20250422

Abe woke me up early, needed to not be alone. He fell back asleep, and I explored my own terrain. I was surprised, yesterday, at the shift that I felt... It wasn't clear to me what I was seeing. I took the time to see, and this is what I found:

add up to nothing

:) We talked, explored, when Abe woke up.

Later, he sent Brad a voice memo:

Hey man, hope you're having a good morning. um I had some interesting clarity this morning about kind of what's going on and how to maybe navigate forward. um which is good because yes, sir it was really hard. But um, you know, I think like I I view a lot of life in like metaphors and a lot I view a lot of like metaphors in workouts because we've, you know, learned a lot and done a lot in the last like seven years. But so I feel like you and I and us like try to deadlift really heavy and that's like really fucked us up. It fucked me. It didn't fuck Isaac up, but it fucked me up. It fucked you up. um, and what do you do when you tweak something or you hurt yourself in in the gym? Like you go to physical therapy? And I feel like what you don't do is like you don't sit on your ass and you don't like, you know, wait for something to heal. You know, you have to like do the work to like, you know, do smaller exercise, different exercises, whatever. And I feel like we try to deadlift and I feel like as we develop our friendship, like, um, we're in like the physical therapy like phase of it, right? And that means like, yeah, not, um, not trying to deadlift, which is, you know, like fucking and whatever dates or whatever. um, but we do different exercises and we we work on getting stronger, right? in a different way. um, so that way when we want a deadlift again, and that's we might never want a deadlift again. I'm not even doing it. I'm not saying this. It's not a perfect metaphor, but like when you want to be able to be strong enough to work out again, you're strong enough, right? And I feel like I'm on my end, like I was trying to, you know, I was falling for you and, you know, I have I had feelings for you, um, but it's because of the way I was approaching the exercise, the deadlift, right? And I feel like I'm a master at like shifting gears and adapting to like what is and what's real. And what's real was it was giving you stress and it was giving me stress. And that's like not, not, you don't continue doing the same lift when it's giving you pain, you know? You switch up the workout. You go to physical therapy, you like get stronger in different areas together, you know? And I feel like as we develop our friendship, which I which I'm really excited about, you know, um, I think it would be a lot less stressful, you know, when we hang out and we know that there might there's not going to be a hook up at the end or there's not like, you know, you're hanging out with me and my friends and we're just chilling and it's great and it's not like, you know, we're not trying to deadlift if that makes sense. So I think that gave me some clarity about how I want to approach it. I feel like I'm happy and willing to and really honestly need to, you know, like put it on the shelf and and close up that that part of what we were trying to do. um in order to be strong in other areas, right? Like, because at the end of the day, like, I care about you as a person, like, yeah, whatever, there was attraction, whatever. But the reason why I talked to you is because you're fucking rat. Like, and I feel like I was traveling and I met this awesome dude and I wanted, you know, be friends with him, you know, and it was hard for me to like consider even not doing that because, you know, we have we have such a cool friendship and connection. I want you to see like my bullshit, like life. Like I want you to see my Instagram and it's fucking weird and gay as fuck sometimes. And like, because I'm not trying to impress you. I don't want it like, you know, like it's a different approach to it's a different approach to um building something new, right? And um that brings me piece because it's like, great, I'm putting up the shelf like I don't I'm not doing this to hook up with you. I'm not doing this too fall in love with you. Like, I truly, and and I know you can trust me and I know that you believe me when I say this. Like I'm not, I'm doing this because like I really respect you as a person and I want to be your friend. And I feel like there are a million ways to to do that. And I think that this is like a good approach, you know, like respecting each other and um like going to physical therapy, if you will. And there's a million ways to do physical therapy, right? Like, um, but yeah, I feel like more I feel better about thinking it of it like that. Like as we navigate this new friendship, like not not doing it the same way we did, you know, because we try to deadlift and it fucking hurt both of us. And I was anxious too. and I don't want to be anxious and that's not the life I want to live. And also, it wasn't anxious because of you was anxious because of how we were doing it. um and I think friendship and and caring for each other is just like uh an avenue that is fucking rad and um has a lot of potential to grow into in a a garden that's fucking dope. um and hopefully you'd be friends with our friends and whatever, you know, um does that make sense? I hope you can find and hear some clarity in that and some hope that um there's a lot cool a lot of cool things ahead that are a lot less stressful for both of us because I don't want to be stressed either. But yeah, um, does that all make sense?

:)

Waking from my nap yesterday, I felt like I had slipped out of now-time/no-time. I was firmly in the feeling of the shift. I think I told Abe, "what I'm feeling looks like sadness, but isn't?". I cried, I cried, I cried. Abe and I were so physically close in the night, as we slept — makeouts, handjobs. Surprisingly physical.

I texted Brad at 3:21am this morning:

lol I legitimately woke up to pee with “you'll be in my heart” playing in my head

Writing this morning served as a sort of bridge-building for myself to get back to now-time/no-time, to get back into the space between stories.

I recognize this as being a form of my rhythm with Locksmith and Mechanic, in how my days used to look when those projects were at my fore: I would stabilize the now, and rest. Stabilize the now, and rest.

I rest. :)