Random stuff

The unequivocal judge and the giddy, curious child in my brain are arguing.
the voices of fear and rebellion who drive and conquer me
are all me

That crazy little thing called Love

I’m reading “Eat Pay Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert, a book I’ve seen in countless bookstores, Targets, and airports but never actually considered reading.   It’s an amazing book.  I feel like Elizabeth Gilbert is my emotional twin sister.  She’s the funny, articulate one who meditates and I’m the analytical one who kickboxes and ponders Christianity.  Within that lovely tome penned by my spiritual kindred, she describes infatuation perfectly in a paragraph.  Only, her description of infatuation sounds dangerously close to my idea of real romantic love.

And so, I’m forced consider that I don’t know a thing about love.  Which is troubling because I recently corrected my therapist when she suggested I was dating in order to get married and have children.  I explained that no, those were not priorities of mine at all.  I told her that I want to fall in love.  If I fall in love, then I’ll consider marriage and children, but it seems like a pointless thing to think about otherwise.  (And that’s saying something, considering the number of pointless things I do think about every day.)

It also made me seriously think that I need a new therapist because if she thinks I’m after kids and a husband, she can’t be terribly insightful.  Admittedly, I’ve been honing the art of sharing only what I want people to see since a very tender age, but she’s been trained to see through just that sort of bullshit, right?  But I digress.

I know a lot about some kinds of love, like unconditional love.  I’m fortunate enough to have experienced this love for all of my life.  First from my father, who was perhaps the most flawed human I’ve ever encountered.  But knowing his own foibles so well, he forgave the rest of us unquestioningly.  Since I was old enough to comprehend, I knew I could never do anything that would make me fall from grace in his eyes.  That’s not to say he didn’t correct me or punish me, because he did.  But he never judged me and found me lacking.  Through it all, I trusted that he loved me.  And when he passed away, I realized that I had one more person who loved me unconditionally, but for different reasons: my Grandpa.  He loved me because he was proud of me, not because he’d lived a life so crazy he couldn’t imagine faulting anyone else for theirs.  That’s the most amazing gift.  I try to see myself through his eyes when I need extra strength.  I aspire to learn as much as I can from him to perhaps, if I’m really diligent, be as wise and loving myself.

In between the childhood love from my father and the adult love from my Grandpa, I had love from the most amazing friends.  People who knew the worst of me and still thought I was something worth loving, who I respected so much that they lifted me and formed me.  So is it any wonder that when my life is balanced and I find energy to spare, I want to love?

I learned from my father how dangerous it can be to love the wrong people too much.  But that knowledge alone wasn’t enough to keep me from loving the wrong people anyway, sometimes.  Just say “Lars” and watch my face.  If your eye is well-trained enough, you’ll see the flicker of pain that still gets called to life with the mention of his name.  He made me believe in the depth of his unconditional love too, and then he left.

My heart is still shaken by that love and loss.  And yet even during the most acute moments of that suffering, I knew that I wouldn’t wish away the experience.  I would rather have known that love and accepted the ensuing pain than not have felt it at all.  The other love and loss that shakes my heart is the knowledge that I couldn’t always love the people I care about enough to keep them safe.  There was a time when I believed in my own power to give and love and support.  Now I’m not so sure.  My father taught me what it feels like to be loved unconditionally, but he’s also someone I wasn’t strong enough to save in return.

So I tried saving other men to make up for it, and I’ve done a decent job.  I am a Muse sometimes, believing the best in people until they believe it in themselves.  Armed with their new-found knowledge, they create an amazing relationship with the next person they meet.  Some nights I am really sick of being the Muse for someone else’s future benefit.

My people

I started to remember how to live again in November, and I’m still shudderingly happy over how wonderful people can be.  I had no idea what to expect because, let’s face it, I became the worst thing I could possibly be:  a shitty friend.  Not disloyal or backstabbing or petty or fake.  Worse: absent.  Dropped off the face of the earth, quietly, leaving no forwarding address.

I slipped through the thicket without telling anyone I was leaving.  To be fair, I didn’t plan the trip.  I couldn’t stay so I came home, only to realize that you can never really come back.  I didn’t find the same serenity I left because what they say is true: it’s not where you are, it’s who you are.  And I was still me, completely chewed up and spit out by losing love.  Skinner was right.  Negative reinforcement is FAR more effective than punishment.

I didn’t realize how much luggage I was bringing for the trip either.  Luggage is the wrong word.  Baggage is the wrong word too, although it’s connotatively more correct.  I brought a Uhaul full of dangerous thoughts with me.  Have you ever tried to drive a Uhaul in a forest, alone, with a vanload of marauders and needy children who you must serve along the way?

And since I don’t like witnesses to my shortcomings, these trips never include company.  I had no energy left to give anyway.  Matt was there and watched me go.  But a recluse can’t give advice on how not to withdraw, so he didn’t ask questions.  He tried to be a good friend, and I will always give him credit for silently accepting the little I had to offer in those times, for feeding me, and letting me sleep on the couch with the TV running all night.  But what I also took from that time with him was the knowledge that he isn’t the person who can lift me when I need it, that he doesn’t know how.  I really am too remote and foreign for him to understand.

But I’m not too remote and foreign for some people to understand, and those people are the lovely friends who were here waiting for my return.  I still don’t understand what I did to deserve you.