I’m happy to be writing every day. The last few days, it’s been how I’ve spent the bulk of my time. This morning, I find myself wanting to tackle a few topics, and not really knowing where to start, not really sure how this post will meander and take shape (obviously with a useless prologue about writing). Should my thoughts be handled as one or broken out? How do they fit together?
I also have a nagging voice, asking me if I would be writing this much (or at all) if B, my ex-fiancee, and I were still together? Are there blissfully happy writers? And if so, what are they writing about? Plot and story, necessarily involve conflict – otherwise there’s just setting and character study. How do writers not be miserable sons of bitches when their primary trade is in conflict? So much of what I’ve written and posted has been this public working through of my internal conflict. Believe it or not, I’m a pretty happy person (with a heavy soul).
I spent some time yesterday re-reading some of my posts. I’m not sure I could have written the ones I consider to be my best from the secure comfort of a relationship. I’m not sure I would have ever been out on my own where I’d meet a guy like Carlos if B and I were still together. I’m not sure I would have written about running as a metaphor for the relationship if we were still together. Almost all of the poems are reflections on happy, small moments, that might have required this deep loss to fully appreciate them.
That kinda becomes the crux of being in a relationship, right? Figuring out who I am as an individual and who I am in this relationship. And that goes for all relationships. We’re always trying to figure where we fit in. How do we move in the world? This is where the Buddhists may be on to something. Maybe you just accept that you are. You fit in where you fit in.
Maybe instead of setting it up as an either/or dynamic…. I can be individual me or I can be relationship me, you simply say, I am me, and I am always changing… B and I weren’t together long enough to figure out the compromise, to figure out what to hold on to, what to build, what to merge, and what to let go. In the moment, I can’t say it was a concern of mine. What I thought was so amazing about our relationship was that I always felt we’d be able to figure it out – I didn’t need a long-term plan for who I was going to be or how I was going to be. Love was going to allow for all types of growth and pain and joy. I was happy to have a partner who I believed would accept whoever I was and whoever I became.
I started to write a poem last night. I initially called it “I was just a catalyst.” The inspiration was coming from one of the images I posted yesterday (digital clippings). “You measure love in transformation.” Love is resonance and transformation. Love calls you home, love becomes home, transforms home, defines home. I absolutely felt like my heart had been opened, and called home. I felt alive and was happy to discover a world not only through my eyes, but through B’s eyes as well. In attempting the poem, I tried to flip my thoughts a little bit. What was I to her? I’ve thought about the massive transformation B was undergoing – her heart opening up after years of grieving. In that regard, I can take some solace in having helped her transform. I wish I could have seen it all the way through.
These days, I’m thinking a lot about change. Do we need to do it alone? Can we achieve profound personal change in a relationship? Through a relationship? I get the feeling that she and I are both in the process of re-figuring out who we are and who we want to be now…. which begs the question who were we when we met? Did we not like those people? Couldn’t we have helped each other through this process? Couldn’t we still? Did the “we” have to die in order for the two individuals to survive? There were a few times during the course of our relationship in which B would tell me that I have forever changed her. The only text I could find was this one:
[Tuesday, August 21, 2018 9:16:29 PM] B: And even if it doesn’t work out between us, meeting you has changed my life. And I’m not afraid to tell them
She was referring to telling her late husband’s family about me. There were a few other times when she would say “if it doesn’t work out…. she’ll always remember me for having opened her heart.” Her friends told me that I brought love back in to her life – I hope so. I know she brought it in to mine. Part of me wonders if she always knew we wouldn’t work, that maybe she wasn’t ready for that type of change yet. In searching for those instances (the times she said I changed her life), I came across an early exchange:
[Monday, July 9, 2018 8:44:04 AM] B: I think I get a little anxious before I leave you on Sundays…it ripples into how I think about things.
Everything between us is incredible. You’re everything I’ve been looking for, and far more…
…and I’m really happy about where this relationship is going, and the speed in which we get there.
I’m not risking anything more than you are in this relationship.
I may just going to be awkward on Sundays until my head catches up with my heart.
Xo
[Monday, July 9, 2018 8:51:50 AM] Me: It’s all really good and I’m ok if you’re a little quiet or off on Sundays. We can take it all in stride.
You are who I’ve spent the last two years looking for. I’m really happy that we’ve found each other, and I love the idea of having longer term plans with you.
All of which is to say – it really is all good. I’m crazy about you even if you feel a little awkward at times. And trust me, my head and heart are going at warp speed too and sometimes crashing in to each other….
[Monday, July 9, 2018 9:18:53 AM] B: You’re so outwardly calm about everything, that unless you’re jacked on coffee I don’t see your awkward moments…haha
So glad you understand and are don’t interpret my honesty for weakness. I want you to know everything you’re getting with me. Knowing that you accept me, I feel like I can give myself completely to you—awkwardness and all.
How do two people mutually agree that they have found everything they’re looking for, and not find a way to hold on to that? Yes, as you go through the process of mutual discovery – you will learn that the other person has flaws and the rose colored glasses come off. I always told B that I was bound to disappoint her, and she was bound to disappoint me. I think the best relationships get to a point of saying I don’t like this… but you are still everything I’ve been looking for. I never did get to learn “everything I was getting” with her. I only know, nothing had scared me away and I didn’t want to stop learning.
A lot of therapy books on relationships – ok, I can’t say a lot… the few books on relationships that I’ve read say one of the keys during tough times is to find ways to see the other person as the person you first fell in love with. If you can do that, you can find an innocence in them, you can see their actions and behaviors as a form of love as opposed to anything done intended to harm you. Relationships require things like forgiveness and understanding. Staying together usually means trying to see the harm done to you as something less than intentional. So often, people hurt each other because they are trying to address something that is hurting inside them.
With loss also comes a transformation. I’m still feeling my way through that process. I’m growing comfortable with multiplicity and duality…. Love and Hate, Me and Us and You, Joy and Pain (cue the Rob Base). I’d like to think that it will better prepare me for whatever comes next, but I’m a firm believer that whatever comes next will be just as surprising, just as challenging, just as painful, and hopefully just as wonderful. And who knows… maybe what comes next looks a lot like what came before, but also different. I kinda hope so.