My Own Heart Let Me Have More Pity On

My own heart let me have more have pity on; let...

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

My own heart let me have more have pity on; let
Me live to my sad self hereafter kind,
Charitable; not live this tormented mind
With this tormented mind tormenting yet.
I cast for comfort I can no more get
By groping round my comfortless, than blind
Eyes in their dark can day or thirst can find
Thirst 's all-in-all in all a world of wet.

Soul, self; come, poor Jackself, I do advise
You, jaded, let be; call off thoughts awhile
Elsewhere; leave comfort root-room; let joy size
At God knows when to God knows what; whose smile
's not wrung, see you; unforeseen times rather—as skies
Between pie mountains—lights a lovely mile.

July 30, 2011

I cry a lot. The tears are not always plentiful. Never had been. I once had surgery on my tear ducts for the sole purpose of producing scar tissue that would build up and keep more water in my eyes.

For crying a lot, I don't have a lot of tears.

But when they slip out of my right eye and over the bridge of my nose and drip silently onto the organic bamboo sheets covering the mattress my left cheek is pressed to, the water trail they leave is cool and almost refreshing in a bedroom that feels stifling and stuffy and hot.

It is not naturally cool where I live and the lack of insulation leaves my house always a little too warm, and despite that I lay on my bed covered only in that same soft bamboo sheet, my uncomfortable body feels over-heated and tired.

So the tear feels cool and refreshing. The only hopeful feeling my body has received in a while.

I shouldn't be tired. I slept until 11 today after going to bed at 11 last night. And then again, this afternoon, after my duties were done, I laid down in bed until I had to get up again. And after the final early evening activities were complete, I returned to the fitted bamboo sheet covering the almost nine year old mattress even though it wasn't even eight o'clock.

Because I'm depressed. Obviously. Depression is an old friend I know well. I say friend because as friends are so wont to go nowadays, depression seems to be the only one who keeps coming back.

I wonder if it is me.

Two friends got married tonight. Two people I introduced to each other. However, last year they decided my friendship wasn't worth it, but never told me this until after months of silence when I asked what was up, they admitted their conviction. I didn't go to their wedding because I wasn't invited, because I wasn't wanted. This is only the third friendship issue I've ever really had. People fall in and out of your life, but this is only the third friendship altercation I've experienced. The first was with a women everyone agreed was bat shit crazy, and she dropped everyone else like a bad habit too, so I felt kind of grateful when she was gone. The second incident with a beloved friend of mine resolved itself after some time and space. But this third one went on unbeknownst to me until so much time had passed that when I finally found out what happened, I felt embarrassment and more hurt than I ever would have felt had we talked about the issue at the time.

Adding to their wedded bliss this 30th day of June, is my roommate who got engaged tonight, finally, after months of complaining about her boyfriend and begging him to ask her already. She's ten years younger than I, and so I realize she doesn't know to just let time pass and be grateful for life as it comes in its own readiness, but still, her engagement makes me think of the man who asked me to marry him when I was her age. And the ring that was given to me by another just two years later; and it made me think of one of my best friends, a boy I loved, who asked a woman to marry him last week, a woman who isn't me.

And I guess it's just too much happiness. I can't even get my current boyfriend to return my texts or phone calls. Nothing. Just silence. The first man I loved in five years, the first man to love me back since that guy with the ring, and yet, I've never been more unhappy.

So I lay on my bed and cry. Not big tears, just slow, silent, wet ones that cool my face just enough to grant me brief relief from my friend depression who lays on top of me, unwelcome and unrelenting.

And then I realize it's not them. It's me. All the failed relationships over the years... if I'm the one who ended up single, then it's me who has the problem. The common denominator in fifteen years of adult dating is me.

Me.

Like the friends who left because of me, so the men leave because it's me. It isn't them. It's me. And depression lets himself back in the house because it's me who will leave the door unlocked. It's me who has the problem.

I don't really believe this in my heart of hearts. Really I believe a boy should call his girlfriend on the phone, or at least pretend she exists. And he shouldn't smoke pot three times a day, or have anger management issues, or still be in love with his ex-fiance. In my heart of hearts, I know these men weren't good for me.

But what I understand tonight is that I probably wasn't good for them either. Or any of the rest of the men who have wandered in and out of my life. So when men don't call back for a second date or dump me after two weeks or fill in the blank, it's not them, it's me.

And maybe that job that everyone coveted at that organization that everyone wanted to be a part of, wasn't as oppressive or exhausting or ridiculous as I thought it was. Maybe I was the problem there too. Like the suffocating relationships, I thought I had to get out. So I did.

But the common denominator there again was me.

I'm the problem. And depression has come to reveal this to me. But in this illumination, he has turned off a light. And another ray of hope is gone. In the revelation comes the closing of the drapes. They say it should be another way, that with enlightenment comes freedom, light, weightlessness. But they're wrong. Recognition only gives way to deeper solitude, darker souls, deadlier depravity.

So while the tears are a nice respite, they will not free me from my friend. They will only usher in the night. And again, I go to sleep.

Three Conversations

Three things were said to me this week while I was on vacation. None of them by my boyfriend.

One was a text message I received from an (I'm guessing) 40 something year old recently (in the last two years) divorced man with two teenage children: "You were the bright spot in my week," he said. I met him in a bar. We were both alone, sitting at the counter, reading a book and drinking a beer. Conversation ensued (it usually does), and he turned out to be a very bright man, a graduate of Yale who speaks four or five languages (modestly) and is in computer software or something. We talked through most of dinner and then I joined him at his house where we played several rounds of Rummi 500. He would have liked to have seen me more: without being pushy, he offered to take me to dinner the next night, or to do whatever I wanted. But I have a boyfriend, and even though we're on a "break," I want to be respectful of him.

But the text I received the next morning from that man was, "Thank you for last night. You were the bright spot in my week."

Later that evening, I drove to a nearby town to try some more local beer and read a little more of my book. At this second restaurant, I sat alone at a bar table, rather than at the bar counter, which means fewer people talk to you. But even at my bar table a man with a long pony tail and a beard came by and asked what I was reading. "When God Was a Woman," I replied. Truthfully, this man was not the sort of man I was used to talking to. He was a cross between a cowboy and a hippie, and older - 40 or 50.

"I've heard of that," he said to my surprise. "Is it good?"

I shrugged my shoulders and said, "yeah," figuring that would end the conversation.

"The way things were before men fucked everything up, huh?" he said and started to walk off.

"Kinda," I said, a little embarrassed.

"Not kinda," he said as he looked back at me, and shaking his head, he left.

Today is day three. And today I received an interesting email from an ex. He said he'd been thinking about me lately and just wanted to say hi. He recently married a woman he's been with for several years now and has moved away with her. I appreciated the sentiment and as our friendship always valued honesty, I told him about the book I'm trying to write and where I was on vacation, but also about my boyfriend and how we're on a "break," and how I'm not sure he can decide whether or not he likes me enough to keep loving me.

I received the following response:

i'm sorry about the boy. i know i don't have much room to speak to that situation, but i think you have the wrong attitude about yourself. you are a catch, and if a boy can't see that and act accordingly (this includes all boys, even this one), then he's not worth it. or he's got some growing up to do. but either way, you are not impossible to love (though i think i am finding, now and as i go through life, that love is pretty difficult across the board, even really good "it" kind of love, but that's beside the point). my wife says the same. she wants me to tell you that she's met you, so she knows that you a beautiful, intelligent, funny, and fun and that if some boy has to think about if he can stick it out or not, then YOUR answer should be NO to him!so, that's a bit harsh as a general statement, maybe, but i think she's basically right. you are a catch, and some man somewhere will be awake and aware enough to recognize it and treat you as such.

i've been having do a lot of growing up this year (or two), and a lot of it is hard and painful and just sucks. but i can look back on myself and see how i was operating as a not-quite-grownup in a grown up role and trying to have grown up relationships. i think at some point in the future i might even be mature and whole enough to look back on those selves of mine and not loathe or despise them. but for now at least i can see myself more clearly. i see where i wasn't acting like a grown up, in so many ways.

anyway, what i'm skirting around here is that i wish i had been more grown up when i approached you as a potential partner. i was caught up in so much of my poor boundaries and unknown needs, and it caught me up with you, in trying to give and be what i didn't have the space or availability to be. like i said, i want to have compassion for myself in that, but it is a shame. you are such a catch, as a person, a friend, a girlfriend or partner or lover, and i wish i had been more grown up to be able to treat you that way, whatever way it would have ended up being - to be the best friend to you i could be, or the best boyfriend, or whatever.

i don't feel like there is bad blood between us, but i just want you to know that i recognize my inability to have treated you the way you should be treated, and i'm truly sorry for that. you are certainly worth more than i gave, and more than this boy is giving. i want you to know that my heart knew that and knows it now, even though i wasn't grown up enough to act accordingly.

boy, didn't mean for this to be such a heavy email! this shit happens all the time now, these emotional bursts of "oh! i get it! boy, wish i knew that back then!" my wife is mainly the catalyst for this change. i guess i am doing a lot of work, but i don't think i would be doing as much of it so soon if it wasn't for her. thank god for girls in men's lives.

Thank God for girls in men's lives?! Who says that? The way the world was before men fucked it all up?! Who saysthat? And you were the bright spot in my week? How often does a woman get told that?

Anyway, I don't know what the point is to writing these conversations down, it's just that, well, I couldn't even get my boyfriend to pick me up from the airport tonight. He didn't want to see me very badly, I guess. And it made me cry... hard. When my friend who did come get me (also a male) asked what happened to my ride and who asked about who had I anticipated picking me up, I told him. And he just said, "Oh, Ann." And I knew what he was thinking.

And I knew that somehow I have turned into that girl I've always hated. The one who gets walked on and neglected and manipulated by the man she's convinced herself she's in love with. And everyone feels frustrated cause they know she could do better. Know she deserves better. But for the first time, I can't be gutsy enough to get out. Every time I try to end things my boyfriend says I'm being reactionary, and tells me he loves me even though it doesn't feel like he does, and that he just needs time to think...

Well, maybe I need time to think too. But first, I need someone to pick me up from the airport.

July 1, 2011

"You leavin' again?"

"Yep."

"Where to?"

"Colorado. I'm house sitting for a friend there."

"You should tell that friend of yours... what's the name?"

"Aubra?"

"No, your friend."

"Oh, Jacob."

"Yeah, Jacob. You should tell him he should watch out, you leavin' on all these trips." And my seventy-something year old next door neighbor laughed.

"I would, if I thought he gave a damn," I wanted to respond, but didn't. Instead I mustered a meek laugh and said, "Yeah, right?" and turned to head into the house.

Truth is, I had just left Jacob who said he wants a break. Because not calling or texting or emailing or facebooking or talking to me isn't break enough for him. He has to know on a cognitive level, not just on a shitty-boyfriend-level, that he is free of me. That he's not letting me down by not calling, texting, emailing, facebooking or talking to me... except he is. Every time he doesn't do it.

And we never do it. Twice last month. And I think only twice the month before that. He says it's just that sex is very emotional for him. And his medicine suppresses his libido and, well, he has the right to say no sometimes, right?

It's like being with a woman, except a woman would tell me she loves me when she drops me off at the airport.

"You're still holding on to that?" he exclaimed.

"Yes. Instead of responding that you loved me too, you mumbled something indistinguishable and walked back to the car. How do you think that made me feel?" He rolled his eyes exasperated. That was two weeks ago when he dropped me off at the airport.

And he wonders why I refuse to allow him to drive me there tomorrow when I fly to Colorado. Like I want to experience that again. Even my friends tell me they love me when I leave. But he can't muster the compassion or dare I say it, love, enough to do that.

"I do love you though," he said tonight. "I know you don't feel it and that I don't act like I do, but I do. I do love you."

I don't believe him, but he probably doesn't care. He's vilified me in his mind as this nasty, bitch woman who nags and nags and demands to be loved and allowed to talk to her boyfriend when he gets home from work, and who wants to have sex more than bi-weekly with the man she loves. What a terrible person I am.

It's true, he's disappointed me. And it's probably true that, as he muttered tonight, he's a disappointment at work and in his relationships and to himself. But that's not really my problem, is it? Isn't it my job as a single woman to try and find a partner who will love me and cherish me through the good times and bad and maybe call me on the phone every once in a while or want to take me out on a date?

It's my job to protect myself and choose someone who is supportive of what I do (write, speak, act and sing), and who I am (a liberal, feminist, compassionate, try-to-follow-Jesus-er-person), and who loves me even when I'm needy. And isn't it my job to find someone to love indiscriminately in return?

"We're both just very high maintenance," he said. Except that I try to give to him, in any way I can think of, to tend to that maintenance, and I am rejected. On top of which, none of my maintenance is ever addressed.

I hate it.

But I love him.

So yet again, I will let him put me through this bullshit, I-need-space, thing. I'll let him have his "break" and let him go home and sleep 15 hours a night, and get up and go to work, and come home and watch TV, and drink a bottle of wine, and go to bed again, and never think about me "break." And he'll go out with his "shallow" (by his own admission) friends who will encourage his drinking habit and make him do stupid shit like make vulgar gestures with his tongue and fingers and capture it on camera and put it on facebook, but not tag him, because no professional would be caught dead tagged in those pictures. But we can all see that it's him in the photos, but only I know that, despite the fun he appears to be having with his lusty expressions, we don't have sex.

Maybe twice a month.

And that's supposed to make me happy.

"Tell Jacob he better watch after you."

"I'll tell him!" I respond as I turn toward the door.

Yep, I'll tell him.