The West Wing of my Heart
So I finally caught up on the last 4 weeks of the west wing tonight. The show has been my favorite one on television since I first started watching it back in 2000 or 2001. The idealism, the compromises, the struggle to find nobility amongst the muck and grime of reality has always been inspiring and truthful to me. I suppose it’s only fitting that in true solidarity with the realities of life, the inevitable endings to beginnings, that the show is finally coming to a close.
The show’s coming end has made me think about what bookends I’ve been applying to my life, and I think there definitely some chapters finally ending. I was thinking that my life right now is about as together as it’s been in quite some time. I’ve got a challenging job that has a lot of possibilities in it, I’m dating a beautiful, smart, thoughtful and caring woman, and heck I’ve even got some clean laundry. =) One of the biggest changes of the last year I think has been a focus on my life, and what I’m doing right here, right now. I used to always be so focused on my hopes for the future, for contingency plans, that I don’t think I ever really got down to the business of building on what was good and possible in my life right then. I’m a little sad that I haven’t kept up with my friends recently, I know in particular I’ve been missing Jack and Mike, but I hope they’ll forgive me a bit. It’s been a tough road, and I haven’t made it any easier by staying in DC. Just a couple of weeks ago I had a reminder of how tough it can be, and I guess of how many roads I’ve walked… I went to see the new Spike Lee Joint, “Inside Man” at the Gallery place theatre. Josh met me down at the Verizon center, and even though we were pretty early, we went and sat down in the theatre. We’re sitting there chatting, people start drifting in, and maybe after 4 or 5 people have come in, who should sit down 4 seats down from us, but Allie and her most recent boy. Honestly I don’t believe in coincidences, and I do believe that some things happen for reasons beyond scientific inevitability, and this really felt like one of those situations. Hell, the Allie I knew wouldn’t have ever been interested in a bank heist movie, but there she was, painfully beautiful as ever. I have to say seeing her so unexpectedly, and at the movies which has always been such an important and safe part of my life, was pretty hard. Allie, being Allie, noticed me not too long after sitting down as well and after her guy came back from the concession stand hustled him down a few rows from me. I was pretty thankful, which surprised me. Normally I would have been offended that she couldn’t talk to me, but I think I’m coming to realize that seeing her is always going to be awful and painful for me. It’s like seeing someone who’s died come back, and then seeing them die all over again. The pain of our breakup, all the regret and sorrow I feel for losing her in my life and for who I was in our relationship, all the negative feelings I have for how she treated me, it just boils back up.
Time does heal though, while my encounter with her was like a small knife being slipped into my ribs, the pain faded, my life went on, and for once I just wanted to forget about her, forget that she still existed. Ironically, I finally understood why Allie has chosen to forget so much of her life, to bury it. Sometimes that’s the only way we can enjoy what we have now, and the world has so much wonder and happiness to offer that I really do think it is/would be a shame to dwell on what was lost. When we die we leave this all behind, and when we live we have to leave a lot of things behind as well.
I suppose the biggest thing it’s made me think about is “where next?” I think my time in DC may be nearing a close. I enjoy living here, but I live amongst the ruins of my old life and the foundations of my new. I think as I grow and nurture my future, it will take me far away from this town. I don’t want to see a building, a face, a moment in time, and always see a sad and upsetting past. I want to look out on the sun shining on new joys, and I think sometimes all I can do here is paint over old canvases. I miss my parents, and my friends in North Carolina, maybe I’ll move closer to home, or maybe I’ll finally follow my leanings and take off for the Pacific NorthWest. I think Portland could be my kind of town.
Anyhow it’s late and I have work tomorrow. Hasta luego…
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If you go to Seattle/Portland, give me a shout. I might be interested in that.