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Our Shapes Change
Dec. 24th, 2017 02:15 amI asked Gray if they found my favored rainbow dildo in the attic. They had not found it but I thought it might be a lie.
...that is from a story and I don't want to erase it or save it to a separate entry. Plus it's funny.
To me.
Dildos aside, I thought I'd better start finding a new way to deal with people disappearing from my life / disconnecting from people. I figure it will happen again and again and I can let it make me bitter or I can create a new narrative around it.
The best thing would be if I could get together with anyone I'd ever known or mutually impacted and have lunch with them every year - or even every few years or so. Without necessarily having to agree on other levels of commitment in order to validate the nature or intent of those meetings. These meetings would simply be 'I've known and you and I want to continue to know you in some small capacity.' I guess 'quality time' as a secondary love language I just completely skipped ahead in my mind to this point.
I think people are constantly changing and in my current life stage circumstances are frequently changing. We are different from one day to the next in small ways. Sometimes big things connect us and that doesn't matter. Mostly people just don't fit together in the same mutually beneficial way over a long period of time, so they communicate less or not at all.
This is a response to pain and anxiety: A repeated pain and anxiety I have experienced in worrying about the nature of my relationships with others, and an exacerbation of those symptoms due to people I love exiting my life.
I need to see the severing of ties (in some cases) as a gift we can give to each other. It is not necessarily a hostile or dismissive or uncaring response, but rather a communication in its own right: We don't fit, so I am letting you go, and I am leaving this space for you to find someone who does fit.
I don't really see people like puzzle pieces so 'fit' may be revised... and I don't see emotional space as finite. But I do think that relationships that linger and rot away slowly are toxic, distracting and at least give the illusion that emotional space is limited. It is not emotions that are limited but instead the capacity to endure toxic emotions and a toxic emotional space.
I also tend to see leaving as selfish; when we choose to leave we must be considering on some level our relation to the other person, since without the other person 'leaving' would not exist. So it can potentially be a very loving act and in consideration of someone else's needs (although, ultimately, we all act on our own needs). Many people stay because they are selfish: They are afraid to be alone or of other personal consequences.
I also don't want to conflate sadness and rejection with righteous anger. Part of me wonders if people just did what they wanted...I mean really...is that even possible? Aren't we always thinking of others and isn't there always some degree of fusion? I wonder if obligation didn't exist if many people would continue on to know each other at all. But that feels wrong. There are many people in my life who I wish to know forever without obligation.
People are affected by more than just our interpersonal relationship so I want to stop taking it personally when they leave my life.
I do want to take things in relationship personally in many ways. I think that people should take things personally in their relationships because that is how you communicate to the other person that they are affecting you and that is how they re-consider their actions and negotiate boundaries with you.
Anyway, I have to hope that I can hang onto important connections for a lifetime. It is very meaningful to me to know someone through my life and time intimacy kind of transcends the bounds of intimacy...nothing seems as powerful as time (not constructed calendar time so much but the ways we are different over time). And there's people who I just should know forever and that makes sense.
But realistically that can't happen with everyone and I think one day I will feel better about that. Not really ever okay. But I don't really need to be okay. Just self assured. Being okay sounds nice, too, though. But only because I can recall other people wanting that for me.
It's still hard for me to accept how my ex cut me off but I can accept that I don't have all the information. I feel very angry with and hurt by that person's actions. I will feel this way in ebbs and flows unless something shifts. And I can accept that too.
I have a deep seeded fear that everyone will decide that they are better off without me and that fear makes it difficult to accept the concept of leaving being okay. If leaving is okay then everyone will leave. If people don't stay out of obligation then how would they stay. I think this mindset drives a lot of insecure and controlling behavior that I have.
I wonder how many other people feel this way.
I feel that many people do feel this way
and I feel that coupling is a potential remedy for the fear: finding another person who wants to conceal the fear as you do.
but then something shifts for one of the persons.
Fear is an emotion that needs to be controlled, or else it is uncontainable and manifests in insidious ways and seeps into all facets of our relationships. Eventually if unmanageable we eventually run from our fear, too. We're afraid of our fear! And running and running and creating more fear and more and in cycles.
How disconcerting would it be to just watch a video clip of someone running and running in terror and never seeing what the thing is, but knowing it must not be the same (like they are swimming away, then they are running down a mountain, then darting through a house; what could have the endurance to chase someone through all sorts of landscapes?) yet never knowing what it is. No context, just running. What if that's what someone is doing? Have you ever seen that?
...that is from a story and I don't want to erase it or save it to a separate entry. Plus it's funny.
To me.
Dildos aside, I thought I'd better start finding a new way to deal with people disappearing from my life / disconnecting from people. I figure it will happen again and again and I can let it make me bitter or I can create a new narrative around it.
The best thing would be if I could get together with anyone I'd ever known or mutually impacted and have lunch with them every year - or even every few years or so. Without necessarily having to agree on other levels of commitment in order to validate the nature or intent of those meetings. These meetings would simply be 'I've known and you and I want to continue to know you in some small capacity.' I guess 'quality time' as a secondary love language I just completely skipped ahead in my mind to this point.
I think people are constantly changing and in my current life stage circumstances are frequently changing. We are different from one day to the next in small ways. Sometimes big things connect us and that doesn't matter. Mostly people just don't fit together in the same mutually beneficial way over a long period of time, so they communicate less or not at all.
This is a response to pain and anxiety: A repeated pain and anxiety I have experienced in worrying about the nature of my relationships with others, and an exacerbation of those symptoms due to people I love exiting my life.
I need to see the severing of ties (in some cases) as a gift we can give to each other. It is not necessarily a hostile or dismissive or uncaring response, but rather a communication in its own right: We don't fit, so I am letting you go, and I am leaving this space for you to find someone who does fit.
I don't really see people like puzzle pieces so 'fit' may be revised... and I don't see emotional space as finite. But I do think that relationships that linger and rot away slowly are toxic, distracting and at least give the illusion that emotional space is limited. It is not emotions that are limited but instead the capacity to endure toxic emotions and a toxic emotional space.
I also tend to see leaving as selfish; when we choose to leave we must be considering on some level our relation to the other person, since without the other person 'leaving' would not exist. So it can potentially be a very loving act and in consideration of someone else's needs (although, ultimately, we all act on our own needs). Many people stay because they are selfish: They are afraid to be alone or of other personal consequences.
I also don't want to conflate sadness and rejection with righteous anger. Part of me wonders if people just did what they wanted...I mean really...is that even possible? Aren't we always thinking of others and isn't there always some degree of fusion? I wonder if obligation didn't exist if many people would continue on to know each other at all. But that feels wrong. There are many people in my life who I wish to know forever without obligation.
People are affected by more than just our interpersonal relationship so I want to stop taking it personally when they leave my life.
I do want to take things in relationship personally in many ways. I think that people should take things personally in their relationships because that is how you communicate to the other person that they are affecting you and that is how they re-consider their actions and negotiate boundaries with you.
Anyway, I have to hope that I can hang onto important connections for a lifetime. It is very meaningful to me to know someone through my life and time intimacy kind of transcends the bounds of intimacy...nothing seems as powerful as time (not constructed calendar time so much but the ways we are different over time). And there's people who I just should know forever and that makes sense.
But realistically that can't happen with everyone and I think one day I will feel better about that. Not really ever okay. But I don't really need to be okay. Just self assured. Being okay sounds nice, too, though. But only because I can recall other people wanting that for me.
It's still hard for me to accept how my ex cut me off but I can accept that I don't have all the information. I feel very angry with and hurt by that person's actions. I will feel this way in ebbs and flows unless something shifts. And I can accept that too.
I have a deep seeded fear that everyone will decide that they are better off without me and that fear makes it difficult to accept the concept of leaving being okay. If leaving is okay then everyone will leave. If people don't stay out of obligation then how would they stay. I think this mindset drives a lot of insecure and controlling behavior that I have.
I wonder how many other people feel this way.
I feel that many people do feel this way
and I feel that coupling is a potential remedy for the fear: finding another person who wants to conceal the fear as you do.
but then something shifts for one of the persons.
Fear is an emotion that needs to be controlled, or else it is uncontainable and manifests in insidious ways and seeps into all facets of our relationships. Eventually if unmanageable we eventually run from our fear, too. We're afraid of our fear! And running and running and creating more fear and more and in cycles.
How disconcerting would it be to just watch a video clip of someone running and running in terror and never seeing what the thing is, but knowing it must not be the same (like they are swimming away, then they are running down a mountain, then darting through a house; what could have the endurance to chase someone through all sorts of landscapes?) yet never knowing what it is. No context, just running. What if that's what someone is doing? Have you ever seen that?
I dreamt of my impending death
as a Jew in some kind of Holocaust
I was holding tiny buildings that lit up in my hands as people sang a Christmas song joyful to those who sang.
But I knew the underlying antisemitism in the song's message meant that we would die soon
and as the buildings blinked - lit up and dimmed and lit up in my hands - I watched them mindfully to manage my emotions
as a Jew in some kind of Holocaust
I was holding tiny buildings that lit up in my hands as people sang a Christmas song joyful to those who sang.
But I knew the underlying antisemitism in the song's message meant that we would die soon
and as the buildings blinked - lit up and dimmed and lit up in my hands - I watched them mindfully to manage my emotions
Some things about me
I am
straight-passing queer (bisexual/pansexual), Cis woman who is maybe not cis and I dunno?
poly-minded and exploring relationship structures
feminist
white
anti-white-fragility
sex positive
origin Jew (in progress)
living with mental illness
can't distinguish between insecurity and anxiety. decides to eat popcorn instead.
insatiably curious
seeker of conflict resolution
tired of listening to people get asked what they 'do for a living'
...Counselor
grad student
Air Fire Fire
Moon Out of Bounds baby
It is important to be kind & respectful (except to oppressive assholes, in which case they may be people, but disregard everything).
People deserve freedom, validation, acceptance where they belong.
Dominantly positioned people, put aside your feelings and realize your position; feels about sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism...are for private times, with similarly privileged folks. People are suffering, your feelings are not the objective reality
It is important to consider one's own context and one's relationship to others and one's power and whether one owns light sabers
Excited to learn from and interact with new people
Terrified...brazen...secondary Gryffindor if you catch my drift
Must hold the good and bad and gray at once or nothing
I wonder often what it would be like to wander into the unseen space where paintings ~~supposedly~~ end
I struggle with how much of the past to let go of or hold onto
Is free will a thing. How much of a thing. How much does it $$$.
I don't pretend to always make healthy choices.
Must be surrounded by animals to reach full contentment levels
Possibly have dated a robot
or at least owned a robot dog
If my open mindedness is not frequently challenged, I start to worry
If my open mindedness is challenged too much, my tongue hangs out of my mouth
Just kidding I think
bad at making broadly appealing lists about myself
love sitting on rooftops
ambivalent about many things
I am
straight-passing queer (bisexual/pansexual), Cis woman who is maybe not cis and I dunno?
poly-minded and exploring relationship structures
feminist
white
anti-white-fragility
sex positive
origin Jew (in progress)
living with mental illness
can't distinguish between insecurity and anxiety. decides to eat popcorn instead.
insatiably curious
seeker of conflict resolution
tired of listening to people get asked what they 'do for a living'
...Counselor
grad student
Air Fire Fire
Moon Out of Bounds baby
It is important to be kind & respectful (except to oppressive assholes, in which case they may be people, but disregard everything).
People deserve freedom, validation, acceptance where they belong.
Dominantly positioned people, put aside your feelings and realize your position; feels about sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism...are for private times, with similarly privileged folks. People are suffering, your feelings are not the objective reality
It is important to consider one's own context and one's relationship to others and one's power and whether one owns light sabers
Excited to learn from and interact with new people
Terrified...brazen...secondary Gryffindor if you catch my drift
Must hold the good and bad and gray at once or nothing
I wonder often what it would be like to wander into the unseen space where paintings ~~supposedly~~ end
I struggle with how much of the past to let go of or hold onto
Is free will a thing. How much of a thing. How much does it $$$.
I don't pretend to always make healthy choices.
Must be surrounded by animals to reach full contentment levels
Possibly have dated a robot
or at least owned a robot dog
If my open mindedness is not frequently challenged, I start to worry
If my open mindedness is challenged too much, my tongue hangs out of my mouth
Just kidding I think
bad at making broadly appealing lists about myself
love sitting on rooftops
ambivalent about many things
