More thoughts on POTUS quote, human condition, be a bird...

Finally got another response to my POTUS quote from the same person… frogs?

Well, I answered with humor.

But it saddens me that this world, or the world I grew up in, is so filled with judgement and criticism of others’ lives instead of respect and love.

Love for fellow humans.  Desire for all humans to have happy lives.  Food and water, good health and love.  These, I think, are the simplest of needs I think all humans should have.

I use the word humans so that we continue to recognize we are all faced with the human condition, the inescapable factors of being human, factors that are not hinged on race, gender, faith, or class; “concerns such as the meaning of life, the search for gratification, the sense of curiosity, the inevitability of isolation, or anxiety regarding the inescapability of death.”

Movies dealing with race and slavery always seem to reverberate a sense that some humans decided that other humans were not human, but instead things that were inferior.  Again, this saddens me because this was so very untrue.  The Africans were human and thus painfully dealt with the human condition, as did their slave-holders.

This thread of compassion within me for fellow human suffering draws me to films, stories, and songs that deal with other humans discovering solutions for each conflict they face when seeking out the betterment of their human condition.  I love happy endings, but I know, unfortunately, so often some of the endings are more bittersweet and still insufferable.  One step forward, two steps back, sometimes.

Can’t we have a “Mary Poppins” moment, snap our fingers collectively, and all people love, respect, and acknowledge each others’ differences without judgement and criticism and racism and classism and sexism and hatred?

Can I be a bird on the wind?

Avoidant

Eh… I shoulda known that it was what I already knew, mostly. Even in middle school I did something like this: mom and I are in the mall or grocery store, I’m wandering around by myself. I see down an aisle or in a store a friend or classmate, and they’ve not seen me yet. I want to visit with them but instead my instinct is to walk on, avoid. I’ve always done this, and pay for it with few friends, and ones who probably get exhausted initiating contact every time. As I got older I forced myself sometimes to ignore the impulse. I think those 6 years crushing on someone who wasn’t going to reciprocate the same feelings led to a resurgence of this behavior tenfold. Here we go again with turning myself around…

“Avoidant is the most widespread emotionally unavailable type that sometimes can be hard to pinpoint as there are so many different types of avoidants. An avoidant may get into a relationship and stay there for many years, or stay away from all personal relationships and dating altogether for long periods of time. They may avoid all sexual contacts for months or even years, then go on a binge of one night stands. (that was a little in 2003-2004) Avoidants are typically introverted and in some extreme cases can become antisocial. They are typically very honest and rarely cheat or play, yet it is not uncommon for an avoidant to live a secret live no one knows about (yeah, I’m secretly Wonder Woman). They avoid intimacy by building walls around themselves and energetically pushing people away whenever they get too uncomfortable in a relationship. They avoid conflicts and confrontations at all possible costs pretending there is nothing wrong when the problem is quite obvious to others. They often resort to addictions to keep themselves cut out of the reality of their own lives and lives of those they get involved with.”

Equal Love

I knew when I posted the POTUS quote that I might get responses or questions I would feel unease answering, but though I could feel my nerves and blood ache with someone not understanding the simplicity of the statement, or seemingly begging for an argument, I think I handled it well.

"... for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well." - POTUS, January 21, 2013

Asked: Equal to what?

My Response: If we are all equal as human beings, then real love between two persons is equal to that of any other two persons who love each other.

Asked: And just how do you measure this?

My Response: How does one measure love?

Asked: I always think that in love between 2 people the love is never, ever equal. We all love for different reasons.

My Response: Yes, I suppose there are different, complicated loves. The abused child still feels love for the parent who abuses him simply because a child is supposed to love his parent. A wife loves her husband, and vice versa, and the ways that love is expressed may vary, but the degree of love may be the same, or one spouse may feel they love their spouse more than the other feels. But moreso, this statement is addressing that one couple's love is equal to that of any other couple's love, worthy of respect, whether a straight couple, gay or lesbian couple, biracial couple, inter-faith couple, or any other adult pairings of persons who understand the depth of love for each other. I know not all persons would agree with my stance on this, and that's fine, of course, but I still believe the world needs more love and understanding than judgement and criticism.

E.M. is not me

“Some people suffer from emotional masochism. They are more comfortable when they feel sad or consider themselves failures in life, or prefer to be in a relationship with someone who cheats or insults them. People who have these kind of feelings may have been bullied or abused earlier in life, or may feel that they do not deserve success and happiness.”

No, no, no. Sometimes I feel oddly more comfortable sad, but do not think I’m a failure nor want to think of myself as one either. I do not want to be cheated on or feel belittled. I was bullied at school, insulted and emotionally abused by peers, and had plenty if roller coaster feelings of what my dad thought of me (when I couldn’t figure something out, find something he wanted, etc, I was called stupid, idiot, anything insulting intelligence…). But I don’t desire to feel those feelings again either, far from it.

So this other is something else…. Surely? Hmm.

“Women who fall for unavailable men have some profound insecurities and self-esteem issues, and they invest so much in pursuing unavailable men with the following unconscious motive: If the unavailable man finally comes around and commits, they’ll—at long last—have proof that they are worthy. Sadly, without such proof, their self-worth is left hanging in the wind. In addition, these women feel that they’ve invested so much and waited so long for the unavailable man to come around that the thought of leaving without any payoff is almost unthinkable.” - from Psychology Today Magazine.. Although the main example I have of this is not someone who was in another relationship himself, but MDA was just simply not interested in me that way. But the waiting, the hoping that invested feelings would be returned, etc, was all true. 6 years that “crush.” Last summer I finally let it go because I finally realized it was truly never ever going to happen. I don’t deny I surely have some self-esteem issues and insecurities. Some I overcome, some are clinging like leeches. Ah, introspection.

Introspection and E.M. (more rambles)

Introspection and E.M. (more rambles) 

 

Been very introspective today. In part I think I let my thinking and emotions distract and procrastinate away from something I was going to do, which was to reconnect with a friend I have somehow lost contact with… No idea why we’ve not talked or visited with each other for months. I’m weird, though, when I have to be the one to reach out and tie down the time lost to a phone call, an invitation to meet, dinner… The longer I wait the longer I berate myself for letting it get this way. It’s not that I don’t think about them often, I do.

I think I’m growing more like my dad, less expressive in person, even if I do talk, talk, talk… Again the journals and writing for emotions. I’m just afraid of being rejected, is all, and even friendships can be awkward.

Okay. Tuesday. Phone call. Damnit, Laura.

Oh… Maybe I am an emotional masochist? Is that even a thing? I have been known to be attracted to those who are emotionally unavailable, or at least that’s what some friends described those persons. Also, I’d become emotionally invested in the unattainable. No, not pursuing someone who was taken, but someone who I may never meet or see again, someone who doesn’t share the same kinds of feelings, someone who is attracted to someone else… Whathaveyou. Yeah, an emotional masochist MUST be a term. Google here I come.

Car Wreck, Dec. 26, 2012

I know this looks scary as all get out.  I think I will forever be reminded of this day and know that it was just chance that in all that spinning on the icy highway that both impacts with the big truck and the semi never smashed on the driver’s side… All I can assume is that if it had, I’d at the very least have a mangled left leg.  Instead, I walked away with bruises.  Bruises… I can live with that.  And I do.  I still get a little shaken up thinking about someone being a nutjob speeding through an intersection when I’m unlucky enough to be crossing through… But it hasn’t happened yet.

I miss Emmylou.  I love that blue car.  But red Lucinda will work.  Not only is that name a reference to my poetry collection, but it just dawned on me the storyline almost echoes the succession of cars.  In the poems, mother Claire dies at the hands of a violent resentful husband who then also abandons his daughter Lucinda.  Lucinda grows up to marry another farmer man who attempts the same failed ideas of her father, more resentment and anger taken out on her.  But instead of falling to the same fate as her mother, she packs up and leaves him.  Lucinda not only survives, but she is stronger.
Oh, see that CD on the dash on the left? It was Iron and Wine’s “Kiss Each Other Clean.” It wasn’t as scratched up as it would seem to be.  It was in the visor over my head. Ray LaMontagne’s “Till The Sun Turns Black” was playing in the CD player at the time of wreck. I managed to recover all my CDs after the wreck.  Including the John Fullbright disc that was still in the visor pocket. Oh music, music, music…

I still wonder about the statue I saw in the cemetery that was alongside the highway where the wreck happened.  As I was trying to think of who and how to call someone I noticed it across the snow-covered field. I stared at it for a few seconds, grew calm, and everything after that seemed to just fall into place.  I cannot seem to find any pictures of the cemetery that shows that far left side clear enough… to see if that was really a statue or if I imagined something else.

intensities

On my lengthy drive the other day it dawned on me the similarities of three intense crushes I have had, and intense is not a word to be taken lightly or consider exaggerated.

The first of these involved someone I had only met two weeks before I moved out of state.  We worked together. I went out to eat with her a few times, hung out at her apartment a few times, and only really got to know a few detailed pieces of her history, much of her life still being untold and somewhat guarded.  I took a job out of state, moved there, and several months followed with an intensity of having missed out on 1) at least sharing with her that I had this crush on her, intense admiration and adoration for someone who probably didn’t have the same kind of feelings for me, and 2) having realized these feelings existed within me too late. I do not think, though, that it was anything similar on her part.  I cried often after I moved. I felt out of place and unsure of what I had allowed myself to feel and to miss.

The second was a crush on a fellow poet ten years my junior. It came on rather slowly, but once I recognized it, the welling of admiration for all that was him consumed me.  I caged the feelings. I valued the slow growing friendship we had, the tiny bits of his personal history he shared candidly but also without lengthy telling.  Bits of emotion, passion, masked with cynicism and pretended nonchalance.  At times the intensity of my feelings for him declared that I would wait all my life for him to realize we were meant to be together.  I’d wait, not force or push the matter. Wait.  But a another job taking me out of state, him moving to an even more distant state, every other week phone calls fading into monthly calls, every other month calls, once a season calls, and now… I’m not sure when I might hear his voice again.  Sometimes I called him, more often he called me to catch up, share something he’d read, written, thought out, listened to, watched.  He introduced me to David Gray over the phone when he was in Maine.  See, bits of him while forever be scattered throughout my day in little reminders like that.  I cannot think of David Gray without thinking of who introduced me to his music.  But he’s a protective personality.  Private.  Anything personal and intimate that he shared with me in the slightest of detail I felt was a show to trust and goodness, I wasn’t about to blab what was told to me to anyone else. I felt I was a valued friend. A confidant, however small the little bits might be.  And now, I’ve come to accept there is no need to wait.  And all this distance and time.  Love, yes, but waiting, no.  If I saw him tomorrow, talked together at length, shared some moments… I can’t say it wouldn’t all flood right back — it probably would — but I don’t believe I’ll see him again for a long time to come.  So… about 6 years.  Yes, 6 years is long enough to wait and to say, enough.

And now, thinking on this long drive, I think earlier this year I might’ve had a self-preservation moment.  I think I realized that an admiration for another friend had grown so much and so intensely that it was becoming a little too much to admit to myself, but most importantly, to not admit or express to this friend.  It would make things strange, awkward, and most certainly unrequited.  I don’t see this friend having similar feelings for me at all.  And she’s brightly beautiful inside, which is what has attracted me to all these individuals.  Passionate, emotional though with hesitation.  True caring.  Also, a very private individual, guarded, and shares only with whom she trusts, which I think includes me.  And so looking back, I think my weird distancing was in fact some weird way of guarding myself, but at the same time I berated myself for withdrawing without explanation, and also missing the friendship I saw forming.  I don’t think I have entirely broken that thread though, and soon it will be repaired.  However, again, I am sure intensity of admiration will swell up again and

I’ll have to continue to smile through it.

But that’s okay, because the friendship is worth it.  Some people you don’t want to lose their presence in your life.