A really strange thing has happened.  I guess I’ve developed a really strange relationship with my new neighbor, but I didn’t mean to.  I didn’t know I had actually.  Tonight Melissa jokingly accused me of lying; joking that I actually had a secret Notes on a Scandal (though I do love Bill Nighy) situation with the neighbor lady after discovering what was left on my doorstep tonight.  Well here it is.  I’m not trying to make fun of anyone, I’m just saying that this happened.  Tonight.  And for the record, I’ve only had two conversations with her ever and none led me to conceive that we had developed any kind of a closeness. (but she did get out of me that I had only a couple of months left on my lease and I’m not sure where I’m moving next due to recent changes in my life).

It is a book, and it’s called The Mastery of Love, “A Toltec Wisdom Book“.  Inside she wrote, “To Lauren, Wishing you all the best in all you love,” which is a very nice thing to say, but a little odd because I don’t know her.  Inside she wrote two cards and placed them in two different places.  One card says The highlighting served the previous owner; alas not me. and she leaves her cell phone number at the bottom.  The second card, inserted on page 82, says Lauren, Receiving a book as a gift used to provoke subtle resentments inside me.  A spatula doesn’t scream “COOK!”, nor does a cashmere sweater demand “LUXURIATE!”  But a book came with a message.  Now that I’m happily wiser, I know, like everything else someone does, it isn’t about me.  Hallelujah.  Ruiz’s books have been a challenging read.  Apparently, I still have more to learn.  When I read pg. 82, well, you’ll see.  Best regards, Karen.

This is what’s written on page 82:
 
Can you see the possibilities a relationship offers?  Expore the possibilities.  Be yourself.  Find a person who matches with you.  Take the risk, but be honest.  If it works, keep going.  If it doesn’t work, then do yourself and your partner a favor: Walk away; let her go.  Don’t be selfish.  Give your partner the opportunity to find what she really wants, and at the same time give yourself the opportunity.  If it’s not going to work, it is better to look in a different direction.  If you cannot love your partner the way she is, someone else can love her just as she is.  Don’t waste your time, and don’t waste your partner’s time.  This is respect.

If you are the provider and your partner is the addict, and this is not what you want, perhaps you would be happier with someone else.  But if you decide to be in that relationship, do your best.  Do your best because you are the one who is going to reap the reward.  If you can love your partner the way she is, if you can open your heart completely to your partner, you can reach heaven through your love.

I’m going to have to say something to her now, and I don’t know what to say.  I don’t know if I should assume this is just really generous friendship…which is still somewhat uncomfortable b/c it’s unrequited and we’ve yet to develop a friendship…or if I should consider this a pass from her.  I really don’t know, but I clearly have to talk to her about it now.  Goodness.

What do you think this is?

Picked this quote out of a Slate article about information overload, but…it could be argued for other purposes too.

Probably the greatest overall threat is that so many potentially meaningful experiences can easily be supplanted by merely thrilling experiences.

From a friend:

“If you meet a woman of whatever complexion who sails her life with strength and grace and assurance, talk to her!  And what you will find is that there has been a suffering, that at some time she has left herself for hanging dead.”  Ahab’s Wife or, The Star-Gazer by Sena Jeter Naslund

As you can see, I have been avoiding responses and responding to the “Caught” post for literally a month now.  Even the night I wrote it, the minute I posted it I thought of revision upon revision, etc. times infinity.  There is no end there and no solid and compact explanation for you, so I let it sit but was irked by it’s stagnance and kind of bound by its limitations.  Kind of like an unsightly but senstive and real kind of cut.  But what could I do?  I definitely was nowhere near a state to talk about it.  I didn’t want to talk about it.  I just wanted to write something that night and that’s what came out.

I still wonder how people do this.  My questions that day are still real to me now.  That’s what the post is about.

Even to the Jane Austen part; I decided an entire post could easily be directed to that subject.  I thought about it for a few days afterwards.  For instance, all her plots really do involve upperclass characters, but by using that descriptor, it wasn’t my intention to indicate that as my personal fantasy.  I was just saying her whole thing is fantasy…people fall in love with the “interesting girl” expectedly and girl readers want to relate to that “interesting girl”ness, and her characters profess themselves so beautifully.  She includes a little fighting for something and a little standing up to something and the story becomes brilliant pop fiction.  It’s just classic Austen.  And it’s clearly directed, entirely, to girl-fantasy. 

Even when I said that it’s evident that a woman wrote the part at the end of the film between the father character and the girl character, I’m not saying all women desire a moment like that with their dad.  What I’m saying is that she includes dialogue that a dude just doesn’t know about right off.  She includes things a girl would love to hear from her dad – if not now, a female might understand the sentiment from at least a time in her kittenhood.  In Emma, in Pride & P and even in Sense & Sensibility, the figure that represents the father presence has trouble giving his daughter away.   He can’t get along without her.  He tears up a little.  It’s original Chick Lit.  (not that my dad had any trouble.  He was excited and asking for grandchildren.  We’re not even Catholic.)

But back to Caught.  Please know that I know that seeking connections like firefly lights is not what love is about.  I don’t know if he would agree, but I do know that.  I don’t invest more in that than I do love.  I’ve been a complete ass idiot so many times, and especially to KO, but I respect love, now more than ever.  Talking about pressing boundaries and seeking connections, even then, was not intended as an explanation of my decision.   I knew there was a risk of that, but I didn’t want to deal with it.  I really couldn’t control my emotion tornado; I was in a perpetual state of overrunning my banks and shores, and seeping out through the cracks, and even crying at pap on the radio, I was so sensitive about the loss and destruction.  I couldn’t control myself long enough to articulate anything solid.  Caught was part of what I could articulate that day.  I don’t give the enjoyment of meeting new interesting people more importance than I give my partner, I promise.  But I am always dealing with it; it’s always a burden that I have to maneuver with and around when I “belong” to someone.  I’m probably ruthless to a partner in a number of ways, but also with the vigor I employ to always seek connection with him.  I need deep connections.  I ruin things trying to make them and upkeep them.  I don’t have many other kinds in my life too often.

I know that I have a lot to learn about compromise and understanding and getting it.  I want to understand better and to be constantly improved.  I am open to learning these things and appreciate your comments and experience.  I had a lot of trouble making the decision that I made.

I got out of my relationship because I was unhappy, paralyzed by my jadedness, and I was afraid of what was in my future.

It was a shit place to be but for the life of me, I couldn’t kick it.

It was a dark and myopic view to take, but I was unable to get around it.  Now, I’m better and regret my lack of imagination and trust, but I can’t deny that I couldn’t get past it.  I couldn’t.  It ate my heart every single day.

I didn’t leave because I was spritely looking at the poseys.

I know there are unknowns, absolutely that’s right.  And though I’d like to say otherwise, I’ll admit.  It’s true I’m afraid of them even though I know change is the most constant thing in the world.  I know it but I’m still afraid of it.  It’s a shit problem waste of time that I have to learn to be more comfortable with.

No doubt it looks that way, but my decision was not about him.  But it definitely risked him.  Before, I chose not to risk him but this time I couldn’t help it.  It was selfish and necessary and kind of frantic and about me and the things I couldn’t fix in my life at that point.   I didn’t stop loving my gorgeous and fkking kickass devoted and incredibly loving and creative, talented partner, and I didn’t stop respecting the importance of love and of solid relationships and of what he was giving me.  I know there’s no getting past it, but I’ve always hated how leaving something communicates that you don’t respect or appreciate it.  It’s a short sheet distortion of cognition.  It’s just such an unfortunate interpretation that isn’t always the case.  But absolutely yes; he could have chosen an easier, less befuddled partner.

I have been realizing lately that I could not have gone forward any other way.  I couldn’t stop it from happening.  I couldn’t stop myself from destroying something.  It’s the absolute truth.  I was completely unable to pilot the nose back up on the plane whose trajectory I’d charted through the Andes. 

He recommended I watch the movie Fur…and it kicked my ass up and down and sideways.  Aside that it’s subject matter was freaks and fascination.  Front and center, to my flickering eyes, was the relationship death and no one’s ability to stop it and about 50 other things that were written and depicted so authentically it shocked me.  Plus, anytime I see amazing filmography and raw, sensually recorded sound and production value, I think of him. 

I’m not trying to sound melodramatic and self-centered in any of this.  I just don’t know any other words.  And this doesn’t even explain it all.

Like being focused on trying to do something good, but tripping on it and blowing it at the pinnacle moment.  The moment where all the money used to get to this point, where all the effort spent to reach this place gets defeated with a trip-up. 

I watched this out of the blue yesterday and tried to upload it *secretly* to youtube, but i could never get audio to work when I did that, so I deleted it from youtube and just posted it here (but couldn’t figure out how to show an image for you to click on).  I have a handful of these; if you’d like to see others, let me know – or I can just show you where to get them from.  

The more I watched it last night, the more the the whole environment felt altogether supremely alien.  It really seems alien to me – this man is standing on the moon.  Our moon.  And admittedly we finished my stash last night and I had a glass of sake, but the more I watched this, the more I felt like I could hear real  regret in his voice over something that probably ended up being no huge deal.  It clearly wasn’t mission ending.  But seriously – listen how he sounds at the beginning.  He says “golly” and “darn it”.  But by the end he sounds humbled and regretful.  He says “I’m sorry” twice; you don’t hear grown men say those words much on the job.   There’s a long part where he stays on his knees and the camera pans in to him.  Taken out of context, this looked like loss to me.  I realize he was just studying his device, but I find it interesting nonetheless.  You could put some sad music in there and edit/snip the video to make it seem like he’s kneeling.   Found it interesting in my subjective, senstive state last night, so sharing -

trip_over_wire.mov

it’s definitely interesting.  This is sobering and heartbreaking and strange and difficult and interesting.  And heavy.  It is insane-inducing.  It’s surreal and enveloping and overwhelming and intent on making a searing burn.  And staying.

I realize things every single day.  It’s like walking around uncovered and unprotected.  Ultra-sensitive to surroundings and to experiences and to things and especially to memories.  Observing things.  Treading lightly.  Analyzing but mainly stuck there feeling.  Or trying not to as much. 

Starting            and then stopping.  Starting again and then stopping again.  Afraid sometimes of what’s to come.  But not at some other times.  Starting and again stopping.  Remembering enthusiasm though.  Gripping tightly because maybe it can be trusted.  Or maybe this will change in moment, after a few.

uch.  enough.