I love shiny things. And fun things. And super awesome adventures. And stories. And stories *about* super awesome shiny adventures! I especially love story time when I have something new and shiny and think about all the fun adventures we could have and all the places we could go and the things we can see and plot and plan and build castles in the sky.
Aaaand ya, I kind of get carried away.
What, me? The very picture of moderation and restraint? It would seem there's a fine line between story time and getting all up in Future Me's business causing hell. See, I have this vision of where I want to be in the future, what kind of family I want and the kinds of people I want around me. Sometimes when I find someone who is interested a little group storytelling, we go back and forth for a while and I lay down the whole epic saga. Even though it seems shiny and awesome, it seems this can be a little daunting. I'm coming to find that not everyone has their own shiny epic plotted out to compare notes right off the bat. And getting the whole thing at once, or even in increments at the beginning can cause a sort of "deer in the headlights" moment that I seem to mistake for plotting. Sometimes when I hear something neat, I sometimes kind of zone out lightly as I figure out how to make it work. It would seem that when other people hear something big and zone out, it can be because they're a little overwhelmed but I seem so excited that they don't want to kill the mood but damn could I slow down a little?
The deeper I dig into my head, the further the rabbit hole seems to go. Every time I feel like I have a handle on things and finally manage to peel back that last paper-thin film of crazy to uncover what I hope is finally some sense of "there", I discover that it's just another layer of crazy-onion, and there's so much more to go. I keep wondering when I'm going to get it right, and then I remember that it's all a work in progress and that I can only do what I do because Past Me didn't know what I know now, she was working on other things. Future Me, on the other hand, I'm sure is getting really tired of me trying to upstage her and Bogart her gig. I keep wanting the whole shiny story now and loose track of what's right in front of me. And when I'm caught up in the story, everything that happens now has repercussions that I weigh against the the whole future story and start pouting when I won't get the pony I don't even have yet. Sometimes I'm like NASA planning a shuttle launch, all careful and cautious and covering all the angles. Sometimes, especially it seems when it involves people I like, I become Johnny Awesome on a quest all "the arrow points that way, onward!" (later) "What exposition? You mean I was supposed to *read* too?". It's like a freaking five year old built my psyche out of bubblegum and glitter....oh, wait.
Where things have been getting better with the Mr., they've been getting weird and distant with, B. We argue about the dumbest stuff, and then spend an hour arguing about why we're arguing. Part of what I'd figured out is that we tend to be really similar. Our shiny red buttons are so close together we get into feedback loops that take on a life of their own. We've tried to resolve this a number of ways and nothing seemed to be working. This last weekend the Nothing we were arguing about started collapsing back into itself. We were reaching a breaking point, contemplating if we could even continue. I knew there were things I needed to say, but my brain was so full of crunching and "FUCK" that I couldn't think of what it was.
We finally turned out the lights and settled into an awkward not-tired pretending-we're-going-to-sleep-now.
And then the talking started. The quiet, timid talk that exhaustion resignation to the inevitable brings. What else do we have to loose? He said that he did feel overwhelmed. That we went so fast, in spite of declaring we'd take it slow, that new thing got piled on top of expectation on top of inexperience on top of excitement. Not surprisingly, we started slipping rather rapidly. He felt like I always wanted more, and I did, because there's a lot of neat stuff out there, but it began to seem like he could never give me enough. he started to pull back, and I'd think it was something wrong so I'd try harder to make it work, to try to explain to him why he was doing it wrong so we could do it right. I didn't mean that the way it might sound, I really felt like I was trying to give him the keys and cheat sheets to my brain-meats, but it came off as yet another reason why he was wrong. I couldn't figure out why he wasn't seeing things right, and then I started examining my own lenses. I realized that I'd been holding him accountable not just for his actions and responses now, but for how they would affect me in the future and how they would fit into a relationship we don't have yet in a house that doesn't exist yet. I realized was taking his resistance as a sign that he didn't want to go the distance, but that was never an agreement he'd actually made. I was letting the weight of what I wanted for the future cause some serious discord in what I had right in front of me. I have a good friend with an adventurous streak who's in a different stage of figuring out what he wants in life. I care about him very much and I'm curious to see what he'll do. I also know that there are some places he probably won't fit, and that my specific saga some years in the future might not feature him as a lead player. Maybe things will change, but there's too much good now to strain it to breaking for a handful of "maybe."
It's hard letting go of outcomes. I forget that from time to time I trust in forces larger than I to sort things out and have my best interest at hand. I forget that I've seen this borne out time and time again, and there has never been anything that's happened to me that has not made me better for it. It's really hard getting it through my head that if I'm going to play with conscientious, puzzle-solving monkeys who lead interesting lives, I'm going to have to accept that those lives won't always go the way I want them to. Their pasts, presents and futures are different, and that's the whole *point* for me, to see how other people do it and learn what I can from them. If their paths happen to line up with mine for a while, that's awesome, but I only have the ground under my feet, not their feet, and not where my feet are about to be. Getting caught up in what isn't is a great way to invalidate the experiences of the others who are here with me now.
The rest of the weekend went better, there were still a lot of unanswered questions. When I got home, I finally had a moment to figure out most of what I've penned here, and wrote a letter of apology/explanation/where-do-we-go-now in hopes of letting him know that much of what he'd said was right, and I'd finally figured out why he was right and that I'd try to take the seriousness out of it. To stop holding him accountable for things neither of us have control over and to stop getting up in Future Me's business. I have a great thing right here. I don't know what will become of it, how long it will last or what it may or may not grow into, but I know that if I keep trying to make it something it isn't, I will destroy what is along with even the chance of getting the pony.
Now I wait for the reply. I hate waiting. But I will, because though they may chafe in places, the grown-up pants make my ass look fantastic.
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1 comment:
I wanted to come back here and thank you for giving me a clue as to what my brain meats were doing that was causing me grief :).
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