Emotional masochism

I admit it; sometimes, I read old emails or look at old picture or pull out the mix-CD my first girlfriend made me (with a companion booklet of all the lyrics and a beautiful 2-page long introductory letter.)

I admit I look at postsecrets hoping to recognize handwriting saying "I still love you" or "I'm only with him because he reminds me of you."

I admit that I dial in phone numbers and never press send -- thankfully -- yet play the conversations out in my head.

I admit that I'll sometimes walk out of my way -- both geographically and chronologically -- hoping that the fates allow me to run into certain people. (Ironically, the one time the fates did put me in the place I masochistically want to be in was a time I didn't want to be in it and had no clue that where I was would be that place.)

But I don't think this is a bad thing, per se. Sometimes, I'll go so far as to convince myself that it's good for me!

Because every time I hear those 10 songs on that CD, I cry a little less and their meaning dies a little. Every time I look at old pictures, they are merely images of a past I sometimes wish did not exist and other times embrace for what it was and nothing more. Every time I read old emails -- well, some of them still hurt, but most of them become only words on a page when I, a musician, live in an aural world and aural society and the written word can only capture a fraction of what the human voice can.

So yeah -- I have my nights when this emotional masochism gets the better of me, but overall, I'd like to hope that it makes it easier to move on. I look at these things less and less, and hope for anonymous postcards diminishes, and the fact that the females who were so near to my heart were both writers and would be bothered by the fact that this sentence is the antithesis of parallelism doesn't bother me at all. (Of course, my own Strunk and White trained mind is bothered by it, but not enough to go back and change it.)

I've done stupid things in the past: I've pressed 'send' before, both telephonically and email-ically speaking. I've gone so far as to buy stamps and hand-write my own emotional suicide note, proverbially speaking. But not for quite some time.

And even though I should probably just stop being such an emotional masochist, I have to say, I'm proud of me.

I could do a hell of a lot worse.