...AND THEN THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE IS IN MOVING ON

"Some of the biggest challenges in relationships come from the fact that most people enter a relationship in order to get something. They're trying to find someone who’s going to make them feel good. In reality, the only way a relationship will last is if you see your relationship as a place that you go to give, and not a place that you go to take." - Aarti Khurana

I get that statement and I really get it from the perspective of women, Suzie’s and the LaTonya’s of the world.  It was something that I saw when I was in elementary school and the dynamic has essentially not changed in the 35 years since.  And that which I am talking about is how men have receded from their traditional role in relationships as women have entered into the societal hierarchy in work and in the domestic arena as well.

One of the things that I have put up front with the women that I get involved with along with my “indiscretions” and my penchant for adoring women, is that I refuse to be the victim of their previous bad relationships and poor decisions (prior to the poor decision that make f*ckin’ with me!!).  By that I mean when it comes to a woman being wary because of what happened with this one and remembering what took place with that one, especially when they draw similarities between me and some other jerk in their past.  Or worse yet, when they are fearful because of their slanted vision of men, having that perspective shaped by handouts from the SMC or the A of BWW, the Association of Bitter Women Worldwide, the umbrella organization of the S of BBW, the Society of Bitter Black Women.

These acronyms are certainly not meant to be serious and are tongue-in-cheek comments.  I don’t think of them any differently than the various negative caricatures that are made about men to reference their “less than good” traits.  I use them to make a broad and sweeping comment about the personalities and women that I see and know, as well as have “knowledge” of, some of them who I see and are active in my life, presently.  That said…

My girlfriend has been as much of a support for me as she could be.  Having her around has been crucial in my dealing with this episode.  I do have greater concerns regarding what I have been going through but that is another conversation.  What I want you to know is that our relationship have not suffered in any way because of what we have had to deal with, on both ends of our relationships.  Life is not only happening to me, but it is something that happens to her as well.  Being able to find a balance and clear out a space where we can be with each other has been major for us. 

Pecan Sandie is being all “Pecan Sandie” when it comes to Lexxie and her coming out.  Instead of half, she is not going to split her airfare with me.  I am going to keep crunching numbers but I do not think that I can afford to pay her full fare and host her in comfort.  What I think I will do is send her my half directly and tell her I will work on getting her here for X-Mas in 2013, as well as a summer in 2014.

KT has her junior prom and that is the big event for her, and I think that I mentioned that my starter wife said she would talk with Skye.  All things considered, my personal life is quite stable.  That is what made the persistent sadness that I have been dealing with so troubling, but concerns I have about my sadness is another conversation.

I had told Nebraska that I intended to comment about our relationship in my journal.  That set in motion an exchange of emails, with the ones from me swinging widely from one end of the spectrum to the other.  We have never reached a happy medium, whether it was of fondness or of non-involvement.  In considering my future, one of the things I thought was appropriate for me to consider is the state of my relationship with her.

One of the more irritating things about my using an online blog as my diary has been in regards to our relationship.  The big thing about how my blogging has been a boon to me is in the fact that it is an outlet for expressing my thoughts.  When I was living with Mookie Dee, we did not have good communication between us, and I was struggling in pre-diagnosis.  Once I was found to have my injury and her job was moving, thing really began to go downhill in our relationship.  Blogging became the outlet that took the place of my lack of having a person to confide in about my issues.  Blogging has provided me with a clarity that I found that I needed in my life.  It is NOT meant to garner support and feed my self-esteem.

Because I wanted to do an “emotional off-loading” and my feelings for her are among the things I felt needed to be “unloaded” and placed into storage, I let her know that I was going to be discussing her and my view of our current relations.  The subsequent heads up turned into an emotional e-mail firefight, instigated by me.  I have some unresolved feelings regarding her and after today, I will have to accept that there will be unresolved issues between us.  This is going to be central to what I am going to discuss.

I have always been fascinated with the notion of people finding each other through unusual or alternative means.  From pen pals as a kid, the idea of meeting a significant actor by other than the usual circumstance that brings people together.  So when I first met Nebraska on the interwebz, it was well within the realm of possibility that she was a possible “true love”, and if not that, then she would become an enduring figure in my life.

We have never had a lot in common but that is not unusual for me and my love interests.  What many people see as “in common” and key to a relationship is to me, superficial.  “Why don’t you like girls who listen to Morrissey?” I was once asked long ago (and would be asked in, rephrased, for most of my 20’s and early 30’s) and my answer was along the lines of not wanting to walk around dressed in black and being sad!

 

I thought you knew… I crush on Polly Jean..!

PJ Harvey sings about the relationship that I once had with the written word.  Again, from my pen-pal past to whatever scribbling I do here, I really used to enjoy writing as much as I enjoyed boxing.  It was not that we spent a lot of time trading lurid e-mails or had long IM conversations about what we would like to do with each other in a hotel room (though don’t you know… there was SOME of that in our conversations, too!), but what I do know is that I told her how much I cared for her.  Did she believe me, making her a part of my images of cats like Johnny Rodgers, Vince Ferragamo, and McCathorn Clayton (whose first name was on the top of my list for a girl for YEARS!!) among my Cornhusker heroes.  How well did she accept how nights spent watching Marlon and Jim doing their things in the early evenings, when I would watch George Perot and “The World At War” on old WWJ-TV back home, now being associated with her and a potential relationship with some lame cat on the Internet?  Even though she may have been more than just skeptical of me (and for good reasons that are too many to list… save one), the thing was that I KNEW what I knew.

Why did it take me so long before I actually got here, to move to Omaha?  That would be a good question, grasshopper and the answer is one that I have, but with our differences it is one that I am going to keep to myself and  not share publicly.  In fact, most of what makes up the reason that we are not a couple now, and does not seem to be headed towards a friendship are things I will keep to myself for the most part.  But when you take into account how much I am influenced by Robert Frost, especially his poem “The Road Not Taken”, it should not be that surprising.  After all there are many roads “that I have kept for another day” and for some of them, the “other day” has come.

A long, messy entry, I know.  But sometimes that is what closure is about and why I think that it is overrated.  Sometimes a concept can become a culture-changing, life altering new paradigm and other times, it is nothing more than the residual of broken dreams and good intentions, and the latter are less fun and more difficult to clean up after.