Protected: open
when is a prick a prick?
Today I was talking, in a way, about crucial conversations. In a discussion about an incident that affected a friend and me at the same time. I was considering even though we sit on two completely different sides of the situations we had, for the most part, arrived at the same place in conclusion.
Her position was that she wasn't up for saying anything about what had bothered her because she didn't want to come off as a selfish prick and my position was that I would risk it because I needed to address it head on. So, I did have the conversation and she did not based on our respective positions. By sharing what I felt, I was risking losing a relationship but in the same turn by not sharing, so was she. Right?
It will be interesting to see how our situations will evolve. I feel much better having had the opportunity to address my issues directly. I actually feel better. So much so that I've not given it another thought. In talking about the incident today, I felt by our conversation that she is carrying a burden that still seems to hurt her. But here's the rub, neither of us has had to face the people we were hurt by. There may be consequences to my actions that include a loss of a relationship because I brought it up. While she may be able to involve herself in the relationship again without any issues. All because no one will have any idea that she felt (feels?) hurt.
For me, open conversation is crucial in any relationship that I truly value. However, I understand fully the consequences of this personal philosophy. On more than one occasion, I have alienated people who were not prepared for a crucial conversation. It's hard for anyone to hear how you feel hurt or whatever the emotion might be without taking it personally, without being defensive. Understandable. It is nearly impossible to convey an idea that if I value a relationship with you, then we have to be able to communicate openly and truthfully. If I love you then at some point, we are going to have a conversation that makes us uncomfortable but at the end of it, we will be the better for it. Better because we are not stuffing real emotion away and saving for later all just to be polite.
On the flip side, I also wish people would invest in me the same way. If I have done a wrong, I wish like hell that person would take the time to tell me. There is no greater feeling when a relationship is strained than to have someone allow you to apologize and you be forgiven. It seems like the right thing to do.
Maybe I am wrong. There certainly isn't one right way to do it. I know plenty of people who can ignore hurt feelings and there are no long term consequences. They feel hurt alone, keep it as long as they need and release it without it ever causing a crack in their own heart. And, by not sharing their feelings with another person, even the one who caused them issue, they have not created a crack in anyone else's heart or what is more typical, a crack in the relationship. In the end, there is at least one sure truth, it is just as easy to damage a relationship with honesty as it is without it.
Forgive and forget
Sometimes forgiveness is forced upon you. Ready or not and that's ok.
the relationship debate
there has been much debate in my life lately about the nature of relationships...cause and effect, reality and fantasy; wishful thinking and self-fulfilling prophesy, all have been analyzed, scrutinized and really, beaten within an inch of life.
now I am watching this movie, sarah's smile, and slipping into a fantasy of my own where I hear those very same words, "i choose you".
that's my fantasy, my reality of love and my wishful thinking. if the optimists are right maybe this be my self-fulfilling prophesy, the cause and effect in a relationship of mine that will finally last.
Protected: a story
my birthday
This weekend hayseed threw me a surprise party complete with celebrity guests, friends who traveled great distances and long lost friends. The evening was fun and easy. Not really, I was pretty manic most of the evening. I had maybe three beers but felt drunk from the moment I walked into the house.
It's cliche' but as each year passes I do feel older. Especially since turning thirty. This one makes thirty-five and the first one where I actually feel close to forty.
They found a place to make my birthday cake in the shape of a guitar. EI loved all my gifts. Hayseed even called my mom which is only interesting because mom didn't have any idea who she was at the time.
I don't seem to know how to keep my mother or others closest to me updated on my relationships. There seems to be this disconnect with me and my ability to share the details of my close relationships. I can think of plenty of excuses but no good reasons.
From my first serious boyfriend in high school until this very moment, I have not been able to explain these relationships without feeling incredibly uncomfortable. Llike my relationships are somehow fake - not real. Then there is the idea that inevitably things end so why go through all the explaination when my mom probably will never even meet the person and I'll have to make some explaination for a thing that there is never a good explaination. The last two times I did share with my mom, the relationships ended so quickly that I was embarrassed to tell her they were over.
So, my mom couldn't make the party but she sent a very personalized gift. The gift was really several items but included a photo album with pictures up until I moved to live gramps. She included a letter telling the story of the night I was born and some other childhood stories. She then asked me to fill in the photo album with pictures from those years after I moved up to the present and to include a letter of my own describing my life story. It will be an interesting project and process of reflection. We will see if I am better at explaining in print than I seem to be in our once every three month five minute phone conversations.
The emabarrassing moment at the party was showing S.G. around the house. Tragic comedy. She must have felt strange by the amount stuff related to her through my house. The picture on my desktop (which I've never even had a desktop picture until last week when I put a picture of her from the breakdown pictures), another picture I took at a show is on my wall of photos (at least there were others like Terri Hendrix, Michael O. and Shelley King up there too) and then the huge drawing I did of her hands a few years ago is up in the office. Oh and I almost forgot, I was wearing the t-shit promoting her new cd. (It was a surprise party. If I'd known I am sure I would have dressed differently). A n d , when I walked into the house, her new cd was playing in the cd player. Talk about a stalker. It was ridiculously embarrassing.
I would think that everyone in the room thought that s.g. being there made me happiest and I'd be lying if I said that it wasn't pretty cool that my favorite musician came as my friend but it is also true that there were a great many things that made me happiest. Each person there filled up the place in my heart that belonged only to them. And my heart was overflowing from every single place. So, it would be unfair for me to say what one thing was the most special. There were so many - All that Shawn did to help. The effort that Debra and Tammi made to help out too. That Mandy came all the way from IL to help me celebrate. That Monica and Deona showed up. Everything that hayseed did to plan a special night. A night to remind me that there are in fact very special people who love and care for me. Sometimes I can forget these simple things. This was a special thing that made me feel extra loved. It will be a memory that I can draw from in the future when I forget again. And I will.
Now to figure out what to say to my mom...
maybe you've been wondering where i've been
today is the first day since New years that I've felt I could breathe without the pressure of work bearing down on me. Work's been good but busier than ever before.
I got an email today. A little voice from the past tapping on the screen door. Pictures from a life in progress and though we haven't spoken in some time, I took a peek. I couldn't help myself. Not at all. I'd almost forgotten us. Well, the emotion of us.
As I was clicking through the various series of pictures, I thought about how much it actually looked like the life we always spoke about when we were together. Probably one we'd have never had together. And that sort of implies that everything works out for the best in the end. Though at the end of that relationship there was never really any doubt what was best was the end.
There will always be someone who loves you better and there will always be someone who loves better than you.
God bless the broken road that lead me straight to you.
or something like that.
what did love teach you?
There nothing especially brave or exceptional about not saying those words nor is there anything especially passionate about saying them either. The truth is in the action. And the things that are real are only proven over time.
I guess I can offically call this christmas season to a close. Realtively uneventful and much more calm (read easy) than last year or the last few years. Some traditions rise up and some fall each year. My mom and I spoke briefly. She seemed happy and also concerned about my brother. Happy to have spoken to him, concerned by his life. I sensed that there was something strained in her...the merry was missing. Love is a strange animal. I learned little about it from her though. Ah, see some traditions never change.
What did love teach you?
Love taught me how to laugh
& how to cry
Love taught me how to tell the truth
& how to lie
Love taught me how to fall
& how to fly
And love taught me you can't ever ask why.
the season of giving
I am thinking about you. I am thinking about me. It's that time of year. The time when the ghosts of christmas' past resurrect themselves and quietly take up residence in my empty spaces.
Thankfully, there are too many to fill.
At least I don't flinch at the phone ringing anymore. I think I finally understand what is meant by "I have nothing to give". I've spent years reflecting on that statement. The conclusion I always came to was ..."just to me, you have nothing to give." I know better what that looks like now. And, maybe, I also understand that everyone can get to a place where there is nothing left inside to share. I really do understand now. Thank you.
I don't think it’s any being less of a real person but I see how it might look from the outside. Inside, is brimming with feelings, ideas and possibility. There's never been much that showed on the outside anyway, except the anger. Temper one emotion and they all get censored I suspect.
I don't know what else to do with myself. There's no way to be more than I am and no way to give what is not there to give. It’s no secret that emotions are often confusing and there seems to be no getting around it ever.
an exercise in pouting
I languished in my soft chair and ottoman all day watching Dawson's Creek season three on DVD and occasionally reading this P Highsmith book I've been neglecting. This was my Sunday.
Un-showered and pouting all evening because my friends didn’t invite me on their excursion to the day at the state fair. I wouldn’t have gone because that’s the kind of mood I am in but I was let down all the same. Now I find myself in this all too familiar place wondering why I feel let down. And, simultaneously asking the question as to why I consistently have this stupid emotion.
I’ve never held my lovers to such high expectations. It’s only my friends who must live up to my "higher than the empire state building expectations". Each and every one measured to some insane degree of trust exercises and who will inevitably fail by comparison. I am most perplexed by the double standard and how I am unable to assess them with the same measure that I do my lovers.
I guess I just expect the lovers to fail me anyway. I am never surprised and rarely even caught off guard by the ending of a relationship.
As for my friends, they fall. I pick them back up and dust them off and place them back on the lift, only to knock them right back off at the slightest tremor. I am so crushed by their slights and their lack of considerations. I just can't see how they are really minor. In some impossible way, my friends are my last hope for family and unconditional love. How incredibly unrealistic that is? Nothing unconditional in that.. is there? None of my relationships are easy and I only have myself to blame. Let me just say that it sucks, I suck and once again I am tired of trying at all.