There's this song from back in the day about how if you love somebody, set them free.
I puzzled over this in my pre-relationship state, because I somehow felt it was true, maybe because I am all about love and freedom, and when I've been in a relationship, I always wanted my partner to feel free to do anything whenever they liked, even if that involved leaving me behind and tralalaing with someone else.
The unintended consequences of that practice for me: I will never fight for anyone. I let my partner choose and step back to let them do so. I become even more of an observer in my own life, and eventually, when I am worn down from not driving my own bus, they will say something about how I've changed and feel like their world is coming to an end because I dared voice a preference.
So I let them go, not because I don't love them, but because I do (infinitely more than I love myself), and I want them to go have their best possible lives and I'd never want to hold them back.
Also because I need to feel free too. I really do. I mean, I feel stifled just from living in the same place for too long. I could chalk this up to being a mutable Gemini, but it's also because I don't want to make a living in this world, I want to live in it. And I have no idea how to manage both simultaneously. The mundane might be fine on auto-pilot, but I'm not on auto-pilot enough to be okay with it.
Relationships, man. What are they all about? I've been in a relationship for pretty much all of my adult life except for the last year or two, and I'm wondering about why people willfully get into them, even seek them out. I've never been much of a seeker, except that I have always had my eyes open, in some hopelessly romantic fashion, thinking one day this person is going to show up, and they will know me. On sight. And I will know them.
I only still believe it's possible because it happened. And it was too painful in so many ways, and too wonderful in so many others. If it's not fate knocking at my heart, it's not enough to pique my interest. It did happen again, but this time it wasn't immediately mutual. Eventually we were together for many years, but I began feeling like I really shouldn't be subjecting anyone to a relationship with me. There is a lot of subconscious programming I haven't yet figured out how to rewrite.
Truth is, I am really, truly, and intensively self absorbed. I feel like I have to become a better person before I'd ever be ready for another relationship. I know I'm not really that messed up, comparatively (because daaayum, people are insane), but the difference is that I know many of my faults, and while I know they're not such a big deal, I would much rather fix them without hurting anyone else.
I think one of the better relationship structures would be of a polyamorous design, mostly because I don't think I'm capable of being solely responsible for someone's heart. I'm very much a one person at a time kind of person, but it's really just too much pressure for me to be solely responsible for someone else's feelings.
Really, any sort of expectation has become too much pressure for me outside of the workplace. Work is a meaningless sort of cycle. It doesn't really matter one way or the other what I do there. Everything else seems like a crushing lot of responsibility I feel incapable of handling.
Logically, I know that I'm a pretty decent person to be in a relationship with. I'm occasionally funny, generally kind, and I can, on occasion, be sort of sweet. It is much easier and more fun to do things for and with someone else than it is to do for or by myself.
No comments:
Post a Comment