Posted: Jun 27, 08 11:45am
I don't belong to any relationship groups and since Checking In is the place I go when I'm on TBD, I'm putting this here. Live with it. :)
The following in italics was my relationship philosophy from the time of my divorce in 1991 to the events surrounding and subsequent to the death of my father Christmas 2007. That's 17 years. I wrote about this philosophy over a year ago - February 2007 - before life changed, time warped reality, and a particular level of unconsciousness turned into a new level of consciousness.
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I often think there could be a misconception by others as to how I feel about them, or where I stand in regards to friendships, "romantic" relationships, whatever.
I adore tons of people. That doesn't mean I am romantically attracted to anyone. The thought of a relationship that continues for decades with anyone is beyond my ken, anyway. There is usually no longterm anything with me. If you've been around always, you're either related to me or you're a friend who ignores those moments (hours, days, weeks, months) when I don't communicate with you and I am not socially connected to you - and I might even snap at you and walk away from you.
People have to accept this in me, and quite often they don't.
But they have to, one way or another.
Romance is a real struggle for me, because I don't really have that capacity. I don't fall "in love", I don't imagine my little dream wedding or white-picket-fenced cottage, and I don't see myself sharing the rest of my life with anyone. I have dated in the past, but within a week or two or three, it would end. I admit I was the runner, always. Three weeks into dating someone, I'd usually say to myself, "What the heck am I doing?" Then you would see that little scene in O Brother Where Art Thou? where George Clooney is running down the middle of the river with the dogs after him, trying to reach the getaway car parked on the dock. Remember that? Now just imagine me doing that.
The only time I didn't run was with someone earlier this year, and believe me, it took everything I had to let it get to the point where he ran from me. I knew it was coming, and I let it go on. In a sense I sort of pat myself on the back for lasting nearly 3 months, but at the same time, I feel really bad for letting it get to the point where he felt bad for running. At least he was better at it than I ever was. He was kind enough to do it in email, which was more than I would have ever done for him if I had done the running. When I ran, I went in the middle of the night, so to speak. I wouldn't say a word, they had no idea it was coming, I would just disappear. Case in point for anyone who knew me when I still lived in Altoona, the guy who was in wherever the heck that was...I forget...started with an M...I left him without a word, he phoned, he stopped by, I didn't answer the phone, I didn't answer the door, I didn't respond to emails, I just disappeared.
You see? I don't end things well, and I consistently end things.
I'm not going to start anything any more. I'm not going to date, I'm not going to try any sort of relationships. The person who might have the patience and persistence to start something and come after me when I ran just isn't there.
It's better this way.
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Standing in my ivory tower a week ago, I tossed that relationship philosophy out the window after a month of battling hard to keep it. I watched without remorse as it shattered completely on the concrete below. This is why.
A huge generational pass occurred with the death of my father last Christmas Eve. Life started to change, and I started to look at things a little differently. I received a really bad report on my heart in February and started fighting the uphill battle to try to correct it without heart surgery. As my daughter Diana said to me gently after this report, "You really can't die, Mama. You haven't seen your grandchildren graduate." Graduate? I don't even have grandchildren yet, nobody's pregnant, but she made me realise there is more to real life than researching and debating world issues. It doesn't mean I should deny these things in my life. What it means is I should look outside them and see if there isn't some level of happiness to be gleaned in the sheer selfish enjoyment of the love of others and the giving of love to others.
A great catalyst in this change was the encouragement and comments made by my friends Bob and Lynn on a different social networking site about how stuffy and difficult my initial profile made me appear when clearly, in chatting with me, nothing could be farther from the truth. It seemed contradictory to them, so I gave it some thought, redid that profile, and surprisingly, the sense of satisfaction from doing so hit me right square between the eyes, sort of like that potato flying into the skull of that cow when my potato cannon "misfired" (okay, I was a really bad shot).
And then from out of nowhere comes this man, chastising someone for putting a private blog in the spotlight on that particular social site, who was kind, good-hearted, honest, truthful, straightforward, loaded with tattoos, loves Harleys....and made me instantly want to be a better person.
Stop. Rewind.
Where did that last bit come from...that feeling of wanting to be a better person?
I had said this to my friend Bob before, but that was in the context of making changes. I was fairly convinced I just needed to change a couple of little things and move forward as I always have done in the past.
This time I didn't feel that I was already good enough. I wanted to grow, rebuild myself, try to repair the damage to my heart and soul that I had caused by encasing it in titanium steel and tossing off the key. I wanted to go back to being the free-spirit version of me, the version that saw the wonder in something as simple as a blade of grass. I wanted to be the culmination of all of my good life experiences.
As we have talked, this amazing, insightful man has said the simplest things to me, and I have found more pieces of the puzzle inside me falling into place. Each piece has landed gently, perfectly, and rightside up - and I have felt more comfortable and at ease, not just with me, but also this man.
As this puzzle fleshes out the me I should have always been, I realise that I don't want to be without him in my life. When we finish this puzzle, we're going to get out the many-thousand-piece one that is the future ahead of us - the one that starts with his one-way ticket back.
He will be back here for a few days in July, return to England long enough to get his car sold and other bits straightened out. He will return permanently in August.
So that's a small portion of why I've not been here and I am, indeed, "just checking in".
