... the hole that runs through the core ...

Mookie and I have been struggling with our relationship for a little more than two years ... we have had some nice moments between then and now, but it has been struggle, struggle, struggle ...

I 'get it' but then I don't.  I mean I understand that things could unravel, but I don't understand why.  See, I had been under the impression that I was the problem in my previous relationships.  I would 'flake' at the oddest times and create intolerable situations.  I am not proud of those times or things, but I really didn't know why I would do the things that I'd do.  The kicker in all of this, is that is wasn't about infidelity, though there was some of that going on.  It was about what I call, 'participation'.

You know what that is.  The phone calls at work just to say 'hi'.  Cards left on the windshield when you go to work.  'Family time' with the kids and just the stuff you kind of take for granted when it is there, but makes a difference when it is gone.  I am really good at all those kinds of things, but I never understood why the lassies I would be with weren't.

LOVING CAN BE AN ART

On of the things that gets to me in relationships, is how difficult it is for people to love the person that they are with.  By that, I mean if baby doesn't care for spicy foods, why are you putting jalepeno's in with the salsa?  Do you really have to go play basketball and watch ESPN everyday or do you think that you could spare an evening to go to a show and bring home flowers and watch a weepy romantic movie once a month or so ...

... I think you are feelin' me ...

I know what I like, and I know WHAT I am like.  Bet that.  But what assails me doesn't complicate me as a person.  I rub feet and give baths.  I show up neatly dressed for parties and family reunions, and no, I won't try to hit on your hot cousin no matter how flirty she is.  Same with going to parties and clubs with your single friends.  I know the only reason I am in any of those situations is because I am with you, and I am with you because you are the one I want.

When you are not around, I think of you.  Sure, I function in the world but you are always there.  I mean hey, I love you.

That is how I am cut, and that is something that I deal with.  I don't think it is supposed to necessarily be reciprocated, because this is how I feel and that feeling is exclusive to me.  BUT it is supposed to be acknowledged.  Of that, I am firm as the Grand Canyon is deep. 

Mookie I do believe is a great girl.  She is a very good mother and a quality partner.  The question is, are WE a good combination.  This is my worry, that I would be into someone and they aren't into me.  From interpreting whether or not our social differences were too great, to having expectations that were unrealistic and all the things in between, my mind reels with finding answers for those questions.  Because I wouldn't mind fitting somewhere and with someone.  If I am not a 'fit' here, then that means two things; that I am occupying someone else's space and that my spot is out there somewhere ...

Because I have grown thru the awkwardness of my youth, doesn't mean my outlook has changed all that much from those days.  I still feel that I am 'out' even if I am in.  That I burned thru a lot of romances in my time wasn't that I was out 'sowing my oats', but that I would feel insecure, that I wasn't enough for someone, that I didn't deserve to be with such a super cool person.  So I made sure that I brought flowers and would send letters (because I can do better than Hallmark) and take walks through parks and all that stuff to let the person know that I love you and I would like to spend my time with only you. 

There are only two hat hooks in my mind, two things that I KNOW I can do, know that I am.  I know that I am smart, maybe not smarter than you anymore, but I do think I am the smartest cat in the room!  That is one.  The other is, that I know that I will make you feel loved.  How sure of that am I, you ask?  Let see, you are asking me what day is it that follows Sunday ... hmm, lessee ... it wouldn't be MONDAY would it?

And as Monday follows Sunday, I can make the object of my affection feel as special as the Venus De Milo.  Loving can indeed be an art.

... but there is one in "Quit"

A few years ago, I went through some troubles.  My boxing career had eroded faster than you could shake a stick at it, my Mom was called home, and my 'last best girlfriend' was not exactly 'On Call' for me.  And as much as I think that I am a super cool lover, I have also told myself that it doesn't take that much of me to be 'Cassanova Brown'.  So I decided that I would just break up with my LBGF, and move on.

After a few months of piegon-hunting (hey, I tried to told you, I have NOT been an innocent) left me unfullfilled, I sat with my BFF, a girl that I worked with and shared with her my relationship struggles. We talked like that, and that I was there for her when she was going thru issues with some stray cat, was the defining start to our friendship.

Even though I was still hung up over my LBGF, I hadn't tried to get back at her.  She had moved on, and I don't do the competing thing.  Not that I don't think that I would win, but it is the life's pursuit thing ... can't interfere in your chase.  But I did tell my BFF that I would review my policy of not 're-dating', you know, trying to kick start a past relationship.

I told her that I must have been the problem in my love life.  I mean, I still LIKED everyone, even my unwanted older sister, who has made it clear that she would listen to me if I made her an offer.  I just didn't have the temerity to go back and call on anyone.  So it wasn't that there weren't people willing to make a 'team' with me, but I wasn't into really being on the team ...

ANGEL ON MY SHOULDER

My LBGF would say that was how I chose her to talk to her, that I looked up and there was and I saw an 'angel of love' on her shoulder.  And I did see one too, otherwise I wouldn't have even spoke to her.  That is how it has been for me, when I saw Mookie the first time, how I was drawn to Nebraska, how I have found anyone that I am intimately linked with.  I am 'called' to them as much as anything.  'Hunting' like other cats isn't for me.  No singles bar or pick up places.  Whenever I have been compeltely single, once I start to want a relationship, I will 'see' her.  And like 'hooked on phonics', it has worked for me!

But as I told my BFF, I had maybe already 'met' the woman I was supposed to be with.  Not that someone wouldn't appear later, but if I wanted someone NOW, it is someone that I have already met. Cool, I thought and I wasn't fixed on a 'who' as much as I was on the 'be ready'.  It was going to happen, and it did.

Calling Mookie is something that I have done from time to time as we have grown older and lived our lives.  I am sure that 'catching up' with a dear friend isn't out of the ordinary, and when I called her, that is all it was, "Hey, how you doing, how are things," type of conversation.  That it became more, was not because of my will ...

See, one weekend Mookie took the unprecedented step of inviting herself to Detroit.  She had not done that when we were kids, so I was stunned.  And that is when the Angel appeared.  I had thought that I wasn't ready, but someone else, along with Mookie thought I was.  And what did this mean to me.

COMMITTMENT CUT

I told my friends that I was officially off the market, that I was with someone that I once loved, and was going to take the opportunity to love again.  When Mook would come to visit, there was nothing hidden from her, no unplugged phones, no anything.  Because I felt that even though I thought I had gone far with previous relationships, there was something that I wasn't doing.  Some of the things that appeal to me, like being able to stand against the Luftwaffe during the Blitz, or fighting the Japanese island to island in the Pacific or even remembering what the hated Ray Leonard did when Angelo Dundee said, "You're blowin' it son!" at the end of the twelfth round of his fight with Tommy Hearns ... the stuff that made a man a man to me ...

... includes being committed to things beyond all rational hope.  So I returned to Mookie and the provencial town I once jogged round, to be in a committed relationship.

Sea Of Doubts

There are plent of other things that I haven't covered for you, gentle reader, but I haven't made any omission with the intention of currying sympathy.  Truth be told, I am wholly an unsympathetic figure in the eyes of many.  That's cool, because I am not trying to find sympathy ...

... I am trying to find my way.

We actually broke up for a few hourson Monday night.  Talk about awkward moments!  Not because we decided to seperate, but I decided to ask for another chance.  My pride was tripping me up, making me smile as if the discussion was a joke.  But it wasn't and the smile wasn't there because anything at all was funny.  I was smiling because it was sooo difficult for me to say the things that I was saying ... I couldn't believe they were coming out of my mouth. 

I was asking for a little more time ... telling Mookie that I didn't want to lose her and that I know we could make it ... even when a part of me was ready to grab my duffel bag and get on line to go.

... and you thought the Democratic Primary was competitive!

This is the challenge, the new frontier.  See, after my trip to Chicago, I was able to see how unprepared I was should the unmentioned gets mentioned.  So I resolved to get into a better physical condition and mental condition.  This is why I haven't been writing as much about my relationship, not that anything is changing, but when it does, I will note it.  Like I am doing now.

It is a snow day, so I won't be going out.  That is why I am making this particular entry at this time.  This is new and interesting for me, to want someone in vain.  Payback can be a b*tch, or so I have heard.  Will Mookie come around and back to our relationship?  Or will I hear the 'Call of the West' (a song by the band, Wall of Vodoo)

he got the high sign so he jumped a bus
and along the roads that wind on through
the hot mojave and the jericho / he'd start his whole life anew
and what he'd left behind he hadn't valued
half as much as some things he never knew

 

... don't know, don't know ...