love is supposed to be based on trust, and trust on love, it's something rare and beautiful when people can confide in each other without fearing what the other person will think

If... 

 

• you could have more faith in one thing, what would it be?

      other peoples' affection and care for me

• you could erase one thing from your conscience, what would it be?

      ending my marriage. It was sad and stressful - but also transformative, positive (read: "for the best"), and amicable. That makes an awkward twist in the relationships that surrounded us, too. Some people saw me being happy, which I certainly was in some ways. I felt relieved and proud, sometimes excited about the new path that I was taking. Of course, I also felt terrified and sad and guilty.... And so did he. A little less of the happy side, honestly, because it had been me who took the first step. 

    I would love to be able to erase some of that remorse. To know that he, at least, absolves me.

• you could have changed one thing in the life of someone now deceased, what would it be?

      I would have been with Chris when he died. I am overwhelmed by guilt and anger, to think that he died alone.

• you could eliminate the anger in someone you know and replace it with inner peace, who would you choose?

     DG. Pretty sure he wouldn't identify himself as angry, but it seems to me that there's a layer of that in there somewhere. Lots of reasons for it, from what I know, and insufficient opportunity to express it, much less resolve it.      

    Love can be troubling.

• there was an occasion in your life when you wish you had used less candor, when would it be?

    oh Hell yes, so many times. Like every single job interview I've ever had, where something I said features strongly on those lists of "shit NOT to say at a job interview."

    And the conversation I had with Nick's mom when I dropped off all the crap he'd left at my apartment, the last time we broke up. I brought it all in a big black garbage bag, clunked it on the floor in their living room, and proceeded to tell her WAY too much information about how our relationship had detonated. 

    And the decade of TMI conversations I had with Fluffy K., who finally had to—ever so gently—let me know that confession can be a compulsion, essentially attention-seeking, and that there's a difference between 'not telling everything' and 'keeping one's own counsel.'

cat hug

• you could alter other people's perception of you, what would you change?

              I would like to not be seen, by anyone, even in memory, as primarily a bosom

• you were to name the most comforting way to be touched by another person, what would it be?

      a real hug, the kind that goes on a little longer than the socially required variety, that is warm and affectionate.

[from If: Questions for the Soul; the title quotation is from E.A. Bucchianeri, from Brushstrokes of a Gadfly]