I've been fighting over how to say this.....or just excusing myself from saying it....or just procrastinating.....
but here goes:
Within the past couple years, I had the minor epiphany that I will never reach any of my potential until I find my other half.
(sigh).....background? Ok.
Back yon, when I was living off the credit bought by my "potential" in college, we were assigned a book called The Symposium by Plato. It was one of the few books I read for Human Situations. Actually, I think it was the ONLY book I read for Human Situations (it's short). Aside from that, it was notable to me at the time in my dismissal of it as largely a justification for pedophilia an elevation of homosexuality as a being more pure than heterosexuality.
Oh, and Aristophanes' speech about human life-partnering being about trying to restore wholeness stuck with me as well. In short, humans were originally spherical with a face on each side. Zeus got mad (as usual) and tore us in half. Since then we've been searching for our other half.
Skipping ahead a couple millenia...
I used to work on a car lot. I did not enjoy working on a car lot. It was just a lot of empty attempts to part people from as much of their money as possible to me, and had no great deal to do with my personal fervor for automobilia. The manager of the lot was the daughter of the owner of the chain. One day I went in and expressed my possible desire to move on. I cannot remember why she told me this, but she stated that sometimes it's hard to do w/o having a reason....someone (family?) to work for. Thinking about it now, she might have been saying that as much in reference to herself as to me (found out later she was in an ending marriage w/no kids; she now how has a diff hubby & a trio of romperdom to contend with). At the time I felt like there was at least one other human being in that building and hung around until after she was replaced. I think I put in my notice a week within her leaving. Or close.
Anyway...the point.
(sigh)
I have a strange relationship with women. I am a self-admitted and unashamed mama's boy. I slept in the same bed with my older sister until I was seven. My childhood was spent largely around her and my mother with most interaction with other children coming when we visited family. I went to the mall with my mother far more than I ever did my (one) homeboy and a couple other friends I made through him.
I had (what I consider) my first true love in 10th grade. I had my first official girlfriend two years later. She lived about 75 miles away.
I dealt with peers and the ensuing pettiness for the first time in college, in coed dorms. I had a girlfriend that I saw more than once a month for the first time (admittedly, was more about the state than the person at the time). I let some miscreants piss me off early on and went on to behave an entitled, spoiled ass for much of the next 3.5 years.
I left there and found who I thought was my match...went back and forth for a while, finally decided to say it out loud upon having to do the long distance thing. That fell apart.
Since then I've been in one long, confusing, maddening, uncommitted relationship and one other that was just long and uncommitted.
In the interim, I have several female friends who, at some point, were attracted to me/didn't get why I wasn't attracted/thought I wasn't attracted/moved on/met me while I was in a relationship and moved on/blahblahblah...
(inhale)
I'm sort of scabbed over now. I can't feel like I used to. Having someone hold my hand doesn't feel the way it used to. Being around someone doesn't feel the way I remember it. I don't get that sensation of glow like I did sitting in the back of a car in a parking lot at night back in 19XX. I've had moments. The second I sense "in love" coming from the other direction, though...(cringe)
It's like the side of my face that's been numb since my wisdom teeth were removed. There is sensation there, but it's dull. It's just enough to remind you what's not there.
So, at some point in the past few trips around the sun, 2006 I think, I came to the conclusion that we are only half until we find our other. I didn't immediately think of Aristophanes or my former manager, but I won't deny them their presence in it.
There have been times when I thought it would have to come with someone new - too much pain built into the past. That "new thing" feeling used to be what I said I missed most in the college relationship**. Plus, there's the chance to develop a new image among that person's community...a chance people won't scowl and eyeroll when you make the announcement.
There have been times, including more recently, it's felt that it would have to be someone I already know. I'm tired and don't feel like putting in all the work to learn somebody new. It's always funny how you can get out of these relationship things 'cuz you think the other doesn't get you, then you move a few years on and talk to them, and you're astonished at what they knew about you and what you didn't know about them. Or did.
I even managed to have a little crushy flare up for an ex last week.
(inhale....exhale)
(inhale)
(exhale)
There was somebody, once, who I was ready to marry. I knew then that I she was who I wanted to partner with, but I felt like I didn't have anything to offer her. You know, the stuff that the "man" is supposed to be able to offer; stability and such. My father said to me "when you gonna marry that girl".
Now, I'm pretty sure that I feel I will never have anything, accomplish anything until I find that other.
I will never reach my potential w/o another energy to fill the space that my procrastination, ephemerality, etc. leaves empty. I am not enough human to do it by myself.
Whole.
Though I'm not really sure how to get there from here.
(**in fact, what was missing most there was truth)
but here goes:
Within the past couple years, I had the minor epiphany that I will never reach any of my potential until I find my other half.
(sigh).....background? Ok.
Back yon, when I was living off the credit bought by my "potential" in college, we were assigned a book called The Symposium by Plato. It was one of the few books I read for Human Situations. Actually, I think it was the ONLY book I read for Human Situations (it's short). Aside from that, it was notable to me at the time in my dismissal of it as largely a justification for pedophilia an elevation of homosexuality as a being more pure than heterosexuality.
Oh, and Aristophanes' speech about human life-partnering being about trying to restore wholeness stuck with me as well. In short, humans were originally spherical with a face on each side. Zeus got mad (as usual) and tore us in half. Since then we've been searching for our other half.
Skipping ahead a couple millenia...
I used to work on a car lot. I did not enjoy working on a car lot. It was just a lot of empty attempts to part people from as much of their money as possible to me, and had no great deal to do with my personal fervor for automobilia. The manager of the lot was the daughter of the owner of the chain. One day I went in and expressed my possible desire to move on. I cannot remember why she told me this, but she stated that sometimes it's hard to do w/o having a reason....someone (family?) to work for. Thinking about it now, she might have been saying that as much in reference to herself as to me (found out later she was in an ending marriage w/no kids; she now how has a diff hubby & a trio of romperdom to contend with). At the time I felt like there was at least one other human being in that building and hung around until after she was replaced. I think I put in my notice a week within her leaving. Or close.
Anyway...the point.
(sigh)
I have a strange relationship with women. I am a self-admitted and unashamed mama's boy. I slept in the same bed with my older sister until I was seven. My childhood was spent largely around her and my mother with most interaction with other children coming when we visited family. I went to the mall with my mother far more than I ever did my (one) homeboy and a couple other friends I made through him.
I had (what I consider) my first true love in 10th grade. I had my first official girlfriend two years later. She lived about 75 miles away.
I dealt with peers and the ensuing pettiness for the first time in college, in coed dorms. I had a girlfriend that I saw more than once a month for the first time (admittedly, was more about the state than the person at the time). I let some miscreants piss me off early on and went on to behave an entitled, spoiled ass for much of the next 3.5 years.
I left there and found who I thought was my match...went back and forth for a while, finally decided to say it out loud upon having to do the long distance thing. That fell apart.
Since then I've been in one long, confusing, maddening, uncommitted relationship and one other that was just long and uncommitted.
In the interim, I have several female friends who, at some point, were attracted to me/didn't get why I wasn't attracted/thought I wasn't attracted/moved on/met me while I was in a relationship and moved on/blahblahblah...
(inhale)
I'm sort of scabbed over now. I can't feel like I used to. Having someone hold my hand doesn't feel the way it used to. Being around someone doesn't feel the way I remember it. I don't get that sensation of glow like I did sitting in the back of a car in a parking lot at night back in 19XX. I've had moments. The second I sense "in love" coming from the other direction, though...(cringe)
It's like the side of my face that's been numb since my wisdom teeth were removed. There is sensation there, but it's dull. It's just enough to remind you what's not there.
So, at some point in the past few trips around the sun, 2006 I think, I came to the conclusion that we are only half until we find our other. I didn't immediately think of Aristophanes or my former manager, but I won't deny them their presence in it.
There have been times when I thought it would have to come with someone new - too much pain built into the past. That "new thing" feeling used to be what I said I missed most in the college relationship**. Plus, there's the chance to develop a new image among that person's community...a chance people won't scowl and eyeroll when you make the announcement.
There have been times, including more recently, it's felt that it would have to be someone I already know. I'm tired and don't feel like putting in all the work to learn somebody new. It's always funny how you can get out of these relationship things 'cuz you think the other doesn't get you, then you move a few years on and talk to them, and you're astonished at what they knew about you and what you didn't know about them. Or did.
I even managed to have a little crushy flare up for an ex last week.
(inhale....exhale)
(inhale)
(exhale)
There was somebody, once, who I was ready to marry. I knew then that I she was who I wanted to partner with, but I felt like I didn't have anything to offer her. You know, the stuff that the "man" is supposed to be able to offer; stability and such. My father said to me "when you gonna marry that girl".
Now, I'm pretty sure that I feel I will never have anything, accomplish anything until I find that other.
I will never reach my potential w/o another energy to fill the space that my procrastination, ephemerality, etc. leaves empty. I am not enough human to do it by myself.
Whole.
Though I'm not really sure how to get there from here.
(**in fact, what was missing most there was truth)
