Thinking about relationships and what makes them worthwhile.
Certainly for a long time I was wary of physicality. I’d split my mind into the mental and the physical, and it was a very black and white division for me. I had a good deal of trouble and guilt and soul-searching about crossing over. When you have trouble having faith in anything at all, then the concept of Love can be a quick casualty.
The idea of who or what we find attractive, as shallow as it may be, is often based (initially at least) on a physical attraction – and what does that mean about the actual emotion? If you look at us too carefully we’re not much more than chemical engines, controlled by reactions too tiny to note on any vast scale. And our physical attractions, at least on some level, are theoretically molded by our concept of health and beauty, potential mates, offspring, what’s best for the species.
So what of those of us who aren’t looking to breed, at least not right now? Are all those chemical reactions wasted? And is Love, lust, passion, and the relationships that these spawn really anything more than the chemical need to reproduce?
I don’t know – never did – had a lot of trouble with that coming through my head and making me feel like I shouldn’t get involved with ANYONE if that’s all it was. Love no different from intoxication….
Somewhere along the line, I either surrendered or grew up a little. The concept of faith (not meaning religious – but the firm belief in something that remains unproven) is something that is either a bandage for things too big for our little hearts and heads to master, or it’s a bridge from ourselves to things too big for our little hearts and heads to master. As soon as I could abandon the questions though, I could dance around on it with the firm belief that I wouldn’t fall. It’s a belief in getting by on Luck, on the skin of your teeth, the fumes on your gas tank… on spit and Love..
So – open the concepts of Love, relationships, maybe even an afterlife. Funny how I could always believe in UFOs and the Loch Ness Monster, but I couldn’t believe that a crush on a woman was anything more than a passing chemical flurry.
I wonder about wasted time. There are few relationships that I regret. One or two that I wish I could rearrange so that I was in a better place for them, one or two that I wish I could delete and undo the damage to the other heart, one or two that I’m really not proud of. They were the ones where I’d slipped a long way down, and it was enough that they were pretty and dangerous, and I didn’t care what else. I didn’t care how little they cared for me. That’s something I’m always in danger of slipping into. I think I might be there now.
So what makes them worthwhile? I wouldn’t have traded my high school Love for anything. I hope she knows that – we’re good friends now. I wouldn’t have traded my college Love for anything. She’s made me who I am, and through the abuses on both sides, through broken knuckles and bruises and damage done, the cheating and the heart-break, it was all very worthwhile. We’re still good friends too.
I’m tired of dating, though the getting-to-know-you process inevitably has some aspects of that. I’m tired of starting from scratch, of having to rebuild the trust. I don’t like being alone, but that doesn’t mean I ever want to go back to the days of relationships built solely on that, or torrid and hurried affairs that mean nothing to either or both parties. Those sorts of things make me feel soiled and used. I want to find what I was promised in high school. I wonder if it’s possible. A little while ago I was tired of the search and willing to put up with anything so that when I was lying in bed and dying like my Father was, I would be surrounded by someone or something… like my Father was. I’m still tired of the search, but I know that I can’t settle.
