This Poem Kills Platitudes

My friend Juni's father wrote this poem. He has died, and she wasn't even aware that he'd written poetry.

The words here, the simplicity of how they're written, the rawness of it, the aching vulnerability, I've just got tears streaming down my face.

This is what love is. This is how you love. Belief or acceptance of anything else won't get you very far.

And fuck Chris for not wanting to try.

***

I have a need for you to be what I make you.
It's very difficult for me
to let you come to me
on your own,
as only what you are

and

I have a need to be what you want to make me.
It's very difficult for me
to come to you
on my own, 
as only what I am.

I am afraid

Maybe,
if I give you my fear
the way will open
for us to come together,
as only what we are.

I would like to try. ~Liam Grimm

On Patience

I am extraordinarily patient.

With myself.

With everyone else, I assume they're not self-aware enough or reliable enough to get the thing that "needs" doing done and I "need" to incessantly remind them of this.

I recognized this some time ago, but changing that behavior, which is precisely as grotesque as that sentence makes it sound, is proving to be very difficult.

One, I've got some fairly solid OCD behaviors. This means that, by and large, if I think it, I say it. I have gotten increasingly better at using mindfulness to think about the consequences of what I say, but I can't win every time. Worse, I get something in my head that "needs" to be accomplished, and I grow increasingly angry and disappointed in a person for not doing that thing within the timeframe I feel is appropriate.

Yet, with myself, I know that I will eventually get anything that should be done done, eventually. I believe in myself. If I don't feel like doing the dishes one minute, I know that by the end of the day, I will want to, and I will enjoy doing it. I don't push myself. I don't view it as procrastination, I see it more as waiting for the planets to align to make the experience as fulfilling as possible. If I force myself to do something, to finish an art project before the inspiration is there, to clean the apartment when I'd rather be watching Friday Night Lights on Netflix, it makes me feel leaden and it winds up taking five times as long, and when it's done, there's no sense of pride or accomplishment.

And so, I've learned that things'll happen when they're ready to, and I leave it at that. It has done wonders for my stress levels; I used to fret, lie awake at night, blah blah blah stress behaviors about every niggly thing that "needed" to be done that I wasn't getting done within the timeframe I thought was appropriate.

Why can't I have this laid back attitude with the people I love?

I don't fucking know, and it frustrates me enormously. I see it driving people away from me, I see it hardening people to me when I push, and yet I can't just sit back and let things take their course. And don't get me wrong, it always comes from a place of love, it just doesn't feel like love to the people I'm pushing.

A recent example that crushed my heart a little the other day; a friend is going through a very rough time. His mother committed suicide not too long ago, and he is, as he should be, having a lot of trouble with it. I suggested he see a therapist at the place I go to. He said that was a very good idea, that he'd do it, just not this week as he was busy. The next time we talked, I asked him if he'd called the place yet. He hadn't, and gave an excuse. I implored him to do it, please. He said he would. The other day, he initiated a conversation and when I asked him how he was doing, he said, "I'd tell you, but every time I do, you harp on me to call NIP."

"Fuck," I thought. "There you go again, Sarah."

And my mind scrambles, trying to figure out a way to assure him I wouldn't do that this time, and I settle on saying, "Well, what are you waiting for?"

It's a chat conversation on Facebook, so when he responds, "Goodnight. xoxo" I know I've just pushed him away from speaking openly to me about how he's actually feeling. He's a touchy man to begin with, so we've had several instances where I've discovered things are taboo (he gets super weird about me telling him anything about someone I'm dating, for instance). But in this situation, I want to be the paragon of empathy, and I'm failing. Now, I am fairly sure, he won't talk to me about how he's doing, thereby isolating him from someone who cares deeply about his welfare.

How do I learn to let people do things on their own time while also offering the advice they seek from me, without being pushy or too invested in their success and progress in life?

The question may very well be a koan.

The upcoming relocation situation

I'm leaving my beloved apartment May 1st when my lease is up. Publicly, and this is a solid portion of it, I've said it's because I won't have a car and biking from where I usually end up all summer (in and around Uptown) can be both tedious and dangerous late at night/when I've been drinking. There's a long stretch of road that's all near to Interstate exits and on ramps, and I never feel quite comfortable biking that 3/4 of a mile or so to my home in Near North.

It's also not near anything that I do frequently enjoy. The bars, restaurants and venues. I mean, it's "near" everything, nothing is more than fifteen minutes away, but little of it is within walking distance. If anything, it is exceptionally centrally located to all things, but not exactly close to anything. A conundrum of locale.

But, the bulk of why I want to leave is that this home has seen too much heartache. I have been looking around the last week and I am haunted by several scenes: crying myself to sleep in my bed after Andy, sitting around despondent after Thor (Thor, who I haven't spoken of, may not be necessary to speak of; it was a three month relationship. He lives in New Orleans. It didn't work, and didn't really work from the get-go. Honestly, though I fell hard and fast for him, I don't remember much that I really liked about him. I liked his style of dress. His calm demeanor. His swagger when he walked. That he was a carpenter, and a sculptor. I liked that he touched my elbow at intersections, a chivalrous gesture, to bade me not run like a ninny into traffic. But, I was not particularly attracted to him, and it just wasn't going to work out. So it didn't. We're friends now, everything is good.), and now, all of this with Chris.

I just want a fresh start. And simple comforts, like my favorite bar less than ten blocks away.

Hurts Donut

Some days are worse than others, and this has been the worst in two weeks. I hurt everywhere, my heart, my guts, even a dull ache that extends into my knees for some reason, that seems to be attached to emotion rather than a physical ailment.

Every few minutes I have to talk myself out of communicating with him in some way. Every few minutes I have to give myself a pep talk that I need to be patient. Some shift for the better is on the horizon, it can't get worse now, I just need to be calm, and patient, and think good thoughts and distract myself and...

not think about how much I love this person who doesn't want to be with me.

Andy Reflections

Earlier this week, I looked at old emails from Andy, after he'd broken up with me about two months into our relationship. The circumstances were different, he was conflicted between me and his ex of five years who wanted him back. He loved me, admitted it freely, and was florid about how he knew he was ruining a beautiful thing with he and I. But, he also stated, in very plain terms, that he was done with us. That he didn't want a relationship. Not with me, not with anyone, that he wanted time to figure himself out and become more stable.

This sent me into a tailspin, but, after I'd reached an operatic head (far, far more melodramatic and anxiety fueled than anything with Chris has been in this post-breakup scenario), and he asked me to stop talking to him, I did that, and I calmed down, found a parcel of peace on my own, and tried to make amends with the fact that it seemed he and I were not going to work out.

About three weeks later, we were back together. I look back on those emails, and on the blog posts I wrote here while this was happening, and there are more parallels than differences. I was just as convinced then as I am now that things won't work out in favor of a reunion with Chris. Perhaps even moreso, as there wasn't 1,729 miles between Andy and I. There was only a quick drive down 35W from NE Minneapolis to get to my home, where we talked, reconciled, made love, and he took me to Tuesdays with Toneski at the 501.

In the reconciliation, things were never easy with Andy. He was always uncertain about me, about us, about whether he wanted to be in a relationship at all. So the next nine and a half months with him were  consistently in turmoil. It was a lot of him trying to break up with me, me letting him go a little, him coming over to play Scrabble, us making love, reforging our bonds, and repeating the process over and over. It was a constant game of "Go Away, Come Here." It was never stable, it was rarely in a state of contentment. I was always trying to shoehorn functionality into something that wasn't ever going to find its stride.

Ironically, our most stable period was the two months right before we broke up. We were as happy as we'd been in the first couple months of our relationship, but our sex life was flagging. I know myself well enough to know that when I lose interest sexually, there is something very wrong in the relationship that I just haven't figured out yet. It took me about three weeks to realize what I had probably known, somewhere, all along. Andy never loved me as much as I loved him, and he never would. This would never end up being marriage, kids. He was about to apply to colleges to start a graduate program in poetry(!), and I knew I didn't want to be with him for that journey, and he didn't want me there. This was an obstacle we couldn't work our way around.

So, on the one year anniversary of our first date, September 6th, 2010, we had a planned breakup. We went to a Twins game, held hands, snuggled, went to dinner at a nice restaurant, shared a bottle of wine, had sparkling conversation and love and intimacy, and then I drove him home, we went to his room, talked for a bit, kissed, cried, and I left.

Looking back on the whole of our relationship, I see something I don't think I'd fight for, now. Looking at Chris and I, it's different, because he and I were much happier, and much more functional in our three months than Andy and I ever were. Andy was a good boyfriend, and I was a good girlfriend to him, but as great as my love was for him, I don't look back on it with any wistfulness. Chris and I connected in a way I hadn't ever known, and continued to, even in the worst of it, when I knew he was going to end things.

Yet, is that something that can be repaired? I feel very ill at ease with shoehorning anything with him. I don't want to fight against any current on a consistent basis. I want a relationship that works because the person I'm with is as in it with me as I am with them. And, the fact is, he gave up on us. The fact is, no matter what issues he had with me, with us, that led him to believe it wasn't something he wanted to work for, the fact is, he's the sort of person that gives up instead of solving the problem. I am not that kind of person. I thought our love was worth it. I still do. He was my partner in crime, truly, and it felt amazing, and I won't settle for anything less than that.

1,729 miles will prevent any hope of that. He won't decide this is a good idea, even if he wakes up one day and is filled, again, with love for me. The distance will always be enough of a problem for him that he will believe it can't work. And if that's what he believes, then it can't work. I was not at my best trying to hustle money to see him, or to pay partially to get him here. That was $1,000 a month just to travel to Portland or get him here. I was at my best while with him, in his arms, looking at him, realizing what was important and how much I loved him, but the distance makes it so those moments become foggy fast. Even with only three weeks between visits.

I am ambivalent. I want the love to fade, so I can move on. I also want him to call me and tell me, "What the hell. Let's see if this can't fly. Mind if I move in with you?"

On marriage and kids

The talk about marriage and kids came early. Before any I love you was uttered. And, though he was drunk and doesn't remember it, he was the first to say I love you, too. Or, at least, that he was "in love" with me.

I was sober, lying in bed, he texted that he was sad, and was going to get progressively more drunk. I called him, and we talked for what ended up being three hours, but felt like mere minutes. We told stories, I talked about things like how I find dimes in conspicuous places, when it seems like I'm on a particular path toward something, and I attribute them to my deceased grandfather, Dale. He asked if I'd found a dime the day I met him.

I had. In the middle of the bathroom rug at his sister's place, where I'd been staying. I remember picking it up, as I always do, and relishing its thin metallic feel, smiling softly to myself, wondering what the day had in store.

At some point in that conversation, the phrase, "I wouldn't be in love with you unless..."was spoken. It took my breath for a minute, and I almost said I love you to him, as I'd wanted to over and over in every conversation we'd been having the prior two and a half weeks. But, I knew he was drunk, and I knew it wasn't time. I knew, in the morning, he probably wouldn't remember he'd said that.

In that same conversation, a propos of nothing, he stated, "We need to get started on having kids early. I don't want to be an old dad." I laughed, and it scared me a little. Even though I'm comfortable with moving "fast," I am also accustomed to people feeling fast for me and it scaring them, so they project that fear onto me and tell me over and over that I'm moving too fast, yet ignore the fact that they're putting out exactly the same language and feeling that I am. It's unfair, and as of yet, I can't figure out a way to handle it. He asked me, at one point, if I didn't think that he and I were "eerily similar." It came via text, and honestly, I balked at the notion. I thought about the things I'd noticed already, that he could grow angry quickly, that he was horribly stubborn... and then realized I could say the same of myself. After, I started to tally up the ways in which we were similar, and it was true. He was me, with a penis. I started to tell people that when they asked me what he was like.

Chris, seemed so cutely sure of himself and his feelings (and it was only in that one conversation that he was drunk), even though he admitted it also scared him. He'd say things like, "If you can guess how many cavities I have, I'll marry you." The answer was 0. I guessed wrong. I wasn't saying anything like that. I'd talk about marriage, about kids, in the abstract, that I wanted to have them, that I wouldn't discount having them with him, but he was interviewing me. He was probing me for information, for things that compiled his list of what he wants in a wife, in the mother of his kids.

We were sitting at a restaurant, about to go for a walk along the Mississippi when he was here before Thanksgiving. He smiled at me, in the sunset light streaming through the windows and asked if I'd want family dinner every night. I told him of course, that that was the way I'd grown up and that's what I'd want for my family once I had one. He nodded. "Good. That's really important to me."

And there were the other times, like the moment when we were talking about pregnancy and how I wouldn't abort if I got pregnant because I'm 34 and it seems silly to me that I wouldn't keep it, even though my life isn't ready for a kid. I know I'd be able to figure things out pretty fast. But, I said, if I did find out that there was a major birth defect, or some terrible illness, I wouldn't hesitate to abort. He grinned, and high fived me. It was one of the many things that could have been a touchy subject, but was not. We were just on the same page.

He told me, too, when he was here, on a night where we went out dancing and I found that he was the first person I was involved with that I could actually dance with and I was elated, and he was elated, and he was adorably listing, in my ear, over the loud new wave and 80s hits, all the reasons he loves me, and he said something about marriage, and I laughed at him and asked him how long he needed to "know" about me, and without missing a beat, he said, "Six months."

I don't know where that kind of talk got lost. I don't where it was, or what happened that made him just give up on us. Because, as far as I can tell, as far as I remember, we never stopped being compatible. Even when we were fighting, we worked things out efficiently, and were able to look at one another with sincere love, affection, and respect. Something dark and significant happened in his head that took his heart from me, bit by bit, and he just let it happen. And I am just at a loss to understand it.

I've been in relationships where I thought about marriage and kids. I've talked about those relationships here. But none of those people thought the same of me. None of those people talked about our potential kids by name (I'd like to name a boy Ivan Jack), made jokes with me about having "witch twins" after passing street names Cremona and Bersota in Seattle, and none of them, certainly, drew a fucking picture of a girl he had a dream about that he decided was our daughter.

Ego strength, and more on being exhausting...

I think of the people I know that I think are exhausting, and what, if anything, that means in relation to how I might be being perceived. There are parallels, but there are differences. Namely that anyone who has ever called me "exhausting" never really goes away.

Of the people I've considered truly exhausting, who are two women I was close to, I walked away from those friendships and absolutely did not look back. When we meet in social situations, we treat one another as if we'd never been close, with a compulsory civility.

Both of these women glommed onto me and wanted to spend tons of time with me. One didn't like driving home after drinking, so she'd sleep in my bed. Both were intense, emotional, but emotionally stunted women. One of them was in a long term relationship with a good friend of mine, and the joke with them was that it wasn't a date until she was crying about something.

Both of them wrote me handwritten, multi-paged letters, which they sent through the mail, after a perceived infraction. Typically, this was me calling them out on a negative behavior that made their social interactions difficult for them. One was so thin-skinned, aka the one with the aforementioned relationship and its constant crying, conversations had to be kid-glovved at all times. It was tedious, and exhausting, and few of us around her dealt with it well, when it was understood that the conversation had to be steered toward what was going to not upset her. The other was a profoundly weird girl that no one ever understood, but that could also be part of her charm. Sometimes, it just happened that something one of us did offended her. Very, very deeply. I'd dealt with her, on two occasions, having a devaluation episode with someone I considered closer to me than she was to me, so she put me in a position where she expected me to side with her, and not them. In both instances, her thought process was so starkly black and white, there was no way to reason with her. These people, both male friends of mine, were "evil."

Both, despite their flaws, were a lot of fun to be around, when they wanted to be having fun. They were incredibly smart, witty, funny women.

In any case, at some point, the hand-written letters arrived. The close friendships with these women happened a couple of years apart, 2006 and 2008. The former continued to write me letters, which I stopped reading, and then she finally sent me an absolutely horrible, scathing email in 2007 which I received just minutes after finding out one of the most wonderful, kind-hearted women I've known had died of a heroin overdose. Those two things made for some bad sleep the next two weeks... When I see her now, we don't act like we were ever close, but because she is a very funny person and we have that rapport with one another, we have let bygones be just that.

The latter's letter, in 2008, was meant to be a farewell, and to her credit, it was. I have seen her socially a couple of times, but other than not meaningfully ignoring one another, we haven't conversed at all.

So. Pairing these experiences with something my therapist said last week, I'm going to make a leap here. My therapist mentioned the phrase "ego strength" when we were discussing how I am polarizing, and at around the three month mark, if someone has gotten close to me, it either passes by with no issues, or I "lose" the person for a while. Rarely forever, but that has happened too. Both of these women "broke it off" with me after about three months (though I had known them for several years prior to our spending a lot of time together, and we'd only been casual friends 'til that point). Usually, after about four to six months, the person who has "left" comes back in some way. Through tentative contact, or, sometimes we just completely resume the previous relationship, romantic or friendship. Typically, the relationship is solid the second time around and suffers none of the issues of the first go-round. I would hazard a guess that in the interim, both parties reflect and accept things about one another that they, at first, had trouble coping with.

It makes sense, putting the phrase "ego strength" into the equation that this is what happens. The people whom with there is no three-month bump are people who are quite aware of who they are as people, and, though they are certainly works in progress as I am, they are not daunted by someone with a strong personality challenging them, and often they wholly embrace it (as I do when I am met with the same). The ones who do balk and have a great deal of difficulty with me are generally in some state of flux, who are trying to help themselves and maybe don't know how or can't yet see that they do need to help themselves and feel as if they are not on steady ground in general. In short, my presence in their lives is unstable feeling and it threatens them.

I don't know how to change this, but it feels good to recognize it. I certainly don't want to continue this pattern, and wish to be a calming force to people who have not yet found their ego strength, but that will be something I have to continue parsing out.