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j4I managed to get out of the social half of next week's Away Day. It involves going bowling. They tried to convince me that this should take precedence over staying in the office and trying to meet the August 1st deadline for the Graduate Prospectus (not to mention getting the Reporter published on time that day), but I put my foot down. Having refrained from insisting on a day's holiday earlier (and missed out on spending extra time with a loved one as a result), in order to guarantee meeting this bloody deadline, I'm buggered if I'm going to be pressured into wasting half a day on something I don't even want to do.
Today I am missing people I have no right to miss. Not their fault, for they never promised me anything and have given me more than I hoped for; but sometimes I can't help dreaming. A dear friend told me today "You deserve to have someone's whole heart." She's wrong. Nobody has anybody's whole heart; everybody has so many commitments in so many different directions that the best any of us can hope for is the fragments of time (and there were days between) left over after everything else has been done.
And there are so many things still to be done. (And miles to go before I sleep.)
Today I am missing people I have no right to miss. Not their fault, for they never promised me anything and have given me more than I hoped for; but sometimes I can't help dreaming. A dear friend told me today "You deserve to have someone's whole heart." She's wrong. Nobody has anybody's whole heart; everybody has so many commitments in so many different directions that the best any of us can hope for is the fragments of time (and there were days between) left over after everything else has been done.
And there are so many things still to be done. (And miles to go before I sleep.)
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Re: wholeheartedness
Date: 2004-07-21 12:36 am (UTC)Feelings aren't in the realm of "rights", and so if you miss someone you miss them. The fact that you can't be their primary person doesn't invalidate your feelings, nor your validity in expressing them. Pain is bad but it's the being told you can't have it/express it/acknowledge it which is downright damaging.
Why, exactly, resist talking about it now and again when you're feeling that way?
Re: wholeheartedness
Date: 2004-07-21 04:12 am (UTC)Because sometimes it makes things worse. If the person I'm missing feels pressured by me talking about it then they'll probably just decide they don't want to waste time on someone who keeps selfishly demanding their attention, and then I'll miss them even more.
It's a balancing act: keeping quiet enough that they don't feel like I'm making demands, but not so quiet that they completely forget I exist. (And if I lose concentration I might forget that I exist, and then where would I be? ... Happier, possibly.)
Re: wholeheartedness
Date: 2004-07-21 06:09 am (UTC)If the only thing that keeps them from feeling they're "wasting their time" on you is your silencing yourself, then they are already deep in a hole which does neither of you any good. If they're involved with you then they gave you permission to be yourself and to let them deal with their own consequences. If they're adults, that is. You deserve to be with someone who can row their own boat.
Life can be lived, however, missing someone like blazes, knowing sth will never work out with that person, and still actually finding happiness with someone else. It's hard to imagine that this might be so, fear of the pain of separation being awful to contemplate, but at least entertaining the possibility that one might be happy with A.N. Other is worth five or ten seconds of one's time.
Re: wholeheartedness
Date: 2004-07-21 06:46 am (UTC)But the people who can row their own boat are rowing along happily in their own direction, with or without company, and don't want a miserable neurotic child clinging to them.
[...] and still actually finding happiness with someone else
Finding happiness with anyone, ever seems monumentally unlikely at the moment. I have to become something I'm not -- something loveable, something interesting enough for somebody to be willing to put up with it hanging around all their life -- and I don't know how. :-(
Re: wholeheartedness
Date: 2004-07-21 07:01 am (UTC)Re: wholeheartedness
Date: 2004-07-21 07:09 am (UTC)Re: wholeheartedness
Date: 2004-07-22 05:02 am (UTC)You are loveable and you are interesting - maybe not simultaneously, all the time. But that isn't required of you nor of anybody else. It isn't possible. Being an imperfect human isn't a good reason to decidethat one doesn't deserve to be someone else's primary.
Some of the time you might be a "neurotic child", but you definitely aren't that all of the time, either. You've got lots of adult in there and even some bit of parent wanting to struggle out from time to time :-) - Frex, you did a very adult thing in refusing to go bowling and in determining to meet your deadlines. Very row-your-own-boat decision. You deserve to have that acknowledged, and OK, my doing so isn't the same as immediate respect from your boss or colleagues, but I think it's a very respectable decision, honest and right, and I say go, you, for respecting yourself and your work.
willing to put up with it You're not an "it", you're a human being with all the bits.
Some of which may contradict each other, but what of it?
Re: wholeheartedness
Date: 2004-07-22 05:53 am (UTC)The bits of parent wanting to struggle out are something I think I need to try to repress or get rid of altogether, somehow. It just upsets me too much thinking about the children I'll never have. If it wasn't for that I'd probably be quite happy just being people's secondary choice; but I don't want the co-parent of my children to be somebody who sees me as just a stop-gap between their real commitments.
(Mind you I should probably be thankful that I can't have children; what on earth kind of a mess would they be with me for a parent?)
Re: wholeheartedness
Date: 2004-07-23 05:00 am (UTC)That's a very Parental statement, actually.
But this: I don't want the co-parent of my children to be somebody who sees me as just a stop-gap between their real commitments is BRILLIANT, adult, spot-on thinking: YES, yes, YES!!! You are SO RIGHT.
Here's another parental statement: what on earth kind of a mess would they be with me for a parent?) Sheesh; what parent is that? Some awfully condemning and heavy-handed one who is crushing to a child and insulting to an adult, but not the kind of parent you'd be. You wouldn't say that to a child of your own, you're too caring.
If you physically can't have kids I'm immensely sorry that you have that particular row to hoe. I have three close friends in that state of being and it does take a shedload of time and effort to work through it; they have, I'm happy to report, and have an immense capacity for love and fun.
Your hypothetical children would be well-loved and enjoy your passionate commitment, and that is really all that matters. You would be loyal to them to the best of your considerable ability. And they would be merry, thoughtful, articulate, wiity, lovers of music and beauty; as well as stroppy, sometimes mean, sometimes dirty, sometimes clean [/Shirley Hughes] --- in other words, quite normal human beings, but having your delightful qualities in good measure.
And as those are partly nurture, as well as nature, if you and A.N. Other, the one who is able to commit to you, that is, end up adopting you'll still have lovely kids.
Negative thinking usually involves believing one can accurately predict the future and it Will Be Bad - but most folks actually don't have some accurate crystal ball, and the chances are at least 50-50 that Things Will Turn Out Better than one thinks.