Choice In The Matter

autobiography

I came across this again today.  Funnily enough, the first time I read this poem I was madly, sadly, "in love" with an inappropriate man who, though never giving me any reason to believe he could ever possibly care for me back, always did enough to keep me hoping.  Like breathing.  Then one day I was ready to care about someone and have them be a real part of my life and I moved on.

Autobiography In Five Chapters
adapted from The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, by Sogyal Rinpoche

Ch. 1
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost... I am hopeless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

Ch. 2
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I'm in the same place.
But it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

Ch. 3
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in... it's a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

Ch. 4
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

Ch. 5
I walk down another street.

updates

People always tell me I think too much.  An ex boyfriend, when angry, would often throw this at me when we were arguing, as if it were an insult.  I think a lot, but I don’t mind it.  I often wonder how other people get along without thinking so much. 

One of the things about living in my head as much as I do, though, is that I’m not always sure how to articulate what’s on mind when things are happening.  I had hoped, when starting this blog, that I would be able to think out loud here, but it hasn’t always been easy.

I’m going to keep trying though.

Some updates:

I will be ending my current job at the end of the month.  I have been with this company for 6 years, and am a little apprehensive about starting something new.

Next week P and I will leave for a week vacation in Mexico.  We are both very excited about getting away and getting to spend some quality time with each other.  This summer has been stressful for the both of us, work wise. 

My mother called me out the blue a couple of weeks ago to inform me that she is getting married.  I have yet to meet my new step father, but since she sounds so happy I am hoping this will work out.  My mother’s last boyfriend was an abusive heroin addict (I really do not jest) so hopefully she’s wizened up some.  You never know with my mother.  P is coming home with me to meet the folks for the first time.  Pray for us.

More soon.

lemonade

I know I have been absent since my birthday and I apologize.  Life sent me a curveball a few weeks ago when I lost my job.  I’m fine, but it did leave me feeling unsettled and stressed.  I am painfully, stubbornly independent and to have to consider, even for a moment, not being able to provide for myself was jarring.  I knew when I choose my career path that job security really wouldn’t be in my future, not for a programmer in the middle of nowhere in the post dot-com bust.  I, however, never really believed it would happen to me.  Not to toot my own horn, but I’m good at what I do, I learn fast, I do my job well, and am obviously as expendable as the next person.  I think perhaps this is how I’m going to feel the day I find my first gray hair. 

Anyway, this is sounding sadder than I want it to.  The great news is, immediately after losing my job I was offered a new job.  In fact, my whole group was (my entire division was shut down).  I’m excited.  I have worked at the same place for almost 6 years now, longer than I thought I would, being in the field I’m in.  I am ready for change and am hopeful that this will be positive.

Also, all of my hard work and time that I’ve dedicated to my consulting business is starting to pay off.  My current client list is up to 5, and though I intend to keep this as a side job (being the workaholic that I guess I am), it’s a nice safety net for times like these.

More updates later, promise.

say anything

P’s good friend called him yesterday to tell him that he’s been invited to show his film at Sundance this coming January and to invite us.  And though I’m sure I should just be excited by P’s promise to teach me to snowboard while we’re in Utah and the unbelievable opportunities that will present themselves to our friend, I really hope John Cusak is there.

for kate

If you had to do it all again, would you do anything different?

No.  I don’t believe in regretting things.  Maybe life doesn’t always work out the way I want it to, heck, being the idealist I am, it doesn’t work out the way I want it to 90% of the time, and maybe sometimes I want to bite and scream and throw an all out tantrum because I really, really want what I want, but I also don’t always want things that are good for me.  I do believe that if you allow it, life can teach you a great many things, things that will make you an interesting, intelligent person capable of amazing things.

I realize that's a challenging question, because...in the end, you ended up where you were working towards.

I walked away from P, a couple of months ago.  It was time.  I was ready for more than he could offer me, as much as I loved him.  At that moment I didn’t regret the last two years.  P was a choice I willing made, knowing full well what it would mean to be with him.  It wasn’t always an easy or pleasant choice, but I didn’t choose to be with him because I wanted a boyfriend, I did it because he was someone I wanted to have in my life.

However, now that you have worked past and through so much...how would you sum it up?...just trying to figure out some of my own things and SO much of what you say seems the same...I agree with much of what you say about people, relationships and love...and just wonder...when you are the one who believes and knows and the other one is working on catching up...how much time do you give?

I don’t think it’s a matter of time.  When I started talking to my therapist, I’d analyze every minute detail of my relationship with P.  I spent a lot of time and energy trying to figure HOW to move our relationship forward, not realizing that what I was unconsciously looking for was a way to make him change.  You really can’t make anyone change.  I knew that, but it’s a hard thing to know.

I am also someone who whole heartedly trusts her instincts and my instincts have always told me that P loves me as much as I love him; there are a million little reasons why, most of which can’t be articulated. I could say because, in the two years that we dated the longest he’s ever gone without calling me is two days (baring the time I was out of the country and he couldn’t call me), and that was in the very beginning stages.  He would call me as I was driving home from work and ask me about my day and we would chat about our lives. 

I would say because he told me once, in the wee hours of the morning because he couldn’t sleep and decided to call me, how he had once known this girl who he knew, the moment he met her, how amazing and special she was and how they had this connection that was deeper and truer than anything he had ever felt before, so much so that he spent a summer wandering through Europe with her.  He said this with sadness and regret, almost 7 years later, because he had been too scared and too young to deal with the depth of his feelings for her and let her drift away from him, when the summer was over.  “I wasn’t ready for her,” he told me and I told him “Of course, I understood.”  He was 19.  “I haven’t felt like that since,” he said, “until I met you.”

I would say because, the first time I told him I loved him but that I didn’t think he had a place in my life, even though I was heartbroken and couldn’t imagine walking away from him, he cried.

“You’re the person I’m going to end up with,” he told me once, “but I’m not ready right now.”

I would say because he makes me laugh, harder than anyone has ever made me laugh.  That he understands the worst of who I am and still tells me that I’m perfect, that in spite of all we’ve been through, I have rarely doubted the sincerity of his feelings for me.  We are very good friends.

Sometimes, love isn’t enough; sometimes you have to lead by example.  The best thing that I did, for both P and I, was to take my focus off him and our relationship.  I’ve spent a good deal of the last 6 months getting to know myself better, finding things that make me happy, reconnecting with my friends and making new friends, building a life for myself that is mine and that I am happy with regardless of whether P is in it or not.  I started talking to a therapist.  I never realized, before, how much I hadn’t been ready for a healthy, mature relationship and the role I played in keeping our relationship in the grey area it had been in for the last two years.  You can’t change another person; however, you can change yourself and I’ve changed a lot in the last few months.  I finally reached the point where I knew that though I loved P, I could walk away from him if he couldn’t meet my needs.  It is important, I think, that you are able and willing to walk away if your needs are not being met.  People won’t give you what you need if you can’t ask for it and aren’t willing to leave if they can’t give it to you.  It isn’t an easy place to get to, I know.  I spent a good deal of time working on me to get to that place.  I don’t think it’s a matter of how strong you are, or about giving ultimatums (it shouldn’t be that). 

In the end it’s about knowing what it is you need and loving yourself enough to find it. 

I am lucky that P decided that he would rather face his fears than risk losing me, something that he realized was an honest reality instead of an empty threat.

I would say, take as long as you need to take.  You don’t have to make big decisions until you are ready; instead, start taking little steps to making your life what you want it to be.

And don't forget to have fun!

sick days

When I was a kid it was easy to have sick days; I’d crouch over and hold my tummy and moan to my mother that I didn’t feel well, or I’d cough and sniffle while mumbling to her through half opened eyes.  It wasn’t her fault, really, how easy she was; she had 4 kids, a business to run, and an otherwise clueless husband to look after.  She was distracted and a couple times a year I’d take advantage of that and get really sick. She’d shuttle my brothers and sister out the door and off to school and tell me not to answer the door if anyone came knocking and to not go outside and I’d peek at her through the living room window while she got in her car and drove off then flip on the TV and have a day off.  When I started boarding school, faking sick days got much harder; dorm advisors are much stricter than distracted mothers, but nurses, I learned, especially nurses around lunch time aren’t, so every few months I’d drop in “with cramps” and moan and hold my tummy and they’d give me a pass to sleep in the infirmary.

It’s been years since I’ve had to play sick but I still get in that mood, every now and then, when my week feels endless and my work load unbearable and all I want to do is moan to someone and have them pat me on the head and tell me to rest until I feel better, except now I just submit a form and presto, I have the day off.

And this is exactly what I did yesterday.  P and I have both been working a lot lately, so together we took the day off and went roaming around our little island.  We had a picnic and laid on the beach and got too much sun, drove through a little rainstorm, watched the sunset, had a couple of beers over a shared pizza, and cuddled on his sofa watching Top Chef till I, exhausted, dragged us both off to bed.

doomsayers

“You are TOO happy.”

We are walking down a crowded street on a Friday night.  It is not the first time someone has said this to me in the past few weeks, nor is Lee, the friend I am walking with, the first person to say it.

“I’m really happy for you but….”

The look on her face says it all:
But what if he changes his mind?
But what if you get hurt again?
But what if things don’t work out?

These past few weeks, I have been blissfully, over the moon happy, something that most people in my life have felt the need to comment on.  I know they mean well; that what they say or do, are done out of love and concern, if not also with a fair amount of projection.  I don’t know if he’ll change his mind or if things will work out with us.  I do know that it’s a risk I’m willing to take.  For once in my life, I want to enjoy the moment without all the disaster scenarios playing in my mind. 

So when yet another friend deemed it necessary to temper my current happiness, yesterday, I told her to stop.

There is no such thing as being too happy.

such great heights

I was 26 when we met.

A year earlier, I had walked away from a six year relationship; lived alone for the first time; bought my own place; fell for an inappropriate man and got my heart broken.  Though I had begun to pick up the pieces of my previous life, I was still uncertain as to how I would lay them back out again.  I hadn’t decided yet who I wanted to be.

On that night he told me we were going to be good friends.  I knew he meant that we were supposed to be in each other’s lives.  He had a girlfriend.  A week later, after she told him that she had drunkenly hooked up with his best friend, he didn’t.  We went on our first date.

People tell us that falling in love is supposed to be simple; that when you meet “the one” everything will fall into place, but in doing so they don’t account for those of us who are damaged, or scared, or just not ready.  People are complicated.  Love is complex.

For the first year that we dated, I tried to listen to the things P was saying, even when it wasn’t what I had hoped for.  I tried to hear without projecting my own interpretations.  Although people would accuse me of being in denial, I never was.  We were not in a committed relationship.  I was always aware of what was going on.  It was, at times, difficult, and painful and humbling.  I stayed foremost because although he couldn’t make a commitment to a relationship, he did to our friendship.  We spent the year getting to know each other.

When I first started this blog, I was ready for things to change with P and me.  We took a few steps forward and then a couple steps back.  When he told me he loved me, for the first time, I knew it wasn’t because he was enamored with me, or in lust.  It wasn’t because he was drunk off the newness of us or because he had so lost himself in me that he had mistaken attachment with love.  Still, we weren’t ready. 

Back in September I started talking to a therapist.  P and I kept hitting the same wall and I thought I needed an impartial listener to help me figure out what to do about us.  For a long time, long before P even, I have felt aimless.  I had started the process of redefining my life, back when I left my ex-boyfriend, but I stopped when I met P.  I didn’t mean to do this.  It was easier to wrap myself up in figuring him out.  I have spent most of my life focusing on the wrong things.  I was ready to change.

The first thing I did was clean my home.  I unpacked the boxes I had ignored and threw out whatever I didn’t use.  I made it feel like a home.  I started doing the little things that make me happy; reading, listening to music, finding ways to be creative. I started running again.  I signed up for a few night classes for fun.  In the past I would have done this half heartedly, while still spending all my time focused on something else, whether that was a boy, or my parents divorce, or finals, but  this time, all I focused on was me.

I hadn’t yet made any decision about P to give myself time to put my life in order. We were still in this grey area, but as I became clearer about my own life, our relationship got better.  He had started to change too.

Before we met, P hadn't really dated.  He had had a handful of girlfriends, but none that lasted longer than 9 months.  He was 24.  I terrified him, he later told me, because he knew that when he made a commitment to me, it would be the real thing.  And he was 24.

Around the time of my Mrs. Robinson post, he lied to me.   He told me the truth a day later.  If it were a year earlier, I would have forgiven him right away.  Instead, I told him off.  I no longer had a place in my life for his stupid selfishness.  At that moment I knew that though it would break my heart to walk away from him, it wouldn't break me.  I was sad, but I was ok.

A few days later P came to me to tell me he didn't want to be scared anymore.  That he would do whatever he needed to do to make things work between us.   He used to tell me that when he was ready to be in a relationship, he would commit himself to it 100%.  He is not someone who takes commitment lightly, nor is he someone who finds it easy to allow people into his life.  He is also no longer 24.  We have both grown up a lot since that night in December in 2003 when he first told me we were going to be good friends.  We have seen the best and the worst of each other.  We have hurt each other and forgiven each other but the one thing we have both been certain of, thr0ugh it all, is how much we want to be in each other's lives.

I told him, a few days later, that I was willing to try if he was.

That was three weeks ago.  We have been having a great time.  It feels "new" but the best part is, we already know each other.  There are no deep, dark secrets for us to be afraid of; we're already best friends.

Well ok, that is the second best part.  The best part is, as P pointed out to me the other day, we now have two anniversarys.  One for the day we met (the day we have been celebrating) and one for the day we were "official".    Of course all the friendship and love stuff is great and deep and all, but presents!  MORE presents!

busy bee

In the past month I have:

- cleaned and organized my apartment
- read a few more books off my reading list
- caught up on the last two seasons of Grey's Anatomy
- shelved my remodeling projects to enjoy my newly organized and clean apartment
- sorted through entire wardrobe, made donations to Goodwill and started spring shopping
- picked up a new hobby (photograhpy)
- got a real estate agent and started the work towards buying a second home
- got a boyfriend

mrs. robinson

On Friday I went down to my favorite, new, local bar with my friend Dave.  It's quaint without being too small, and there are always interesting people to chat with and good music to listen to, not to mention they make these pizzas that are little slices of heaven.   The moment we get there, Dave runs to the bar and brings us back a couple of shots.  I try at first to wave them off but give in.  We wander around to find our friends, who have managed to get a table and a bunch of chairs, then order a round of drinks.  I'm having a great time when I feel a tap on my shoulder. 

"Have you met my friend John?"  It's Dave and he's got the cutest guy with him, who yes, I had already met a few weeks ago.  It was at a party. We had both drunkenly flirted with each other towards the end of the night but then the friend I was with (and my designated driver) had wanted to leave and that was that.

"We've already met" John tells Dave and Dave smiles and walks off.  Dave has been not so secretly trying to set me up because he loves me and he's frustrated with P.  I motion for J to join me and we start to chatting.  I can already feel the affects of the two shots and my drinks so I'm really talkative and when he leans in and asks if he can call me sometime, I nod happily and give him my number.

By that time, my friends are ready to move on to the next place and are rounding everyone up. 

"I think we're leaving," I tell J.  "Want to come?"

He nods so I give him directions and follow my friends out.  An hour later, settled into our new bar, J strolls in.  We start talking again, but by this time, I'm not completely coherent and the new bar is far more crowded and noisy.  We talk for awhile then he tells me he's leaving because he has to get up early.  He asks if he can call me and I nod and smile.

He called me last night.  I was already getting ready for bed so we didn't really talk for long.  He just wanted to say hello and see what I was up to for the week but I kept it short.  The thing is, I'm not sure what is going on with P at the moment, but I do know we're not dating other people.  I've worked really hard, the last few months, to get my life in order and get to a place where I'm happy with myself and my life, regardless of what is going on with P.   And I had a great time flirting and talking to this new guy.  It's been so long since I went out and just had fun and met people!  This morning I was thinking that I should feel more confused, but I just feel happy.  I'm not sure what is happening with P or if I'm really ready to move on, but my life is OK.

Oh and one more thing.  J is only 23.