I Just Don’t Think
It seems I’ve gotten myself into a bit of an emotional predicament again. And even though the situation is entirely of my own making, I’m trying not to be too down on myself. I’m trying to breathe in and out, in and out. I’m seeking to live in the present moment. And to make it through this. One breath at a time.
So, I guess I’m going to tell you this tale (or at least the surface part — the portion I can admit to in public). The deal is: when it comes to the story of my life, I really can’t not write about this. Because as much as the theme of change has dominated my existence recently (what with a new job, living in a new state, and such things as the California driver’s-license test), this latest development overshadows everything else I’ve discussed so far. This is about one more major event in my life, happening synchronously with everything else.
Here goes…
Ten years ago, in the fall of 1997, I met someone. I thought (actually very early on I felt certain) that she was “the one.” It had been about a decade since I’d felt anything quite like this, and, oh was I really feeling excited about life and the prospects to come.
However, C (she is the one who originally dubbed me with the “TechnoMonk” moniker) and I spent a good portion of the next two years in one of the most horrendously-tumultuous relationships imaginable, as her ambivalence about “us” absolutely dominated our couple dynamics. We were together; then we were not. Over and over this happened. Together, separated; together, separated. Ultimately, in the fall of 1999, after too many partings and subsequent reconciliations to count, and as she was in recovery from breast-cancer surgery, we wisely ceased trying to be a couple. It was a relief for me, because the emotional roller-coaster ride that was this relationship had totally drained me. By that point, I was emotionally, physically, and spiritually spent. I was at a true low point in my life.
A lot of people had observed me over this two-year span and knew what a toll it had taken on my psyche. So, one thing I have kept hidden from many is that I have allowed, over the subsequent eight years, this dynamic to continue to play out, although, arguably, with slightly less drama.
For, you see, C and I remained “friends” — which was her idea, her agenda. (Really, I viewed myself totally committed to a “whole” relationship from the start.) This was probably foolishness, but I allowed it to happen. For one thing, I could never, really, imagine my life without her in it. So, I was a participant in (for what was for me) a half-relationship. However, this kind of arrangement was not without its pitfalls, since I was the one (this time) always ambivalent about trying to be “just friends” with a former lover. It had happened only once in my life prior to this, and, as I think most folks will attest, it just doesn’t tend to work out that well.
As it turned out, even as friends, we had our comings and goings. We had some periods when we were in close contact (sometimes daily, primarily by phone and email) and other times when we (mostly I) decided that this “friendship” scenario was just not working.
There were several points during these friendship years when I brought up the topic of getting together again: that I had never given up on that idea, and was waiting for her “to come to her senses.” Typically, it was shortly after I brought this topic up that we took a break from our friendship for weeks or even months. The separations were always painful for me, but because I missed her (and “the kids”), and the pain always seemed to subside, I would ultimately agree to give the friendship thing yet one more try.
Up until last weekend, the friendship had been on (as I calculate and recollect) its longest continuous run…over a year and a half of frequent contact and friendship-kind-of-closeness (although I had lived in Portland, Roseburg and Larkspur and she in Eugene). It was C who called together the family for a farewell dinner for me. It was at C’s house that I spent my last two nights in Oregon. It was C who made me tuna fish sandwiches for my first afternoon of driving to California. It was C who saw me break down into tears as I took leave of the part of the country I had called home for 37 years. It was to C that I made my first phone call after arriving in my new living space here in the Bay Area. And it was C who sent me a gift certificate so that I might furnish the outside patio of my new living quarters with a reclining lounge chair.
Then, out of the blue, an email arrived last weekend that she was going to go camping with her granddaughter, her granddaughter’s friend, and that friend’s Dad.
When I wrote seeking clarification of what that meant, and after waiting three days for a reply, I finally got the word that there was someone else.
Frankly, I was stunned; there had been nothing to prepare me for this. All of a sudden, with absolutely no warning (especially given my final days in Oregon with her, just within the last month), she is moving on.
C: I wish you well and all health and happiness. And a relationship free of ambivalence.
In the meantime, I’m dealing with changing my entire life around — including, now, the added dimension of needing to heal a hole in my heart.
I am needing to find a way, at this point, to fill this very large void in my entire existence. I just lost my best friend. Yet one more time.
Soundtrack Suggestion
I drink good coffee every morning
Comes from a place that’s far away
And when I’m done I feel like talking
Without you here there is less to say
I don’t want you thinking I’m unhappy
What is closer to the truth
That if I lived till I was 102
I just don’t think I’ll ever get over you
I’m no longer moved to drink strong whisky
’Cause I shook the hand of time and I knew
That if I lived till I could no longer climb my stairs
I just don’t think I’ll ever get over you
Your face it dances and it haunts me
Your laughter’s still ringing in my ears
I still find pieces of your presence here
Even after all these years
But I don’t want you thinking I don’t get asked to dinner
’Cause I’m here to say that I sometimes do
Even though I may soon feel the touch of love
I just don't think I’ll ever get over you
If I lived till I was 102
I just don’t think I’ll ever get over you
(“ I Just Don’t Think I’ll Ever Get Over You” — Colin Hay)
Comfort, Care & Celebration
I was reflecting today on the myriad of Thanksgiving Days I’d spent alone, and on some that I’d spent with special people in my life. One of the most memorable was twenty years ago today: Thanksgiving Day 1986…isn’t it amazing how time flies.[ohmygod: Ronald Reagan was president on that day!] It was surely an entirely different world for me then.
I was living in Corvallis at the time, as I had for the previous 16 years. I had moved there to go to grad school in chemistry at Oregon State University (OSU) during the summer of 1970, and continued to reside there after I finished up that advanced degree; it had become home more than anyplace ever had. Although I arrived in Corvallis as a college graduate, I actually did a whole lot of my “growing up” in that town during my 20s and 30s. I was divorced there in 1978. I started my own path of personal growth and development in a serious way there when I entered therapy with Linda Carroll in 1980. I began the OSU master’s degree program in counseling in 1982. I went through an alcohol diversion program there in 1983-84 as part of my DUII experience. And I met J there in 1985.
Linda and J are two of the (top three) people that have had the most influence on my life’s path. With J, it was in the form of a significant-other relationship that lasted a couple of years, encompassing that Thanksgiving Day twenty years ago.
J had just separated from her husband in late October that year, and ended up living in the same apartment complex as me. When she left her marriage the nature of our relationship dramatically changed, and we were in a very close and intense phase by Thanksgiving. As I recall, we rented about six or eight movies to watch that weekend; it was in the time before we even owned our own VCR, so, I remember, we rented the machine to play the movies as well. (Ah, the good old days!) I only remember one of the movies we watched that day, namely Sophie’s Choice. Very moving.
It was a gray and wet and cold weekend outside, but it was a close and intimate one in: characterized by a level of comfort and care and celebration that I have rarely found in my life, before or since.
More Amazements
I’ve written previously about holding a 6-hour-old infant in my arms in January of 2004. I’d never experienced anything quite like that before. That little one is almost three years old now, and I had an opportunity to spend just a little bit more time around her yesterday. What a delightful person little Gracie is! Especially great were the hug and kiss I got when I departed her grandmother’s house. Wow.
Authenticity
Oftentimes, I truly struggle with the role in life that seems to be mine.
In relationship, I showed up: totally, passionately, and with great capacity for commitment. I lived, not merely played, the role of devoted partner, lover, friend, confidante, and care-giver. I loved deeply and had the expectation of being loved back proportionally.
Steadfast in my role, I kept hoping against hope that something would change. I anticipated that she would eventually discover, in this person, me, her mated soul.
Oh, I wanted: the joy of that discovery!
In this life, it seems I keep playing the role of the broken-hearted one. It was a constant theme that I was rejected, left to lick my emotional wounds, allow time for them to scar over, and then attempt the same uneven dynamic all over again.
How can two people be so close and yet so far apart? How can the universe be so cruel?
Today, everyday, I show up in an environment where I attempt to play a similar role. I find myself in another situation where there’s no commitment to me, yet I am expected to show up, perform, give my all, and care. I have been trying to play, at great personal cost, the role of a caring person in a dysfunctional, uncaring place.
Here’s the deal: I believe that I am an authentic individual. I am exhausted by the role of inauthenticity that this environment forces me to play.
I desire connectedness. Team play. Commitment. And, yes, love.
I continue to find myself in situations where those crucial, life-affirming forces are absent.
On and off stage, what I have to offer is my one-man act. Alone. I look around and the set is empty. Except for me.
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
William Shakespeare
Valentine’s Day
Here’s a question that was posed at the end of Sunday’s (February 12, 2006) two-part episode of Grey’s Anatomy.
“If you knew this was your last day on earth, how would you spend it?”
Wow, good one, eh?
And, if I were thinking of attempting to provide a personal response to that question here...could I do it? Well, as my fingers keep hitting the keys, I suppose I'm going to try...and, as I’m writing, I’m thinking of this particular holiday...
Only one day?
Actually, I put serious thought into this not long ago as I was in a state of worry and not-knowing about my peripheral-neuropathy symptoms. And, this question has come up other times as well, certainly in times of despair and/or deep introspection about birth, life, health or dying. When I was in the emergency room being mis-diagnosed with bladder cancer, for example, I stared death directly in the face. And, as Katrina was being treated for breast cancer, I thought very deliberately about what I could give to someone I loved if she had a short time remaining.
Then, last summer, a colleague at work died. He was a little younger than me; one day he simply collapsed at his desk. This came about at the time when I was stressed and depressed about the end of a relationship and worrying about my professional fate. And, I was all by myself.
