Evolution?

I've always thought that relationships could evolve along with the people in them.  That when you start out with someone, over time you change, the person (or people) in the relationship with you changes, and therefore, by transitive property, the relationship changes.


I still think that's true, but I'm realizing now that all parts of the relationship don't evolve equally.  It seems obvious now that I'm trying to write it down for you, but SURPRISE! only the parts you work on and talk about evolve along with you!  The parts you ignore remain stagnant -- locked in one time point -- even though you and your partner may have moved past that time point long ago.


Funny how you are so busy talking about everything else in your life that sometimes you forget to talk about small stuff...  How easily the small stuff turns into big stuff when you're not paying attention.


It starts out innocent enough.  You and your partner are a team.  You each have to make sacrifices.  So, you sacrifice little things like social events so your partner doesn't feel anxious and you don't have to go alone.  Eventually, you're not sacrificing social events because you're not invited -- your circle of friends is very small and getting smaller.  You say you don't mind, you don't miss it, but when you do get a chance to go let your hair down you recognize the lie in that statement.  You DO miss it.  You need an outlet.  You enjoy being around more people, being silly, and over indulging!  Maybe there are more things you miss?  Or don't even know you are missing?




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I don't know...we're learning about ourselves and growing into these new emotional people, but I need to also explore the positive emotions!  We spend a LOT of time exploring and learning about how the sad emotions feel.  I want to spend a little bit of time figuring out what happiness feels like!  I also want to enjoy life!


I don't know what I'm talking about anymore.  But, a video blogger I like to watch recently said that we learn more by getting involved in someone else's process rather than just by receiving facts.  So, here you have it.  This is my process.


(PS, if you're interested, this is the video blog.  It's a really good video if you have time to watch.)






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On this same topic, I have a question for you -- and for some reason, I wrote this one in a british accent.  Imagine this in the voice of Dan Is Not On Fire.   


Can a relationship's evolution take a quirky path and go from an awkward, uncomfortable sexual relationship into an intimate friendship?  Imagine if you will, an intimate friendship that was going along swimmingly until someone said, "woah, this is awesome!  we should add sex!"  Then it got totally awkward and someone said, "ugh, this is awkward!"  Any chance the relationship, if the two people actually cared very much for each other, could then evolve into a great friendship?

What To Do When There's Nothing To Do?

I am at a loss.  I don't know what to do.


What do you do when there's nothing you can do?  When you've poured your heart out to someone and they just don't care?  When you've said all you can say and done all you can do and it's just not enough?  What then?


What do you do when your best isn't enough?  When honesty isn't enough?


Seriously, I want to know.






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This is where I am.  I feel like I've done and said everything I can.  


Now I just have to wait and hope that she doesn't hate me.  Hope that she didn't really mean all the hurtful things she said to me.  Hope that she doesn't really leave with things feeling the way they do.  :'(

I AM A Good Person...I Swear.

This week I have had the joy of defending myself against a bit of mud slinging.  I'm not going to lie, it was a bit brutal.  I didn't believe most of it.  In fact, most of it seemed so far fetched that I didn't really think the slinger believed it, but for some reason it resonated with me.  Like an echo from decades past.

I can almost hear the words "Turn off the water works" and "She's only doing that to get her way" echoing from years gone by directly into present day.  I must shout out to everyone and anyone that will listen, "NO!  I'm not manipulating anyone!  These are my actual feelings.  I am being genuine."

Which soon changes slightly to "I AM genuine.", "I am real.", and eventually, "I am here."

I haven't felt this way in a long, long time and I hope not to feel this way again for another long time.  Then again, it's nice to know that there was a reason I was blocking out all those feelings.

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I hadn't realized I felt this way until I started typing this and seeing here in black and white leaves me feeling a little empty inside.  What I mean is, I knew that I felt lonely and sad for a long time, but I didn't realize just HOW lonely -- so lonely that I felt invisible, unseen.  Maybe I WAS crying to get my own way, but not necessarily the "way" that was being presented to me at the time.  Maybe I was crying to be seen, to be recognized?  And, instead I was made to feel like a schemer, a deviant, who was only doing things for her own selfish aims.  

I guess that's why it was so important to me to correct that misconception.  I was trying to be seen, but certainly didn't want to be seen as an asshole.  I'd rather be invisible.  I'd rather not be than be a hurtful person.  That's a truth I've felt for a long time.

Can I Borrow A Feeling?

I'm in a very tricky position right now.  I have a tough decision to make where both options are terrible.  Or, maybe I don't have to make a decision at all...I don't actually know...


Option #1: Shut these emotions down immediately (or try to).  
Honestly, there's some draw to this option.  I don't really want to feel most of these emotions anyway!  But, there's a part of me that thinks there's something bigger waiting on the other side.  Once I sort through all the old boxes of crap that I stored so compactly and haphazardly in the basement corner for so long, maybe way back in the corner all covered in dust I'll find some peace sitting there just waiting to be discovered.  The idea of getting all this stuff to fit back into such a small space is also intimidating -- I just don't know if it'll fit...I don't know if I can wrestle it all back -- it's so powerful.  But, that power is what makes me want to put it back away.  These emotions are too much most of the time!  It would be nice to not HAVE to deal with them...  This is a confusing proposition.  Every pro leads to a con and every con back to another pro.  Every third time I see Drew I consider quitting, but then I show up for the next visit.


Option #2:  Stop The Great Experiment.  
I care deeply for the 3rd, but any emotion, confusion, or scent of a feeling from me sends her dark passenger into a whirlwind of panic and sends her body into a literal run.  The thing is, I totally get it.  Never in her life has another person's emotion not ended with her pain and devastation.


But, understanding it and being able to deal with it are two very different things.  If I'm going to learn to open up and experience emotions I need to be able to experience them without dire consequences.  I need to take time and experience them in full -- roll them around on my tongue, smell their bouquet, examine their color -- to really discover what they mean...what they are about.  I need to be able to experience them without devastating the people I love and in turn having the people I love devastate me.  

So, here we are....Option #1 or Option #2?

I only hope Option #2 doesn't end with the loss of a dear friend.

Flow?

I've always kind of thought of myself as a bit of a social chameleon.  I don't have a hugely wide range, but when I compare myself to less socially malleable people I find that I can feel fairly comfortable in a range of social situations.  I'm able to adjust myself quite a bit and feel comfortable enough to not avoid those situations and to actually enjoy most of them.  On the online do-it-yourself version of the Myers Briggs Introvert-Extrovert scale I tend slightly toward the E side.


But, now I find myself faced with a new situation that I'm not sure about.  I've never had to face a situation quite like this one.  I mean, at work I "go with the flow" all the time.  I do this with friends or on outings...  But, none of these situations involve emotions.  I have no emotional investment in which restaurant we go to for dinner or if we go to the beach or the boardwalk to take photos on Saturday. 

But, there's a definite emotional investment in intimate relationships!  I want to go with the flow.  I know that there is mutual caring and respect.  I know that we MUST do things this way so that she can deal with her emotions and trauma.  But, this way is also making me deal with my past and my emotions.  

This could be a bumpy ride.  Hold on!

 

Trust

Today I'm thinking a lot about trust.  Actually, I spend a lot of my time thinking about trust, but today even more than usual.  


How do we learn to trust someone new?  I have this weird pattern of trusting people right away and taking everything they say at face value....right up until I don't.  I don't know how it came about that I have this strange relationship with trust.  Why am I so willing to trust people, but then as soon as I think I can't....just like the snap of your fingers, that trust is gone.  It's not a slow fade from trust to slight distrust and finally realizing that I no longer trust the person, it's a slap in the face from warm sunshine and trust into distrustful darkness.


Part of me feels like the problem must be with the other person.  I mean, if they could seem so genuine that I believed them and trusted them that they must have believed it themselves.  They must have thought they were telling the truth.  They were fully "in the moment" with me.  Therefore, they must not have just been lying to me.  If they can't trust themselves enough to be fully honest how can I possibly trust them?  Makes sense.  And, it makes me completely rational and faultless!  I like it!



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Again, I'm left wondering.....Old or New?


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Wonder what their stream of consciousness is telling them?  How are they rationalizing the confusion?  Because, that's what we're really talking about here, right?  It's more likely that neither thing the person said was a lie, but rather that both were equally true.  This is a less clear cut solution and one that has multiple possible endings.  As J so eloquently put it, the other person has to eventually choose a truth to believe, but so do you.  It's not all on them to figure out...I have to figure out my shit too.  Fuck.


Can I trust that people are telling me the truth and not just what I want to hear?  Especially when that truth changes over time?  When the fluctuation of that truth is like the swinging of a pendulum?  I really REALLY want to...but how?

Old or New?

How do you know? 

I'm new to this whole feelings thing and so when one hits me all of a sudden I have a hard time answering the question: Is this emotion old or new?  Am I feeling this way now because of something that happened a long time ago and what's going on now is just triggering those old feelings?  Or, is this something new? 

Like I said, life is complicated!  Not only do we have to feel all these emotions and learn how to react to them rationally, but now we have to figure out if they're based on the current situation or just echos from the past?  How are we supposed to get through the day? 

Seems like it would be easier to differentiate if I had been feeling things all along, no?  The fact that I'm just learning how to feel things from my childhood seems to be complicating my adult feelings even more.  Or, maybe I just don't know because I've never had adult feelings uncomplicated by an emotionally stable childhood?

 How can I relay all this information to those closest to me if I'm just figuring it out for myself?  Especially when they are going through similarly intense emotions of their own related to now and their own past?  It seems too overwhelming.

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Now the strong part of me says:

That's a cop out. Everyone has troubles.  It would be easier for black people if they were white.  Women if they were men.  Poor if they were rich.  We all have our shit -- that's what makes us who we are.  That's what makes us strong.  Human.  Empathetic.  

Yes, it's hard.  Yes, it sucks.  But, without struggle where would you be?  Without struggle WHO would you be?

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When I watch movies I always get exhausted watching the heroine fight to survive or overcome and I always think to myself, "I would have given up by now. I would just lay down and take a nap."

And, in reality I might do that.  But, eventually I think I would wake up from that nap and continue to survive.  Maybe I am not meant for hand-to-hand combat, but in the end I think there's a part of me that's a fighter.

I will continue to struggle, to fight, to live.  My fight may be less cinematic, but it's no less romantic.  I'm struggling and fighting to find my "happily ever after."  Not that I believe for a second that the struggling will ever come to an end, but to give up is to give up on the idea of happiness....maybe that's why the movie heroines continue to fight?

And Then There Were Three

What happens when you decide to expand your family from 2 to 3?  You're adding another person, do you just add that much more love and intimacy?  Or does the intimacy between the first 2 people somehow diminish?  Is there a way to maintain the original amount of intimacy and build on that solid foundation? 

That must be what people think when they decide to have a child, right?  That the child can only add to the love the family already shares.  That the bond between the original 2 lovers will envelope the new addition and protect her from anything that could (or has) ever hurt her.  That they can fold her into their love and she will become a part of what they already share.

This is my hope for my new family.  That my bond with J will remain as strong as ever and our new addition will fold into this foundation and be surrounded by the love and stability we already have together.



Or is it inevitable that by developing intimacy with someone new we will absolutely lose intimacy between each other?  Is it guaranteed that by being intimate with another person one of the original couple will feel left out?  Is this experiment a failure before it really gets started?


I guess all I can do is hope...and talk about it.  A lot.  If talking about things can solve all problems then I think we will be ok.  :-)