i said i wasn’t going to write about this. i confess, i’m not yet at a place where that is a declaration i can let stand. old habits, they say, die hard, and i am increasingly convinced that ancient ones may never die, but instead, follow you life to life.
i am working on coming to grips with loneliness. i find i am only lonely when i am reminded i am alone. i’m not sure if that is common or not. perhaps it would be more accurate to say i am lonely only when i think about it, since saying ‘when i am reminded’ implies that the factors are external. they are completely internal. i can blame no one else and i am learning how not to blame myself, which is a stride, indeed.
part of the reason i am so withdrawn is that it hurts to see all the companionship i feel i am missing. it is hard to just be out in the world because i see it all around me and it feels like i must be the only one in the world who feels this way. of course i know that isn’t true when i think about it. but remembering this is not as easy as it sounds.
i realized not too long ago that i tend to insulate things and avoid closeness. which is an odd way to be if you want closeness, now isn’t it? self-sabotage, i suppose. trying to keep from being hurt again, i put myself in a position where all that is left is loneliness. or one where the parameters are so overwhelming that nothing can overcome them.
it gets knotted up, i think. i’ve been applying the wisdom i have to myself lately. hard to do. ever notice how you can see things so clearly in others, but not in yourself? denial – not just a river in egypt, eh? (wry grin)
buddhism has taught me that everything i think i see in others is just some aspect of the things i’m not looking at in myself… which has been a very enlightening and interesting and yes, painful, experience.
most recently, it has demonstrated to me that i often set myself up for loneliness or abandonment by letting people i know are not going to be good or helpful to me into my life. i think about that and i am kind of astonished at myself. what precisely does it say when you are willing to give the most precious thing you have, the only thing you ever really have in this life, yourself, to anyone and everyone who comes along?
well, buddhism says this is the mark of a bodhisattva, someone who has no care of themselves and cares for the world and all those within it.
i cannot say i am always so nobly motivated, though i can say that many times i am so. i cannot claim to be a bodhisattva, though… just a human trying to find the balance between having what she needs without hurting others or being a weight on them.
i have a very unrealistic perspective on love. i don’t think i’ve ever admitted it before. perhaps i should. i truly believe that any two people in the world can create love whenever they care to do so. all they have to do is care to do so.
naturally, this puts me at odds with most of the world’s cultural beliefs. and the ripples of that juxtaposition are fairly chaotic. most people simply refuse to believe i feel this way. which hurts. others assign all manner of ugly motivations and ill intention to it. which also hurts. a good many simply write me off as unbalanced, unstable, or too eccentric to be part of their lives. yes, that hurts, too.
realistically, the only time two people can create love is when they exist in circumstances that nourish the effort rather than work against it. i suppose that goes as much for friendships as partnerships.
should i admit to the truth that i would throw away every bit of what constitutes ‘my life’ to go and build a partnership with someone?
ah, but that’s not quite true, now is it? there’s a pretty big ‘if’ in there that is yet unwritten.
to be correct, it would read: i would throw away every bit of what constitutes ‘my life’ to go and guild a partnership with someone if they were equally willing to do so to build one with me.
i have been waiting all my life for someone to say that to me of their own volition. i have said it more times than i can count.
it just doesn’t work unless you both can say it. this, the conclusion that is, i guess, not such a surprise, really.
i am thinking at this moment of the fellow i met a couple of weeks ago. was it a couple of weeks? maybe it was just a week. i don’t really keep track of time.
anyway… he was so excited to meet me. and i, to meet him. in typical fashion, i threw open the doors and invited him in. he read on my blog an entry about my arthritis and the day we were to meet for the first time, wrote me and said he wasn’t comfortable with ‘my health issues’.
i wrote him back and said that i understood, and that if he would like to meet, just let me know. otherwise, that i wished him well.
i have not heard from him since and i doubt i ever again will.
were the tables turned, would i have done the same? of course not.
does it hurt me? yes. but only because i think of myself as more than a laundry list of qualities by which i might be judged.
does it hurt me? no. but only because anyone who would turn from me over such a thing likely isn’t someone i needed to be around.
i try to understand. but it is hard sometimes. is the world so set upon perfections that everything has become impossible? it feels that way. i don’t like that feeling. it is a very sad feeling.
i met someone through a friend that i was enthused for the chance to know. but they saw nothing of me that sparked enthusiasm in them. the fact that i was curious and interested in them meant nothing. i made a few attempts but only silence greeted them and i find i’m not as willing to fight for simple, human acceptance as i used to be.
i think the reason i like nature and animals so much is that they are open to kindness. they respond to it. they don’t care if you have arthritis or you’re over 40 and can’t have kids, or you’re not a super model. they blossom when you tend them gently, they purr when you touch them, they are honest in their rules for interaction. sometimes i wonder what has happened to the world…. sometimes, i think humans have it all wrong with this notion of progress. seems to me most humans act like they are in pain all the time. always willing to snarl and snap or reject you for not being the complete shopping list on demand.
of course i am a hypocrite. my list isn’t as long, and the things on it aren’t the things you’d find on most people’s lists… but i do have one. and i have left behind those who could not meet them. i guess that is what makes it sometimes feel so hopeless. no matter what you do, you have your needs and they have theirs and we’re all just trying to get what we need to feel contentment in being here while we are here.
i have no idea where i’m going with this. just kind of rambling. trying not to feel sorry for myself, trying to understand i’m not really ‘alone’ in any of it. reminding myself that, as always, humans have much more in common than not. trying to remind myself it isn’t hopeless until i say it is. i get all pissed off over nothing ever working out and say i’m giving up. but if you know me, you know what a dark joke that is. i never give up. even when i should.
i am ambivalent on this. obviously. hell, for all the writing and rambling and bravado i’ve put up here about things, there are still three people i have known and lost that i have yet to really have given up on repairing things.
i do not like to admit it is ever impossible. there’s a goto loop here… “because nothing is ever impossible until we say it is.”
i keep thinking being willing to try again every time will mean something. that being willing to clean the slate and start over will and should mean something.
maybe it just means i haven’t learned yet that it isn’t true.
i do not want to be the kind of person who accepts impossibilities. maybe that’s the thing that is ‘wrong’ with me. i’m trying, but i’m just not so good at it and, as i’m sure you know by now, ‘practice makes perfect’ is a damn lie.
i recently decided to give myself a break from it all. just cross ‘men’ off the list and spend some time figuring out how not to hurt for what i’m missing. the first part is to get over feeling like i’m missing it. i suspect that, like anything, the first step is going to be the hardest.
but hey… it’s not impossible, right?
wry humor, that, but it helps.