Xbox, We Need To Talk

I still love you.  Lately, well, I feel like we’ve been growing apart.  The way you’ve started talking about your hopes and dreams for the future just doesn’t sound like you.  Or at least it doesn’t sound like us.  You’ve changed.  It’s not all good.

I can remember when we first met.  You were dark, clunky and chunky.  You did not possess the sort of traditional beauty that turned heads or won beauty pageants.  You had your own brand of beauty, and it really caught my eye.  I quickly learned you were smart, uncomplicated, edgy and really cool.  We had so much in common, the same interests, a lot of the same friends.  To say we really hit it off is an understatement.  Those first couple of years were amazing.  We were inseparable.  Remember that streak of consecutive nights we were up until 3 am “doing it”?  I do.

I think it started around the time you invented your imaginary friend.  What was her name?  Ava something?  Avatar?  Anyway, you made a doll in her likeness, you know, to make her real.  Then you showered her with senseless gifts of clothing, makeup and bling.  What a waste.  That was just one symptom in what was the beginning in a shift in your persona.  You lightened your wardrobe and lost weight.  You developed a hot temperament which I’m still convinced played a role in that time you had to rush off to Texas to have that red eye thing treated.  You started amassing pile after pile of shiny, showy junk, a ton of clutter like pictures, movies, ads for things on sale, ads for new things, ads for old things, ads for . . .  well you get the idea.  You became interested in a wide range of activities outside of our relationship.  You became less about us, more about you, you and your growing collection of superficial whims.

But so far I’ve been able to see through all of that.  Because when I wade in beyond all the extraneous noise and chaos, I’ve been able to see you down deep where it really matters.  I’ve been able to glimpse the real you, or at least glimpse what I used to believe was the real you.

Recently you turned quiet and secretive.  I worried you were having an affair with that needy boss of yours, Mr. Publisher.  I’ve noticed the way he looks at you.  I can tell he’d really like to have his way with you, but in a creepy, possibly unhealthy way.

Then bang!  You have some sort of peyote induced epiphany about your future and you start spewing gibberish.  You say I should get up and exercise yet you’re getting me a servant named Kinect to spoil me in couch ridden laziness?  You want Kinect to watch us get our freak on?  You want to tell me how to shop, how not to shop?  You want me to keep you constantly turned on?  You want to redecorate, to fill our world with more distractions, more noise, more senseless fluff?  You want fake tits and botox?  What about what I want?  ‘Cause I don’t want any of that bullshit.  Or is this really about what he wants?  Maybe I’m no longer relevant.  Or maybe you think I’m too stupid to know what I want, that you know better what I’d want if I was smart enough to really know what I wanted.

It’s like you suddenly have the need to be all things to all people.  That’s not realistic.  At best you can be some things to many people.  Right now I’m not even feeling like I’m part of that group of “many people”.  I don't want some things.  I want you.

I thought you would always be the ONE for me.  Now I don’t know what to think.  I do know that if I can’t find a pathway through all the layers of your newly proclaimed destiny so I can once again find and hopefully still identify with the real you , then I’ll . . . . . . . well I’ll . . . . . well hell, I don’t know what I’ll do.  I just know if you don’t start talking soon and try to meet me part way, then I’m not sure our relationship can continue.  Even then, I just don’t know.