I’ve had a post percolating since yesterday afternoon. Just before, or maybe after dinner I wrote:
Here we go… yet another dive in to personal psychology. There is, for me, some value in it. For one, I like to think about the chain of events and thoughts that lead down a path. I also think that we are constantly in search of where and how we fit in in the world. Finally, I think the exploration is valuable in terms of
That was all I got. I realized the topic was big and unwieldy. It was triggered by some songs, it involved personal history, it involved the psychology of repression, it was probably a lot of grasping at straws. As much as I hate passing judgment, I can be as guilty, if not more so, than the next person, in terms of analyzing someone or trying to figure out their motives. When I catch myself doing it, I at least try to call myself out on it – I was doing this yesterday. I remember when I first read the book Be the Person You Want to Find, I realized I was reading it with an eye on how to improve myself, but also with an eye on how to improve my former partner. I read it a second time attempting just to focus on me. Interpersonal relationships are so tricky because we project so much of our own thinking on to other people…. it’s impossible to know what they’re thinking or what their motivations and history are. Shit, as you’ll see in this post, just untangling my own motivations can be complicated.
I’m still working on that longer, challenging post. I sat down with it for about an hour this morning – my entire second cup of coffee time. In the mean time, there were other things I wanted to put out there, other thoughts tickling my brain (but also complicated). I used to write (something I stole from my ex-fiancee) that when the words won’t come, I resort to lists. I also resort to lists when maybe there are too many words or the subjects seem too disjointed. This may turn out to be that type of a post – fragments.
I spent more time looking for jobs yesterday. It’s not a great market. I got a thanks but no thanks email from a job in Colorado. Between my fiancee leaving, submitting poems for publication, being let go from my job, and now applying for jobs – I seem to be going all in on rejection – everyone says the same thing, just not a good fit. I can joke about it, but at times, it makes it very difficult to paint a vision of the future that I want – where do I fit? Is this what large swaths of life are (usually an undercurrent but sometimes overt and in your face) – a searching for where one fits?
One of the msot devastating aspects of losing a partner is in the untangling of the two selves. If you get to a point of not knowing where you begin and they end, as I felt, you start to question what was yours, what was real, what was inspired, what was borrowed. The very first woman I dated after getting divorced said she liked me but I was too new and needed to find myself – otherwise I would just adopt all of my new partner’s interests. This is common advice… it might even be wise advice. But, there’s a catch. For the fiercely independent people, this is what they look for in a partner. Perhaps it’s what they overemphasize or overvalue. It fits neatly in to their worldview of independence – it is less of a threat. They will preach about not losing oneself in a relationship and the value of having your own passions – both good things, but the super-independent can also be the types who always have one foot out the door. I know, because I sometimes find myself in that camp (though I seldom have one foot out the door). Not surprisingly, there is a whole lot of psychology that talks about how natural it is to take on the interests of your partner – some would argue that if you don’t do that, then it’s not much of a partnership. The romantics argue that if you’re not willing to lose yourself, then why bother (writing about gambling and love and the incredibly high stakes was my nod / preference to the beauty in getting lost). I suspect that a middle ground is most successful. You need to be yourself and you need to be one with this other person. You need to be willing to get lost, and then begin the process of always finding yourself and them and getting lost some more. And if that doesn’t sound impossible, I don’t know what does.
If you’ve read this blog, you know I was engaged. She left. Her leaving sent me on a journey of trying to be the person I want to find. It’s been about developing my own interests, contemplating what it means to be in a relationship, and examining my ever-shifting ideas on all of these subjects. It’s also been about listening to the competing voices in my head. The ones that call me out on my motives, the ones that justify my actions. It can get crowded in there, but usually two distinct and sometimes contradictory voices emerge – the doubter and the believer, the accuser and the defender. I have maintained that I am about duality if not multiplicity… and when the noise gets to be too much, when the self-anlysis feels likes it’s been one big circle, I turn to things like Buddhism that simply say “yes, it is one big circle.” I suspect everyone has these sides to them – how often they pay attention, I’m not sure.
Where all of this is going… I spent the bulk of my time last night doing three things: looking for jobs, researching cost of living in California, and starting a free course on search engine optimization (SEO) and content marketing. They are all interrelated, and they are also all connected to my ex-fiancee. She spent her entire life living on the west coast, mostly California. She and I went out to visit, and I kinda fell in love with the San Diego area. While I usually loath suburbs (and California can be quintessential suburbia), San Diego felt a little different. The small towns like Vista and Encinitas had charm (and a lot of brew pubs). I also love the idea of having good hikes and the ocean within an hour of just about everything. The problem for me… is the tiny critic, the doubter, who says, it’s just another attempt to hold on to what you’ve lost – to reconnect to the person who has walked away. I have to pay some attention to this voice. When my fiancee left, I revisited her blog. I read everything she wrote, especially her poems. I also re-read all of our texts. After exhausting myself of this, I sat back and said “now why the hell would I do that?” The best answer I could come up with was that I loved learning about this person, and to some degree I was trying to continue that learning – to continue that relationship. She left, but I didn’t (I wrote an entire blog piece on trying to conceptualize this notion of rooms and individual worlds). Knowing this, is enough to cast doubt on any of the things I do. That’s when the believer and defender storms in. He justifies my actions with purity of heart and sometimes logic. He says, but yes, you also looked up the best places to live in terms of the climate crisis, and San Diego was the one coastal city listed…. you walk down to the river everyday, being near the water is important, you love to hike, you love to be outside (San Diego has the most temperate days out of the year). I’ve also had a dating profile set to southern California and there are a lot more women that seem to fit what I’m looking for. Finally, the defender says…. when I met my fiancee she would joke that I’m such a Cali guy, laid back free spirit. How it was odd that she moved all the way across the country to find a Cali guy.
Like I said, it can get noisy in there. Am I trying to keep some sort of connection to who she is? Am I still trying to see the world she saw? Probably. She used to show me pictures of her house in San Diego, the one she had to redo all on her own after her husband passed – I loved the layout and sunlight… Is this who I am, a person who loves sunshine and water and mountains and a laid back vibe? Yes.
As for the content marketing – this too gets complicated. On the surface level, I hate it. I don’t like trying to sell people on things. Even worse, some of the early videos in the course focus on developing your personal brand – that makes me want to vomit. It makes me want to scream, I am a person, not a brand – this is what’s wrong with the world – we’ve made ourselves commodities. I am also realist about the world. I may need to pick up gig work in order to live out in California, and when I think about my skills – writing is one of my stronger ones (or so the deluded self thinks). When I take the time to edit myself, I can be concise and evocative (this blog is neither of those things). Again, my challenge is that my ex-fiancee is a copywriter – this is her bread and butter. On this, I can pretty safely say that I’m not doing it to learn about her or understand her – I don’t think she is a marketer in her heart of hearts, and I suspect that being around such jargon makes her die a little each day – it’s why I think she works in an area that isn’t entirely about selling a product, but is more about telling the story of people doing good work….
But writing in general… I’ve felt guilty about that too. I’d be lying if I said that when I started this blog I didn’t expect her to find it or have some hope that she would be moved by my poems. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hope that she would see a complex man that she loved and feel some of that tug on her heart. But in swoops the defender to say that to ascribe it all to those motives is inaccurate. I studied creative writing in college (6 or 7 different courses on poetry and fiction writing). I started a literary journal that was picked up by a handful of Borders Book Stores around the country. As a child, I wanted a desk for Christmas because I wanted to be a writer.
Even my move to Memphis came under my own scrutiny (and probably the scrutiny of others). A friend of mine seemed to think that I was only doing it to be closer to my ex. My ex indicated a similar sentiment. And again, the truth isn’t that simple. Of course, I wanted to remain close – geographically and emotionally. And as I considered the purity of my motives, the defender came storming in. He began by saying that she and I had talked about moving to North Carolina or somewhere down south where it was warmer and had a slower pace of life. The defender told me I was allowed to still want those things… that being the person I wanted to find would demand those things. I was struggling to stay afloat in Bucks County. I could do it, but it meant not contributing to my retirement, and not traveling or doing a lot of the things I wanted to do. The south has a cheaper cost of living, and most jobs were going to give me a pay bump. My friend who was being critical ghosted me after I came down here for job interviews – it felt like an indictment of my interviewing here in TN, she later indicated that was part of it. The defender created, but never shared, a spreadsheet of where I applied. Out of the nearly 60 applications, 4 of them were in TN, 5 were in TX, 18 were in NC, and 17 were in CA. It just happened that I was a finalist for two of the TN jobs, and the one here in Memphis was working to promote blues music (something I’ve been a fan of for over twenty years)…. But that little kernel of truth – yes, I wanted to be closer to her – was enough to make me feel like I needed to defend all of my actions.
Sometimes in life you meet people who do for you things you never thought were possible – things you might not have done on your own. I’ve written a lot about being alone and learning to do some of these things for myself. I believe it’s important to be able to do some of these things on our own. Relying entirely on someone else gets exhausting for the someone else. Last night I was reading an article on why it’s so difficult for some people to let go. Part of it addressed this notion of two individuals becoming intertwined. At it’s worst, it can be a cycle of abuse and co-dependence – toxic for both yet neither knows how to break the cycle. At it’s best, it can bring each person home to a sense of their authentic self. My ex-fiancee is a writer and a free spirit with an amazing vibe and grace. Because of her, I started writing more, because of her, I saw a different way to be easy going and carefree. Because of her, I began to believe that home could be anywhere as long as we were together. She helped me rediscover a more authentic version of myself. I am forever indebted to her for that. I had hoped that I was doing something similar for her, and that we could have a lifetime of exchanging those gifts. I also hate that she has been so influential, that every step has a twinge of self-doubt “am I doing this for me, am I doing this for her, am I doing this for us?” The answer, for now is always, yes. We were very different and very very much the same. She left because I wasn’t good for her. Hope though I might, I don’t expect her to change her heart or mind on that. I stayed because she was very good for me. I don’t expect that I’ll change my heart or mind on that.
As a final note… because I find it interesting when life imitates art and vice versa. We were two people from opposite sides of the world (or country). East coast meets west coast. We collided with spectacular force. Perhaps we’ve both looked inward (moved away from the coasts). I suspect we’ll both come out the other side somewhere. More and more, I’m feeling drawn to California. I can only say my motives are perfectly pure in their impurity. Part of me feels that’s where we were both meant to end up. Part of me feels it’s where I need to go, either for closure, a new start, or simply to fit in. Whatever the motives are, I can only guarantee that they will never go unexamined. Yes, it is all one circle.