What Am I Doing?
I know I need time and space.. the words come out of my mouth, but I don’t feel like I’m talking about myself. I want it, but I don’t want to give up him, I don’t want to give up my friends, I don’t want to give up this city, but for a variety of reasons, I still think that it’s the best course of action.
The pressures of this year have resulted in spontaneous snaps in my patience, reasoning, and sympathy. Quiet honestly I’ve had so many actions that I often don’t recognize myself, though I’m hoping that in the end I will look back at this as a process of developing self interest.
There’s a long history of putting my own priorities to the side in favor of everyone else. I’m not bragging, I think it’s a weakness not an altruism. If you can’t put you own oxygen mask on, you will eventually run out of air and you won’t be able to put on anyone else’s. It’s cowardice to hide in other people’s conflicts and interests and the denial of your own.
At 2:42AM, I’m not sure I should leave him. I watched him sleep, knowing full well how horrible he feels. I wanted to lay down next to him and hold him. That’s why I packed a bag and left the apartment. I’ve been avoiding him for 2 weeks now. I can sit across the table, have a quiet conversation at home, but I dare not spend the night, or even sit and watch a movie with him. I don’t want to get pulled back in, except right now I can’t remember why.
I know he dumped me a couple times. I know that he could say cruel things. I know that he could be selfish, controlling, and childishly demanding. So what? I can’t think of another human being that isn’t intolerable at some point in their relationship.
It’s not that I want to be single. I don’t feel like I’m missing out on something. There’s no one else that interests me.
I think I’m pulling away because I disappeared. I started to fall into a similar pattern with a completely different person for the same reason. But if it takes compromising my identity to keep a relationship alive, what’s the point of being in it?
I thought that if I could get myself in order I could just get a separate apartment, we could see each other 3-4 days a week. As my friend said “He can have the best parts of me” while I kept the obsessive, eccentric side of myself hidden away in a digital cave, but should I have to?
Now it’s coming back to me. It’s not just being selfish, it’s a total lack of compromise. I asked him to make changes and he just couldn’t consider it. Time and time again he couldn’t alter his schedule for me or my friends. He didn’t care that I couldn’t go to the gym on an empty stomach or that workout time needed to be put off to go make an appearance at a birthday or a house warming party. It was that he could never remember my friend’s names, he never wanted to read my stories, or watch my favorite movies or tv shows.
Even if we lived separately, I would be inhabiting his life half the time. He wouldn’t be sharing mine. I could offer it, but I’m fairly confident he wouldn’t be interested. After 7 months, I feel like strangers across the Internet know parts of me better than he does.
He’s not a horrible person, he’s actually pretty great, but that’s not the kind of relationship I want to have. And until I can resolve my budget issues and have some independence, I’m bound to keep overreacting to small things with even the most perfect person.
I have to use this time to progress my writing, but even more importantly to establish a firm foundation in San Francisco, otherwise I’ll never be able to return or when I do I won’t return to the city I know and love. I’ll comeback only to discover that we have evolved in different directions, like long distance lovers.
I don’t know what’s next. The only plan I have is keep applying myself, focus on my own self interest. I don’t know how to create a pipeline of projects here for myself. I don’t see anyone to partner or collaborate with where I can build a long term mutually beneficial arrangement.
I’m grateful to have a choice. I’m thankful to have someplace to retreat to, I only hope that I can make use of the refuge to create a future where I have some determination over my destiny and build a home that I can share with others.
As I get older, my dreams are simpler. I don’t want to lower my expectations, but I do want to be satisfied with less.
Cheers to a life permeated with love, founded on respect for my work, embodied in the spirit of my actions, and the truth of my humor.
