I feel so restless lately. Useless. Like I'm killing time that could be better spent.
I suppose it's at least in part due to my (very late) realization that I can probably look forward to about as many good years as I've already had... if I'm lucky. This makes me want to do something more with the time I've got left... But something for whom? I can't really see the logic in making the last thirty to forty years of my life into one big gesture aimed at someone else that would never be fully appreciated and which would probably be at least half misconstrued. So it only makes sense to make those years as comfortable as possible for old Numero Uno, right? Thing is that it makes me gag a little just to read the selfishness in those words, and even if that didn't repulse me (and it does!) I know it wouldn't work.
There are some truths that are transitory and some that are permanent, at least when it comes to people. My taste for Prince, however long it seemed during my adolescence and however horribly it scarred those around me, was transitory - and for that if I thought there was really a god I'd have to thank him emphatically. A more permanent truth is that I need someone to take care of if I'm going to make it. I don't really care enough about my own material wants and needs to cook and clean and pamper myself. This is not the same, I've learned, as saying that I don't care enough about myself. I do. I'm just too unmotivated by my own needs - contradictory as it sounds, it's true. I have to have someone that I feel responsible for (and to) in order to pay the bills on time and clean under the fridge once a month.
I have someone like that in my life. I suppose that since I have found him wanting in some regards I could get rid of him and try to find someone better. I know a lot of people would feel that they owe it to themselves to do just that if they found themselves in my shoes. I know that I could punish him; I've been in a relationship with someone who punished me because she found out who I really was, I know how that feels. I don't wanna do that. Not so much because I don't want to punish him (of course I do, I'm only human) but because I don't wanna be the punisher. I don't want to wear that hat and I certainly do not wanna internalize that whole vengeance thing into my world view. Who has time and energy for that? Obsessing over people who have wronged me feels like hiding in a dark closet and cutting myself - that sane and that likely to hurt anybody but me.
I just wish I knew what to do with the anger that bubbles up in my heart every time I think about it. I wish I knew how to turn those feelings of impotent rage and seething hatred into something positive. I hear that's possible... but then, every movie from 1930 to 1950 or so told us there'd be flying cars by now too and look how that turned out. The thing I'm really afraid of is that at some point those feelings will be present in the same physical space that he is, if that makes any sense. I'm afraid that I won't feel those things when I'm alone and not keeping myself constantly busy enough, but when I'm with him... I'm afraid that whatever pane of emotional glass I've managed to erect between those feelings and myself during the hours we're together every day will shatter. I don't ever want to so much as raise my voice in anger to him. I love him and I'm afraid of hurting him. I couldn't live with myself if I intentionally hurt him.
Those angry feelings, though, and that fear, those are the only really lasting scars of one dark chapter in what might be a long and varied story. I'm still reading along every day, just wild to see how it turns out... I just keep my fingers crossed in hopes of warding off cliffhangers.
Title lyric from "Time (Clock Of The Heart)" by Culture Club.
Thirty-one years ago someone trampled all over my heart. The pain never completely goes away. There may have been some anger, I don't remember. What I remember even to this day is the sense of total loss. Just last year he got in touch with me again, I guess for another go-round. I let it go. Once is enough. Take care of yourself. You are the important one. If he doesn't care enough to receive your love, he isn't worth it. And that's not anger talking. That is just reality speaking. I feel for you. I know it's not easy for you now. Just get though each day. The pain will fade.
ReplyDeleteYour post struck two chords with me. The first was the comment about needing someone to live for - to give you a reason for living, working, breathing. I remember a dark time not so long ago - when my sons were still at home and I was working 3 jobs to keep things going - that I went to a bad place in my soul because I felt that I was only good for a paycheck and not really appreciated by my family. Now that I'm not working, I have days that I feel useless and even worthless - like I am not earning my right to be here.
ReplyDeleteThe second thought that struck me in your post was the theme of the energy that it takes to nurse and nurture anger and blame against another. There are many in my life who have done me harm. I am not angry with them. I have not been for a very long time. But (much like commenter Ron) I do not want them in my life again. In the last two or three years a few of them have suddenly reappeared and tried to make contact or to reestablish the "friendships" (My relationships will all of them was never anything deeper than a friendship, btw.) I've done what I needed to to cut them off at the chase. In my early days I spent far too much energy on the friendship and even more on the grief from the harm they caused in my life. Once I learned not to nurse that hate and blame, I had a whole lot more energy for living in the present. I am resolved never to return to those days of wasted energy.