smell of his when it died.
In a whiff, a breath, these fragrant time capsules take me back to times and moments I haven't thought of in years or decades.
For me, I think a close second in terms of epoch recall is music. Music has played both an active and passive role in my life. Sometimes only as background music as life carries on, and other times as a tool to suppress or embellish certain feelings or emotions.
Sometimes hearing a certain song can have such a strong trigger that I'm immediately taken back to a time in my life. Reading Lord of the Rings, driving in my tinted, black Honda with chrome rims, breaking up with a girlfriend, grade school dances, rolling in the gym, sitting in the back of my Mom's minivan. Uncle Kracker, Tupac, Korn, Crazy Town, Cloudkicker, Seal...
While not as jarring as the trigger of scent, music is captured much more easily.  My newest addiction has been building a truly beautiful playlist on Spotify. With cassettes and tapes, music was often lost too easily, or borrowed too freely. By keeping track of my music digitally I feel like I can capture tiny moments and keep them forever.
Not only do I enjoy finding these gems by scouring music websites, but linking this great music to new and powerful memories is also rewarding. I might not remember a certain Black Keys song, or a certain moment in the back of Ant's Jeep in 20 years, but if I keep collecting and adding, I just might be able to live a moment over again that I otherwise would have forgotten.