relationship rambles

november 30, 2006

it has been awhile since i have written.  once upon a time, i used to be faithful to my journals.  i always wrote in the same book, i wrote almost daily.  these days, i write when the mood strikes me.  i also write wherever i happen to be at the time.  so there are notes scattered throughout text books, on the computer in various files, in a 3d journal, in emails to friends and to self, and the odd time at a website i belong to.  it is going to be difficult if i ever want to pull all the writings together from the last few years, and put them together to join the books on my shelf.

i finished eating a hard boiled egg chopped up on some dark rye toast, some pb on toast, and drinking a decaf about fifteen minutes ago. the cat has just left me for the futon after sitting beside me gently patting me with his paw until i let him sit on my shoulder for a five minute snuggle. the life of a cat. wouldn't i just love to be able to sit on someones shoulder for five minutes, snuggle a bit into their hair, then bounce off to a soft spot to wash and nap away the afternoon.

i have skipped school today. i am exhausted. i am spending a "just for loula" day, and am focusing on good things and being optimistic. when last i wrote here, i was trying to find work. i found a contract job where i learned so much about working on a questionnaire research project. i loved what i was doing!!! i am rather addicted to finding out facts and information. 

when the contract finished, i decided to go back to university and work on a computer programming degree, as i spend so much time on the stupid machines. well...halfway through august i discovered that i do not have a natural bend towards being a programmer, so am now in a mishmash of courses that i am hoping will enhance my employability as a social or market research assistant. i also work at three jobs, trying to make ends meet, and usually running myself ragged in the process. since i am so stressed, my brain seems to have taken a bit of a walkabout vacation, and is not holding onto information as well as it should be. needless to say, this adds to the stress...and so the cycle continues. i should add in here too...most days i am quite happy, just my stress load gets to be too much and i get exhausted mentally and physically. 

i have gone back to therapy to do some constructive work on relationships. all kinds of relationships - intimate, work, friends, family. the older i get, the more i realize that i have troubles getting close to men, really getting close that is, being vulnerable, and completely opening up and letting them into my heart and soul. i also have terrible boundaries with all people at times, and can splurt out the odd totally inappropriate thing at the odd totally inappropriate time. 

i think it has been six years this new years eve since i had a serious romantic relationship. a number of men have passed through my life via various forms of dating, but none of them have become a boyfriend. i think i have intimacy issues. i also tend to attract, and be attracted to, men who are just as terrified of relationships as i am. so this doesn't bode well for choosing to be in love. 

currently, i have two men in my life. one is online, 2d. he keeps me balanced and grounded. he knows more about me than almost anyone else in the world although we have never talked nor met in real life. he has been a part of my life for five years now, and i dont regret any of the time i spend with him chatting. he is extremely intelligent. i love him in a way, enjoy him a lot, and would quite possibly happily move into a relationship if it went that way. but it is not looking like it ever will. so i enjoy the situation for what it is, and try not to think too much about tomorrow. 

the other man is in real life, 3d. he has been around for much of the last year. it is a casual situation, and we just hang out and enjoy each others company. no pressure, no relationship, not much of anything but company. he is extremely intelligent. i care about him, enjoy him a lot, and would quite possibly happily move into a relationship if it went that way (notice the echo ). but its not looking like it ever will. so i enjoy the situation for what it is, and try not to think too much about tomorrow. 

the odd time i date a new man, go for coffee, eat some food...but nothing ever comes of the dating; no one ever causes me to feel butterflies dancing in my belly. i did meet a man who had oodles of potential, if only he lived closer... i am optimistic that one day, someone will show up, someone who i can let myself totally go and fall head over heels deeply in love with, and who will love me back in return. i believe. maybe. in the meantime, i struggle with my own logical argument in regard to relationships. 

between the two men who are in my life, i find some sort of balance. they fulfill my need for intimate contact in an odd sort of way. the bits that they dont take care of, get taken care of by my girlfriends, and sometimes i am able to make it home to nourish my soul with family folks. it is a patchwork life for sure, and one that usually works out quite well for me. however... 

i would like to be in a relationship. an intimate relationship with one person. one person whom i can trust, and be trusted by. someone to grow with, and whom i can work with on future goals and dreams. i sometimes think that my notion of an intimate relationship with one person is something that is almost totally out of bounds and out of reach for me, but i am working towards it. i am more than willing to work on being open to someone in real life. more than willing to open up. i just need to find a man who realizes that it will take a lot of patience to be with me, and who will give me space when i need to run away if i get too scared. someone who realizes that i can work on destroying a relationship without even realizing it, and that i will push away the very thing that i need and desire, an intimate relationship. its like "let me see how fast i can destroy this before it reaches out and hurts me...let me stop this before it can become anything...let me self destruct it...if i get to close, then i run the risk of being hurt..so let me just keep the entire thing at arms length, and end it before i get hurt." obviously, the two guys who are currently in my life work out quite well with me as neither of them is available for a relationship on a full time basis. 

so yes, i am rather dysfunctional when it comes to intimate relationships with men. i am sure that part of this stems from my own thinking and logic. i believe that we can love more than one person at a time, and that there are different forms of intimacy. i dont believe in one soul mate for the rest of my life. however, i do believe in soul mates in general. i believe that there are some folks who we just have to meet, we have no choice. they are the people who spur us on, and cause us to grow in some dimension. i found a website somewhere, in which the author spoke about soul mates, and introduced the concept of a twin flame. she said that soul mates are not always good...they are people who we have to learn lessons with, and not all lessons are happy lessons. this is not to say that soul mates are bad...they aren't. soul mates can bring much joy as well. twin flames, on the other hand, are the people whom we resonate with, we are comfortable. 

i know that i have met soul mates in the past. people who i am drawn to, yet i cannot always explain why. i know that i have shared deep and meaningful connections with people. some have been short lived, some long term. and i know that i still have the ability to love, and to trust a member of the opposite sex. i have been talking and thinking about this a lot lately, the whole notion of romantic relationships with one person. i sometimes wonder if i will just carry on the trend i have had the last few years, of sometimes having more than one male in my life at a time. maybe i will live my life with an endless string of lovers, and will never truly find love. i am quite capable of being monogamous and true to one man, and one man only, and would love to do so. i could stay true for the rest of my life, if i was so inclined to be with someone. i would love to have a completely exclusive relationship on the physical and emotional levels. but that is not to be at this time, and so i have a patchwork situation instead. and no, i dont have a heap of sexual adventures going on in my life. 

i have been advised to never marry. i have been given this advice from more than one person. i dont know why people tell me not to marry. i have never heard of anyone else being given this advice. my father told me when i was in my twenties to love men, to have as many lovers as i desired, to live with as many men as i wanted to, but to never marry any of them. that marriage only leads to ruin. another male friend of mine told me to never marry anyone, because when you marry you give up on your own dreams, and you never do what you truly want to do for yourself. to this day, he has never been married. i have had married folk as well tell me to never marry, that its not worth it. and there is such a high divorce rate, over 50%, to back this advice up. 

i have spent a lot of time in the past spouting off to anyone who would listen that marriage is nothing more than a social organizational tool. that we, by nature, are not meant to be monogamous with one person for the rest of our lives. we are monogamous by choice. by nature, our biological drives push us to reproduce with many people, that way we ensure the survival of our species. bring in social organization though, which is what we need as we have such a mass of population, and along comes marriage or ownership of some form to keep track of who is where and with whom. 

so being that we are innately non-monogamous, i think it stands to reason that we do not have one true soul mate or twin flame for the rest of our life. why would we have just one other person meant to satisfy our every need if, by nature, we are designed to be with many people to ensure survival of our species. this is when i think the notion of a single soul mate is something made up of romance and wishful thinking, something along the lines of cinderella and the handsome prince. i think, in reality, that we have many soul mates and twin flames who we meet with, learn from, grow with, and then often times part or maintain more of a distance. 

i also think about growth. two people will never grow at the same rate for the rest of their lives be it intellectually, emotionally, physically or whatever form of growth people go through. we are all so very different. when two people are together all of the time, they cannot possibly always be in the same head space. it is during those times that i think divorce can take place, when folks give up as they feel so isolated. meanwhile, often times, if the people were able to ride out the growth separation and see it as a natural part of life, they would find that they will flow and be on the same journey again with their partner at some point. however, this may take great sacrifice of the self to do so. it could also take reaching outside of the primary relationship for support in other areas that the primary partner is not capable of providing at that time. this is a good time to rely on friendships. i think looking for one true soul mate ties into great marital dissatisfaction as folks are looking for the perfect person to compliment them and to be there for the rest of their life. meanwhile, this humanly is not possible. it would be ever so much easier in relationships if people were to accept, and admit, that people go through changes...that this is a natural process...and that people do not stay the same way forever. 

i think that monogamy and staying true to one person is choice. i dont believe in one person being the one and only for the rest of my life unless i choose for them to be so. see, when there are a variety of intimate people in my life, friends as well as boyfriends, i am more balanced. i like being able to talk and share things with more than one person at a time. but i have to ask myself...is this myself playing tricks with myself forcing myself to believe that my situation is healthy and good so i dont seem so dysfunctional to myself? i dont seem to reach many of the societal standards set into place for relationships. maybe my way is healthy and good, and totally functional, and the social norms are what are wrong for me. maybe the social norms cause me to think that i am dysfunctional. maybe i am totally functional. see, most times my situation works out well for me. 

i almost got married once. once. it was the closest i ever came to it. i had three men before that who wanted to marry me, and one of them i had seriously considered. but, out of the four, there was only one who i was ready to commit to, and marry. he left me, and never really gave me a reason for going. he told me that when he was with me that he felt like he disappeared. i have a strong personality so that is quite possible. its just too bad that he could not talk to me about it. if i had of known there was a problem, i could have worked on it with him. i was even going to have children with him. in retrospect it is good that he left, because i would have had an affair on him within two or three years as our sex life was, well i don't want to go into detail. i would have been out looking for physical fulfilment elsewhere. so it is for the best that he left, as much as it brought more distrust of men into my life, it really was for the best. i have been thinking about him quite a bit lately as i have been pondering relationships. i told him one day in the car, shortly after we had been together, that if anything happened to us that it would be a long time before i could trust anyone again. it has been. he left six years ago, and i have been single ever since. i didn't cry much when he left, i was mostly angry at the betrayal. he was not open with me, and had lived a lie. i cant abide liars. no matter how hard it is, the truth is always best. and the truth is that he hurt me. i feel like i am over him, but have not fully recuperated from the betrayal. maybe with this focused work i am doing, i will be able to overcome some of this, and will open myself up fully to men once more. and open myself up earlier too, not like six months down the road when the other person has pretty well given up on me. 

ok, i need a break. i have been writing for at least two hours now, and would like some cake and custard. which means i need to go to the store. cake and custard are allowed today as its "loula's day to be good to herself." 

may sunshine and happy things smile on you.

lou