Me in the Spotlight

I am sitting here in the mess of my office, thinking about the rotten shape of my home and how I believe that a disorganized environment is a signal of a disorganized mind. Maybe it's really a sign of a busy mind too overwhelmed with other obligations to spare time on the environment. My house is a disaster, yes, but I haven't felt like investing the required effort in maintaining its order... something I'm trying to rectify today, in between messing around online.

My office is a postitive disaster. A 10x10 room with four bookcases, a filing cabinet, a computer desk, and a single bed is overburdened beyond all that's realistic. Especially since my parents emptied the contents of my attic in here, and now boxes clutter up whatever space remained. Especially since the cats, uh, soiled the mattress on the aforementioned single bed (which isn't a huge crisis, as the mattress is worthless, and throwing it out is the only humane possiblity for it). I'd love to empty out the room, vacuum it, and restock it only with absolute essentials, but that solution strategy never contained a plan to deal with the nonessentials I can't somehow throw away and don't really want to store. Really, I should throw everything out and start over again; fortunately, that's what's happening with most of what I found in my attic, at least.

As I putter around, I can't seem to exorcise TCMT from my mind. We did detention together yesterday morning, and the chemistry between us (that much always flourished) was as palpable to me as ever. I know, I know, chemistry on its own doesn't make relationships, but a lack of chemistry certainly can restrain, pollute, or taint a relationship, as well. Chemistry does matter. But like I told P at lunch yesterday, sometimes I felt that TCMT and I were like a pair of parallel lines. We are similar, lying in the same plane, but not meeting. I liked him, but I never "got" him, not like I got the HL (and however disparate we were, I did get him), but with the HL, there was a different issue. He and I were overlapping circles, and where we overlapped, everything was GREAT, but the un-overlapped parts were much bigger than the overlapping ones. It weakened the structure. There wasn't enough there, even with the good parts being so good.

I don't know. I asked her if she thought the fault is mine, that my own psychological unpreparedness might stymie our potential, and she said something to the effect of, "Everyone will drive you crazy, but with some people it's worth it." Well, my question remains; was it not worth it with TCMT because I myself didn't want to deal, or because he himself wasn't worth it? Or are they two halves of the same issue?

Anyway, my plan of keeping a low profile is working out just as I mean it to, and until I achieve clarity of purpose, I shall rely on my plan. When in doubt of what to do, do nothing; I can always act later. Anyway, my need to continue learning about myself as a single and autonomous woman remains, and I guess that if I reawaken a rapport with TCMT, I could be jeopardizing it... but perhaps walking that path has been a quicker walk than I anticipated. Perhaps I've found a clarity about TCMT and wanting to experience some of life with him, having had a month to think about it.

The year I took off from teaching was the single most valuable year of my life in preparing me to reenter the classroom having reflected, considered, weighed pros and cons... and when I did reenter the classroom, I was a much better teacher than I had been. Now this has been a month off relationships, not a year, but I'm older and hopefully wiser, and I'm willing to consider my options.

But... maybe not to act on my considerations. Not yet.

Basics

In my drama free life, with the purpose of reflection on who I am now and who I am meant to be, it's nice to have little drama. My laundry's caught up. My dishes are washed. I am sleeping excellently! The mechanics of living only for me are much, much, much easier than conjoining them with another. I am, on my own, more relaxed, more at peace, than I've been in recent memory.

So... should a relationship materialize in my life, it shouldn't detract from this relaxation and peace. My bending for another shouldn't result in any degree of my own breakage. Perhaps that's the first thing I've begun to recognize. That relationships that batter me out of shape and render me unrecognizable to myself are not those which I must feel duty bound to perpetuate. Compromising too much of who I am to get along with someone whom I want to see (the HL) or what I'm generally inclined to do (TCMT) is doomed to failure.

Another thing I've realized is that the lion's share of relationships are, as I said in another post, "only for a little while." Friends come and go... parents die... spouses take hikes or die too... relationships end and new ones are forged... it's a constant cycle. It's my own bad luck that I'm the product of long lines of stable marriages (even if not all of them were ultimately self-actualized and entirely fulfilling) where people did remain married until death parted them, allowing a stable framework to shelter their own lives and the lives of their families. It's my own back luck that my entirely nurturing and careful upbringing has led me to expect a result from relationships that, more often than not, doesn't materialize.

Is it okay, though? Should I let this dawning awareness of the transitory nature of relationships affect my own expectations and standards? It's impossible for it not to. I may proceed a bit more cautiously... more slowly... more wisely?... with the idea of their -- and my -- humanity is an issue that must rest firmly in my line of vision instead of stars... or roses... and the idea of finding joy of the process of growing closer to someone else, instead of hoping to achieve a commingling of souls so that I can relax and feel spiritually at home, is the point.

It really is the journey, not the destination... because I've learned that the destination is the end, and all relationships are going to end, somehow or some way.

Interval

I've noticed I'm writing here a lot more regularly. I used to write about once a month, but now it's more like once a week or more... there must be more on my mind.

Well... I've been man-free for two+ weeks. Not long. As much as I'd like to crawl into the comfort of someone's arms, I see that the strings involved would tie me up and generate some kind of flight reflex.

And I also keep thinking about TCMT. I keep thinking that cutting him loose was the first smart thing I've done since the divorce. The fact is... I really think I don't want him. I may've wanted what I imagined he was, but when I got to know him better, I found he's not that. He starts out as that, a gentlemanly adult man -- a man -- with a sense of the aesthetic, but once we got closer, I found things about him that bothered me. Those things about him are part of who he is, they're not just behaviors he could modify for my sake out of courtesy. That doesn't work; people don't change. I couldn't change to be what the HL seems to expect from the woman of his life, and over time I faulted him for his shallow, immoral, and even judgemental values, as they obscured his vision of what is actually terrific about me. As for TCMT, it's the same thing... he has a lovely home (he struggles to keep in budget), a good job (that he complains about incessantly), few friends (and palpable neediness), a solid income (that is stretched to screaming), and definite views and attitudes (with traces of inflexibility).

I like competent people. While the HL has obvious faults, and so does my ex-husband, both are fundamentally competent people who didn't need a person in their lives to make up for practical weaknesses. Of course, they didn't need me at all, since both have foresaken me (of course, the HL does have a need for sex on a regular basis, which is why he always has a woman handy... but beyond that, he doesn't really need her), but the point is that I don't want to be needed because some man can't function, can't flourish, on his way through the world. I felt like the TCMT might become that. He ran out of gas for god's sake one time when he was driving back to town from an out-of-town inservice. Who does that? And he was altogether to willing to cede to me some caretaking... and he wanted to take care of me in turn, but I don't need that. I don't need someone to mow my yard or whatever; I am competent too.

Peeks of Sunshine

Sunshine is peeking over the horizon. Just a little. Just a few rays. The phone hasn't rung all week since Tuesday, I'm eating and sleeping (I even cooked one night), and the panic or anxiety I've been feeling is starting to abate, as nothing is feeding it anymore. I cut off the drama at the source.

I'm still struggling a little bit. While I desperately need this time and know I must traverse the coming months alone, it's scary, a little bit. Letting go is hard. This whole experience between the HL and TCMT is hard in another way from the divorce; that turned my entire life upside down publically, practically, personally, and fundamentally. Losing the relationship was just one loss amidst so many.

With this experience, I have to ask myself what's right for me and what I mean to have with my life. I thought I had that answer in my marriage, but I never asked myself this through the divorce, as the demanding realities of that experience, and maybe the trauma of it, precluded such invasive self-examination. So now I've finally stopped, stopped the insanity... and discovered that at this crossroads of my life, I don't know the answer. I'm living a life I never really imagined I'd live. I'm a 35 year old divorced professional woman as a master's degree -- a manifestation of myself I never imagined I'd have the chance to get to know. What does she want?

Many people turn to relationships and having families to give their lives purpose and focus. My friends who are parents adore their children without qualification and find comfort and security from their husbands or wives. Those marital relationships are simple for some, more complicated for others, but even the challenging relationships provide a hub... a hinge... a center point off of which to live the rest of "real life." The family is the rationale.

And here I am, choosing the opposite. Choosing to be alone. It's the stronger choice right now, the harder choice, and the necessary choice... and it's scary. I know that I'm 35 years old, but I'm youthful, I'm child-free, and I'm fairly interesting, so I realize it's unlikely I'll be alone forever unless I make that my choice, yet the possibility remains that I could be alone, even if a time arises when I don't want to be. Maybe I'll find that I do want to be... or that I want to be alone if the alternative choice is attachment to someone who's somehow unworthy of the feelings I may discover that I have for him and the hopes I may bear for our future.

But I'm finally learning that I'm unwilling to compromise my own needs for those of another, which means that I'd have to find someone who's own needs dovetail with my own in a, well, uninvasive kind of way. For example, when TCMT called me Tuesday, he showed me that he placed his own feelings ahead of mine, though he claims he really likes me. His needs trespassed on mine. If he "really" liked me, he'd want what's best for me, and if I say that's time, he'd respect it. But what he really wants, and what he admitted in so many words, is for me to be happy with him. That's not the same at all.

Now one could argue that I'm placing my own needs firmly before his by telling him I don't want a relationship after all, and he gets no consideration, that his feelings don't come before mine. I suppose that's true as far as it goes, but in a backwards kind of way, I know I'm doing him a favor not to pretend feelings I'm not having. Also, whoever says "no" must prevail; it's the unwritten law of dating relationships.

I think I understand my ex-husband a little better through all this... and I definitely understand the HL better. I still think my ex-husband was wrong to ditch a marriage, when on all those levels so much more was at stake, but I do feel more compassionate about his inability to master all that must've been going through his mind. I don't exonerate him, in other words, but I forgive him. I forgive them all.

Ring

I love the word ring. It can mean so many things... jewelry (and all those mostly happy associations with rings), spreading out (freedom ringing), audible sounds (phone rings), and even bad things having to do with collar stains or bathtubs.

TCMT used to say he'd "ring" me when he meant he'd call, using that lovely continental English by way of Canada. Well, tonight he DID ring me. The only reason I answered was that I thought I heard my brother's voice on the machine, or otherwise, I'd not have. I hadn't expected him to call, and I told him so.

We talked inncuously enough for a few minutes. He was light and open, telling me that his kids finally won their first game... and he both invited me to an annual party at one of his friends' house this weekend ("I will totally understand if you don't want to go, but you ARE welcome")... and he announced that he's made that infernal doctor's appointment for a blood test. And that's... fine.

Congratulations on the game, I said. No, I think I'll take a pass on Saturday, but thanks... going to keep my low profile a while. Glad you're taking care of his blood test.

Well, he will do what he will. So shall I. Other than showing me that "giving me space and time" means to him "calling occasionally and hoping that's okay" when to me it means "leaving me totally alone," it's... fine.

Though K is online right now, after some rather pointed "grilling" emails today, I have decided just not to discuss this or any other quas-romantic matters with him anymore... not to HAVE quasi-romantic matters anymore... that's what this time is all about. Anyway, I don't want to hear K lecture me that I need to tell TCMT to GO AWAY like all men right now... I know P will read this eventually, but it will be okay with her altogether.

I need time. Real time... macro time... months of time... Time with a capital letter. Calling me isn't really giving me that time, but I never said not to call, and it's one ring that in the end. Friends do call each other... he cares about me... and I've made my terms that I don't want a relationship. Everything's on my terms right now. Anyway, I wouldn't have answered if I'd known it was he; anyone can call here after all, but I don't have to answer all rings.

But TIME... time right now is my only need, my confidante, my companion, my lover, my keeper, my friend -- time and the truth. So... in the end, it's not that he called, but I don't care that he called. Let time ring.

Spoiler Alert!

Hey! You might want to skip this one in case it pisses you off. I welcome you to read, and I'll warn you before I get to the hairy parts, but I don't want you to want to smack me... I really need my outlet for the truth and consequences right now. In using the outlet, I have to say some stuff that I know you won't necessarily like about some people I know you don't like. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!

Yesterday was a hard, overwhelming, confusing, difficult, weird, long long day.

I woke up around eight and went to aerobics at nine as I'm wont to do on Saturdays... and the lot of us went to breakfast to celebrate a birthday together afterwards. TCMT had called me en route to breakfast -- I called him afterwards. He wanted to hook up, so we arranged to have coffee around 2:00 at a coffee house near both our homes.

I was nervous... sick... afraid that the conversation would turn me defensive and upset both of us... creating drama that I don't want to have to think about. I had already told him last week that I had realized that I didn't want to be in a relationship (I'd been pulling back as I've written here, and I decided I needed to take this chance to be altogether on my own while I have it, and considering that my brain seems to be searching for things not to like about him, somehow, it wasn't working for me). I knew he was upset about it, and I didn't know what we'd find in conversation at this coffee house... but we hadn't discussed anything face to face, and I felt that to be the person I want to be, I owed him that much consideration.

He sat down, and he was visibly emotional... we talked for two and a half hours. I learned more about him, learned that the money issue really isn't a problem, that he does have resources but strives to live on what he earns and to save (just like me, he doesn't consider his bank account a dynamic element of his life, though if what he says is true, his bank account is easily four times what mine is)... unloaded my frustration of him not getting tested as I'd asked or taking care of business that way and some others.

It was hard, sitting there on the sunny sidewalk watching people pass by on that beautiful afternoon... listening to him bare himself about feeling so good to have me around, how he thought things were going well... not understanding what changed in me, and why it has to change between us.... Without getting defensive, I tried to explain that essentially, I need what I need, which is not to feel on any level that I have accountability to anyone. I didn't mince words for the first time in my life, though such difficult conversations usually stymie me (in the immortal words of Jan Denise, my relationship guru, "When you don't know what to say, you have to ask yourself what you're afraid to say," and I made myself say something, something true, rather than hold back anything and want to kick myself later). The truth is my friend. The truth is the answer to any question we pose. He was equally candid. He didn't expect that he likes me this much. He wants me. He wants to date me... he wants a relationship. He put all the cards on the table, without whining, pleading, or diminishing his case. I respected that. I respected a lot about him that afternoon.

And he smelled good.

But what's right for me right now is space. I like him, but not enough, because there's unfinished business in my head that makes me unable to like anyone enough. I stuck to my guns. It'd have been easy to succomb to beautiful words... "You can have everything you want with me." Here I have a handsome man, a good man, at my feet. But if he's the right handsome man, my inner voice said, he's going to respect your needs. It's okay for him to fight for what he wants... and so it must be okay for me to do that.

After that, P and I went to dinner, and I rehashed the whole thing. And after that begins the part she isn't going to like.

The HL had been coaching me through most of the week's drama. Having made inroads to this friendship he proportedly wants to have, I felt ready to make tentative plans to get together with him as friends, not having seen him for three months... three months of a fair number of changes. I thought it was actually time. I had grown to understand his dilemma with me by virtue of my situation with TCMT, and I knew what he meant about being friends. We were going to meet for dinner, but instead, he stopped by my house later that night.

We split a bottle of wine and shot the breeze about everything... TCMT, my family, his family, our previous relationship, his current one, my master's degree, his job layoff. And... it felt different. It felt good, but it was different. He looked different. I felt different. I am not at his feet anymore (see the parallel?), and just like with TCMT, spoke with honesty and candor, without (finally!) censoring myself one iota. We achieved genuine intimacy for the first time... we met as equals, me without my neediness, and him without his perception that he had to caretake for my needs.

Okay, STOP READING HERE IF YOU THINK YOU'LL GET PISSED, AND YOU CAN START READING WHERE I WAVE YOU DOWN BELOW! After we'd been talking for about two or three hours, I was in a confidential revelation that I'm sometimes just so freaking tired of having to be strong all the time, and he said, "I am going to give you a hug," which he did. It was familiar, he smelled perfect, and it's like there's some kind of charismatic connection between us. It felt good. So we kept talking, sitting together on the couch. Nothing inappropriate happened. If the metaphorical vibe did start vibrating a little, well, I made myself clear: "I don't want you to be in a position where I think you're less of a man (by tresspassing in any way on his girlfriend)." Would he have, though, if I'd left the chance? I don't know. Maybe a little bit. But I didn't want to know he was capable of something like that, especially if I was knowing because I was the one who helped him tresspass.

Also, it was getting late. He expressed an openness to sack out on the couch, having an early scuba diving thing the next morning.... or we could continue talking. On one hand, I would have loved that... but I thought about it, and I said, "If you intend to continue dating 'her,' I think you better go." What? he asked. "If you have a girlfriend, spend the night in an ex-girlfriend's house, and tell her that nothing happened -- even if it's true -- she'd be an idiot to believe that." I confess that a part of me wanted him to stay... no, really, wanted him not to "intend to continue dating her." I don't know that I want to date him myself, but I wish... still, oh, P's going to kill me, but the truth is the answer... and the truth is that in that moment, I wanted him to want me, even after all this time... not to want someone else. To say, "I like her, but somehow, this feels too good to give it up, and I don't want to give it up." But while he sat close to me for a while, he still went back to her, so to speak. He left.

And I was glad he left, once he'd left. I hate drama. I know he likes his girlfriend, and he's dating her because he want to explore if he can find whatever it is he's looking for with her. After all, we alreday determined that we don't have it between the two of us. But the relationship is still there in a way... transformed, perhaps, but still there. But I made sure I changed my shirt before I went to bed, so the cologne smell wouldn't give a charge to the demons of my passionate nature, and I fell asleep feeling fairly virtuous and noble... but I woke up feeling very confused and a bit irritated. He has a girlfriend... what was that last night?

Okay, RESUME READING HERE! I also found myself thinking about TCMT when I woke up, when I didn't think about him at all last night. "You can have everything you want with me."

Jan Denise says that perfect love comes from three components... intimacy (a psychological connection with one another), passion (erotic attraction), and commitment (a decision to maintain the connection). The HL and I used to have what she calls "shallow love," which is passion and commitment, without intimacy. TCMT and I have, at least from my perspective, companionate, which is intimacy and (potential) commitment... which is a lot like my marriage. But Jan also says that "lopsided love," while unsatisfying when one or the other person wonders if he or she can find what's missing from someone else, has the potential for the missing parts to grow... to use the loves you have to nurture the love you want.

But... today is supposed to be my day to stop.

I'm supposed to be road tripping. I slept only five hours last night. Maybe I'll go to Galveston instead and nap on the beach... take myself to dinner... and come home in time to go to the theater for the meeting to volunteer.

I am growing up... I really am... and it's hard... everything has always to be so hard.

Words

Last night, I found myself physically avoiding TCMT. I've felt like avoiding since my parents were here, and if there's a connection, I'm not aware of it consciously. What I AM aware of consciously is my desire -- still -- to be taken care of, and I see all the ways he doesn't seem to take care of himself. It makes me wonder if he has the potential or the power to take care of me when he doesn't even take good enough care of himself.

Of course, I've already discussed the dubious wisdom of approaching my significant adult relationships as though I'm the child in them. It's not a wise idea. But I think I'm talking about another level of care, here. He needs new socks. Sometimes, he complains about situations or others so he doesn't always emphasize his own personal responsibility. His house is usually in order, but it's not clean clean. Though he's made inroads to getting disease testing, he still hasn't. And then, I know he's strapped financially; last night, he said that even when he earned more money, he was still frugal.

Now, just to contrast him with the HL (and I hate it when my friend K does this to justify remaining with his new lady friend, so I'm stressing here that I'm comparing merely to make a comparison with someone else, and the HL is my most recent long-term relationship), the HL never wanted for anything materially insofar as nice clothes or accoutrements. He never blamed ANYONE anytime for anything, even when the other person might've deserved it. Now, his place was an absolute disaster area sometimes, but he always took care of business, period. I always felt that the HL was the man. I never shrank from him physically. Connection?