There are Things That Drift Away

18 November 2006

Arsenal 1 – 1 Newcastle United
Dyer 30’ (A)
Henry 70’ (F)

It’s difficult when you realize that your struggle is not the important struggle that is occurring, that you are in fact the supporting character to something else. It’s especially difficult for egotistical writers: we believe that everything that happens around us, happens for us and because of us. Thus, it takes a big leap to understand that our story is not the one of significance in a given situation. When Michelle broke up with me, it hit me particularly hard because suddenly my life was different, it was about the pain I was going through. I wanted her back, and to be kind of honest, for a while I figured we would get back together pretty quickly. Not due to any kind of cockiness, but just because what we had was so good. I have attempted to start discussion with her a couple of times (although, impressively, not when drunk), and she has, with appropriate grace, responded for a short time. I’ve spent a lot of time frustrated because we used to talk at great lengths, the kind of depth that a real connection implies. I knew talking to her again was probably a bad idea, because getting over someone is not assisted by continuing contact. Point of fact, I should probably stop looking at her blog, but I really don’t want to. I watched my friend Zach stay in contact with his ex to an absurd degree (example: long conversations on the phone), and then he’d talk about missing her, and I’d roll my eyes: “Stop fucking talking to her so much, retard.” It also didn’t help that they pretended they were dating one fine weekend last fall. Easier said than done. I crave that contact. She had become such a huge part of my life so fast and I had grown quite used to it; now there is a strip mine in my life where she once was. I crave her contact because I know we had a great rapport, but to a certain extent I just need the intimacy. I’ve never needed it like this before; I’ve spent a large portion of my life lonely, and for large stretches, I’m sure it was for the best that I was lonely. But now, now I need that closeness, that affinity, I need it like a junkie needs heroin. What scares me however, is I don’t think I’m ready for that level of intimacy with someone else right now. That is to say, I’m stuck between a rock and a hard, emotional place. I want the deep relationship, but I probably shouldn’t have it now, and I’m certainly not ready to begin laying the necessary foundation with someone. A problem I’ve had all my life is a complete lack of understanding myself. My relationship with Michelle has both helped to crystallize my views, but also fog them. Some things have come into focus, others have become opaque. While I do believe that society defines who we are, at some point, I have to stop looking for others to figure me out. I have to figure myself out. I need to figure out what I want. It’s so difficult though to look at what one has in life, look at what where one wants to go, and determine what exactly the value is. It’s difficult to look beyond the labels of what I consider myself, to find some kind of real essence, especially because I don’t think I believe in essences like that. Believing in social constructionism has eroded whatever I think is beyond society: society creates everything, dialogue within it establishes all knowledge. I guess I want there to be something more, at the same exact time I don’t think there is anything more. So on a more simplistic level, I have to look for what I want out of a relationship at this point in time. I know I want to be in a relationship, and the question is, with whom. I have a pretty good idea of this, and my needs are broad, but also limited. The more I think about this, the less I feel unsure of everything, but certainly earlier today, I felt very unsure, worried, scared, so on and so forth. Maybe I do have a good idea of where I am, of where I’m going. There are some things up in the air: I’d like to move to New York, I think, in a couple of years. Get a cool editorship at a newspaper or something, or … somewhere. I’d like to have some fiction material completed by then, maybe a few of the sections of Alcova that I’m foreseeing. Shop that stuff around. The whole crisis today came about from what I was talking about earlier, about realizing that at varying points, my life isn’t the critical one. I read Michelle’s blog, and she described how our relationship was slowly derailing her sobriety. She very tactfully attributed it to not being in a place suitable to a healthy relationship, but I feel at least a little responsible, seeing as how I would still get drunk when she wasn’t around. It is probably for the better though, maybe we were drifting apart slowly. I lead my reckless post-college life, and she’s struggling to be craziness free. The point is, she needs the space, and my desires are less important, because I’m in a more secure space in my life (although my insomnia might lead me to believe otherwise). I’m learning to let her go at this point. For her sake. The more I try and talk to her, the harder I make it on both of us, and the more I—potentially—hinder her strides to sobriety. From this moment on, I cut the last chords linking me to her. She needs to be free of me, she needs to get to a place where she can focus on herself entirely. Lingering on what we had is only counter-productive. I can see where I want to go in life, and I can begin to accept that it no longer involves her. It’s time for me to stop seeing everything in my life as when she had been in it; our paths have split, I am one. Our journeys were always our own, but for a little while. Like cool autumn rivers that run together for a time, then part ways, a fork in the waters, at some big, warm oak tree that towers over both of us. The time we spent together was startlingly ephemeral, but magnificently worthwhile: for certain, the time could not have been spent better.