I can’t count the number of times I paced my apartment yesterday wanting to write, or create, or move, or build, or do just about anything other than pace around the apartment trying to figure out where to start. I wanted to grill in the backyard. I wanted to hang at a bar and have drinks with friends. I wanted to sit on a bench with my girl and the pooch and watch the sunset over the Mississippi. I wanted to go to a concert. I wanted to know where I’d be living or what I’d be doing. Having so many uncertainties in life leads to a type of paralysis and a feeling of isolation that gets… well… overwhelming. It’s as if I’m working through my very own Gordian knot of life or how to live. It sucks and it’s frustrating.
Over the past year, I feel like I’ve had so many aspects of my identity stripped away, that I have days where I’m not exactly sure of who I am or who I hope to be. I’ve been intentional in trying to build out other aspects (writing, reading), but what do I do when those things don’t feel like they’re enough? And to say I don’t know who or how I want to be isn’t entirely accurate. I want all of the things I wanted a year and a half ago – which is the last time my life not only felt in balance but full of possibilities. Life wasn’t perfect (it seldom is), but it was the best I could remember it being in a really long time. I was re-establishing connections with friends, I was in a loving and committed relationship with a really hopeful future, I was working a job that had meaning and paid the bills. Now, I have none of those things, and when I poke at any one of them (job, dating, making friends), I find myself woefully disappointed and limited in my options. Not too long ago, everything felt like it was within reach. Now, very few things seem attainable.
Usually when I feel stuck like that, I write about feeling stuck. Yesterday, as I read through old posts and tried to figure out what pieces of this blog to unhide and bring back and what to leave hidden, I was having a lot of “what’s the point” moments at nearly every turn. I went for two walks yesterday – they sometimes help clear my head. Neither of them helped much. If anything, I found myself thinking about what a funny and fun-loving guy I used to be. Now, the best I can muster is a level of detached peace. Lately, I’ve been missing the life I had. Enough so that I began to wonder if I can be that person again – I’m honestly not sure. I knew taking a new job in a new city was, at best, a distraction. It was an attempt to improve my finances (better pay, cheaper cost of living) so that I might “reposition” myself. I had hoped it would last long enough for other things to take root (friends, companionship, interests). I wasn’t ready to meet someone new, so I went down this path of trying to be the person I want to find – while always having this nagging feeling of having lost the person I wanted to find, the person that felt like home. Sometimes, it feels like the only way forward is to find my way back.
As I walked yesterday, I thought about who I was before my fiancee left. I also thought about some of the women I’ve known who have said a similar thing about themselves – a desire to get back to who they used to be. The first woman I dated (for any length of time) after I got divorced would tell me that I’d have loved the person she was before her husband cheated on her. She was thinner and funnier and full of swagger. She would tell me how awesome she used to be. We dated for a few months. She broke up with me a few times. She would say how little trust she had in me, in us, in anything and how she knew she was always sabotaging things. She said she can barely tuck her crazy in long enough to make anything last. We’re in touch from time to time. She’s been in a relationship for two years now. She’s still dealing with the same things.
My fiancee would say similar things. How she was such a different person before… before she and her husband had issues, before he got sick, before so many things. She would tell me how broken she was. During a few counseling sessions together, we would touch on the issue of her self-doubt and inner critic – something that stemmed from her relationship with her mother. She was tremendously brave to show herself like this in front of me. In the end, she blamed me and said I broke her. And while I’ve never accepted that charge, I wish I would have asked more questions about how I could help. I wish we would have had more time to work through these things together. A Facebook friend who is estranged from her mother shared this “chart.” I suspect a few of these things apply to a number of women I’ve known.
I’ve avoided dating for over a year now. I saw how being in a really honest relationship with my fiancee, brought things from my past to the fore. I don’t doubt that I triggered a number of things for her, and it’s easy to look at the trigger as the cause. This, unfortunately, is what happens with unresolved grief or pain. And in the new relationship you have the choice of exposing and sharing your past or burying it. Shame and fear and lack of trust usually cause us to bury our past.
I was thinking about this a few weeks ago on a morning walk. Our past and present are like seeds in a field. A loving relationship brings sun and water to the entire field – indiscriminately. When you bury your negative past along with the all of the good things… everything gets water and sun and everything takes root and grows. If instead, you plant the good things, and leave exposed the negative, you begin to cultivate what grows and you have the chance to prevent the past from taking root. Many many books on relationships talk about how what you bring in to a relationship will come out. These women I’ve known, the ones who have lamented who they used to be… knew they weren’t bringing their best self.
Part of my frustration (aside from the job, etc.) is that some days I know I’m not in a place to bring my best self – not because I don’t want to… My ex-fiancee would tell me that she was glad that I dated a lot of people before her – she knew that I knew what I was looking for. I still know what I’m looking for, and what I can’t reconcile with someone new is that I’m looking for what I already had.
…And to show the glass partially (maybe not half) full, I’m probably as fit as I’ve ever been. A month or two ago I was lamenting the extra jiggle in the gut… I didn’t set out to lose weight, but I wanted to be more fit. I’m down about 13 pounds (mostly from exercise and fewer beers). On any given day I walk between 3 and 8 miles, and I try to lift every other day. Here’s a lame, but slightly more svelte selfie. I’ve tried to take some of me smiling, and I can’t seem to get it right. If there’s something I really miss about my old self, it’s how I looked in pictures with my fiancee. I tired to use that argument with her – you can see how happy we were.
And the sunsets over the Mississippi continue to be stunning. I’m not always out for them – but when I catch them, they’re pretty fantastic.
