Familiar Ground

[outlier_lynn]

I've been down this road before. Last night I suggested that I was lonely. That is not quite right. What I was feeling was alone. It just took me a moment to get the romantic nonsense out of the way. You know, the part of relationships that says "You and me against the world." I was calling it lonely because I'm feeling like I am alone fighting an unbeatable foe and I just didn't want to be alone in the battle.

I feel asleep reading an Elizabeth Moon novel. I found myself identifying with her young heroine and that was the lens that reshaped my circumstance.

I'm also HIGHLY SUGGESTIBLE. I drink coffee all day every day. Caffeine is not a problem for me. But last evening, Amy said if she drank the coffee I ordered at "this time of night" she would be awake until 3am. I said it wouldn't be a problem for me. I forced myself to put the book down at 2:30. I think I was awake for quite awhile after, though.

Maybe the caffeine, but I suspect it was something else. I've been building a case for worrying and yesterday was filled with circumstances that neatly lined up with my concerns. Mostly, this is money driven. (And just now, one of my jobs for today was cancelled.)

It always takes me awhile to remember that I don't have to save the world or anyone in it. I notice, though, that I have a habit of putting myself in situations where someone or something needs saving. Sigh.

There is a kind of human interaction that shows up like a missing in my life. A kind of interaction that I want -- maybe need -- and it is generally not available to me. But it's not available mostly because I avoid creating the possibility of it. Why? Because if I convince myself that it isn't really possible, the overwhelming feeling of hopelessness and purposelessness would be disastrous. It feels like too big a risk.

I get glimpses of it now and then. Moments. Somehow, though, I seem to feel undeserving. The last real glimpse was my last two interactions with Michelle and Jim. There is the life I'm leading. There is the life I want. And they are pretty far apart and I don't see a bridge in either direction.

I've had my ups and downs over the last year. But that is overlaid on a slope of unacceptable. Just how bad will I let it get before the risk of action is less than the risk of inaction? I don't know.

I know that it drives many things about my life. It affects who "gets love" from me and who I fall in love with and how I express it. It plays a big role in what characteristics I'm attracted to. The problem with that is that I take people at face value. Over time, I find out that the person isn't who they claimed to be and I felt cheated and used.

Several things that have been said to me in the last couple of years really linger. I'm sure the speakers have long since forgotten uttering the sentences, but they landed hard over here. Some (spoken by Tamara) were "truths" I didn't want to hear, but have come to reluctantly accept. One (spoken by Amy) raised more questions than answered existing ones. Some (spoken by members of my household) were pieces in an impossible jigsaw puzzle. Some by friends assuming I'm fully in support of their goals and dreams.

All those interactions build a picture of how I am seen and heard by the people in my life. And, mostly, it's not how I'm intending to be seen or heard. I seem to spend a lot of time trying to correct an impression.

Tamara is the only one who ever really got it right, but it took 18 months of working closely together in transformational work. And as I look around my life, I see that it is just not possible to have that level of connection with only casual effort.

That really sets my whole view of the universe on its head. And that really sucks. But it also has a great deal of freedom in it. For some reason it is now less important to me that I be understood by people. It is feeling separate but not isolated. Apart but not exiled. Different but not distorted.

Sadly, though, it shows me many of my "roots" are mere illusions. Little falsehoods I've created to give myself the feeling of belonging. And worse is the realization that "belonging" is just another little falsehood. It is not really possible to lose one's self in a community or group and that, I realize, is the "belonging" I was longing for.

Oh, brother! What a realization that is!

Comments

Re: Familiar Ground

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

just quick; more tomorrow when i am awake -- why do you want those kinds of relationships? nevermind whether you should want them, or whether they're possible -- what do you want from them? what would they give you?

Re: Familiar Ground

[crazed-lynn.livejournal.com]

A relationship that really had no secrets -- such as one with complete telepathy -- would put an end to the persistant fear that people are just pretending to like me, are tolerating me at best, using me at worst, and will eventually -- and intentionally -- hurt me.

It's entirely about pain prevention.