Impossible or Implausible?

The phrase “Nothing is impossible” is one bandied around a lot. In theory, it makes everyone feel better, more secure in the knowledge that no matter how crazy, how strange their desires or needs, there’s surely *some* way to get them sorted.

But it isn’t really true, is it. Alchemists tried for centuries to turn lead into gold, for example. As far as I’m aware, even understanding the chemical differences of these two metals as we do now, we can’t change one into the other. Either that or I’m really showing my lack of chemistry knowledge here.

So some things are still impossible to do.

On the other hand, many things that *seem* impossible are actually simply implausible. They are quite unlikely, but if you get lucky it just might be possible.

I discussed last week’s blog with a couple of people this week, with interesting results, thus sparking this debate today. Both myself and one of these people decided that we wanted something “impossible”. That was the word we both used.

Yet having had a few days to think over this, I’m unsure if “impossible” was the right word. “Unlikely”, “implausible”, “not much of a chance” yes. But actually “impossible”…? I actually don’t know.

I’m a person of many contrasts and contradictions. I have to be. It is the nature of who I am. As a teacher especially, I have to wear a different face that the one I present to people outside school. I wear a different face again when talking to my friends back home. Another face for when I talk to people online. Another for my parents and family, and so on. Probably, we all do. Maybe we even *have* to. Maybe our lives are so complicated, there’re so many different influences pulling us in so many directions, that to present a unified face to the world is imp---hmmm. Impossible/implausible? You decide!

As a person who wears so many different masks, I sometimes get lost within all these different identities. It’s easy enough to do. You tell one group of people that you’re fine, while you’ve already told another, closer set of people that you’ve been feeling suicidal. Extreme example, but that’s what happens when you wear masks. And sometimes you forget which one you’re wearing with which group and then it all goes to hell.

So how does this relate to last week? Well, I find more and more that I like people with complications, people whose heads are just a little bit messed up. That’s not to say I like every crazy person I come across — as a teacher that’s a *lot* of people — but I do have a special fondness for people who are a little bit different: probably because I felt a little bit different myself growing up.

The thing is, I’m divided in terms of what I want, and sometimes I wonder if I can have both.

Do I want someone who is the Damsel in Distress type? Who needs saving.
Or do I want someone who is headstrong and independent?
I think both.

Do I want someone who is passionate and wants to spend all their spare time with me?
Or do I want someone who is a bit of a loner and who needs their own time and space?
Again I think both.

Do I want someone who is so crazy about me that she’d do anything for me?
Or do I want someone who is a bit too good for me, that I don’t deserve, that I have to work to keep? A challenge?

I suppose really I just want someone that clicks with me, who is on my wavelength. Is that an impossible task, given my inherent contradictions, or is it simply implausible?

Was I accurate when I said I think I wanted an impossible girl?

I suppose reading through this that it doesn’t really seem all that difficult to find someone that can do all of these things. Just looking at the words on the screen makes them seem easier to understand than they do floating around in my head. I guess it just comes back to my “type” of girl, as I blogged last week. I’m after someone who defies normal conventions, who I can’t quite figure out, who is appealing in ways that she shouldn’t be.

If Rowan from my novel was a real girl — and I’m not saying that she isn’t, somewhere — she’d probably be my kind of woman. But she’s got issues. She’s attractive in an unconventional way. She’s moody and temperamental. She can be quite condescending towards people, men especially. She likes her own space, to do things in her own time, and her own way. But she’s also very bright. She’s passionate and, if you click with her, she’s very affectionate and quite needy in some ways underneath it all. She, like me, wears masks. Not the physical kind like Romany, the voice of my subconscious does, but the metaphysical kind.

I don’t think I really understand Rowan. I’m not sure where the idea for someone that complicated came from. While the novels may in some way be an allegory for my life, Rowan wasn’t based on any particular person. In fact, when I started writing about her, I was dating a very, very different type of person. Maybe I should have seen something in that back then?

So, have I come to any conclusions?

No, not really. I am no clearer now than I was when I started writing this blog really. Do I know anyone who could maybe be my Rowan? Yes. Do I think a relationship with this person could ever work? Yes. Do I think it’s actually possible?

Well, maybe it’s not plausible… but *nothing* is impossible, right?