Another romantic relationship is over. It had a brief moment where it looked like it would be revived but that died too. It ended positively. I don’t think the problems were necessarily terminal but they would have taken more work than any previous relationship. But I think it also had the potential to be worth more than anything I have been involved in to date. It was very intense and very quick. It is hard to let go. One of the problems of a positively end is that you don’t have the strength that anger and justification lend you. It seems harder to let go. But I don’t know if it doesn’t heal more cleanly. Right now there are times my legs shake so hard, it is everything I have to keep doing whatever it is I am doing. I am sure the lack of a steady job adds to this. Other times, when I think of it, all it deserves is a shrug and on I go. Emotions can be so much fun [/sarcasm]. To bad I can’t work on logic all the time.
One really good thing out of this is that I feel like I got the lessons I learned right away. While I wish I didn’t have to go through the emotional connection and loss, I did get something very valuable out of it.
I have always been hesitant to list what I want in a mate because I felt it was too limiting. I didn’t want to set standards that would lead to me feeling deprived with a man that was perfect in every way except was missing one thing from my “list”. I am very adaptable and what I want changes all the time. Sometimes I want lean and lanky, sometimes built and solid, sometimes long hair, sometimes short, sometimes a beard, sometimes clean shaven. It would be bad to create a list of what I want. One of the reasons a list like what I was thinking is bad is because I was only thinking of surface things. Things that in the long run really don’t matter. What can I say, I was young. When you are young, those are the things you are aware of. With maturity comes depth.
A couple of years ago, a friend convinced me to make a list to put out into the universe what I would like to be drawn to. At the time I was learning that I was attracted to the same type of guy (type 9 for those that know the enneagram) no matter how different they seemed on the surface. There was something in how they deal with things that drew me, but the flip side to that was the seeds to the destruction of the relationship. I wanted to get away from being attracted to that type. So I wrote up a list. I thought I did a good in describing not surface things, but real qualities I wanted. Not needed, just would like to have drawn to me.
This last relationship taught me that while those are somewhat important, there was another level of things that are really important to me. That is the lesson I find so valuable.
I want to put that list out to the universe. It is said you can’t have something if you can’t imagine it. I put them in a different post linked to this one. It is something I want to keep to look at later so I want it separate.
Something I have noticed lately is a trend in the comments to my posts and this has affected how I feel about making serious posts. I know I am posting a lot less lately and I am sure that must have something to do with it. It seems like there are fewer comments and the ones I do get are from my outer circle of friends. That the people in closer circles aren’t commenting as much. It could be my imagination. It could be that they are getting enough of what is going on in my life in person, so there is nothing to put in comments (although I doubt this because I haven’t really be around in person much). It could be because those that aren’t commenting aren’t reading my journal, or they have nothing to say, or they are busy with their lives, or that we are not connecting as much anymore. All of these are understandable but they make me feel lonely and like I shouldn’t put anything out there on LJ. Posting just opens me up to the lack of response and the reactions thereof. I know my ego is involved. I was toying with the idea of not allowing comments like I was thinking of in the early days of my journal. That way I could post and not expect anything in return thereby no needing to face the lack of response and protect my ego. But I don’t like cutting off possible information, possible responses. So I am making the same decision I made the last time I played with the idea of no comments. I am posting for me. If people don’t want to respond, that is their choice. I just get to learn to accept it and deal with it. I post for me, not entertaining others or writing things to illicit responses out of others. If others get something good out of what I post, then that is an added benefit. I need to get my ego out of the way. To protect it, I will have to close down some openness and refocus my purpose. Which is fine.
This is not a request for comments. It is just information on what is going on in my head and my feelings. I write so many LJ posts in my head and I find that useful. It has given me a way to organize some of my thoughts. Some of them actually make it to computer, some don’t. I wish I could leave out the posting part but that is the main purpose to these things. If I left that out, I would not have the motivation to write them at all. They would stay caught inside me and I wouldn’t be able to move past them. They are here for others to read, but their purpose is for me to express ideas. This makes them more like me talking than me writing. And that makes them possible.
I usually write my posts like I am talking to a friend, rather then “writing” per se. If that makes sense?
Yeah, that is what I do.
I hate to write. The trying to figure out what your audience will respond to, what they will need, the reading it over and over and over, correct structure, etc.
I write like I talk, I am just doing it with my fingers instead of my mouth. But I do get the chance to go over what I have “said” and see if it makes sense and rewrite the bits that need help. I am rather surprised that I do that since that is one of the things I hate. I find I compose these things in my head a lot over the last few years.
I even have a steno notebook with LJ posts in it because I was on a train without a computer and I had to get these things out of my head. I haven’t gone back and reread them or copied them into LJ. I am not sure I ever will because they were posts of that time and not of now.
I need these things to be available to me later but I hardly ever go back over them.
Exactly, like little moments of time captured in words.
I’ve never written an LJ on paper but I have mentally composed one while commuting, to be able to dump it onto the net when I get to a PC. I too am not fond of writing, mostly because I find it frustrating to try and get the ideas in my head to work on “paper”, but I do find LJ to be a release for that impulse most days.
I have found that I will work on composing an LJ post for upwards of months, until I think it has all the points covered.
The ones on paper were the result of a lot of thinking and I had to get them out so I could think about the next subject. It was a week before I was near a computer again. I felt that I didn’t want to go over them to see if they were still time worthy of being transcribed into the electronic version to foist onto others. They still might someday. But that smacks too much of writing instead of babbling via text.
hey ya… I honestly don’t post many comments in anyones LJ, but I do read them all. So much of what we all right in LJ – if its not the news of the world or sillyness – is personal processing, so I see myself (and I guess all of us who read each otehrs stuff) as witness to processing. That doesnt mean there are words to say beyond I guess “hugs” or “I hear you.” which seem vilely inadiquite or pointless most of the time. So for what its worth… I am reading, I do hear and support your process and I think you are doing awesome work.
I was thinking of something. I will admit the *Hugs* drive me nuts because it seems like it is a wish to do something with no real back up or support.
But what you are saying about witnessing the process really strikes a cord. Maybe something like “Witnessed” or “I hear/read you” would be good. I am always surprised that people really do read my journal. This way it wouldn’t feel like I am speaking to a void even when there is nothing to say in return.
It would be very useless for meme and quiz type posts but for the more serious ones, where there is actual processing going on. And not even all of them or again, it gets to be just an automatic comment. Just the ones that seem to actually speak to you or to say something.
I would be leary to just do this to someone without telling them what I am doing but I think it would be nice to have done to me.
making a list, checking it twice…
After doing a lot of drifting between year-long relationships, getting hurt, trying again, getting hurt, I came up with a list of the things I wanted in a partner. I then ignored them completely when I fell heels over head for the ToasterHead, but by the end of those four years and all their permutations I had resurrected my list, crossed a few things off it and added a couple to the bottom. I tend to think of every relationship since I started thinking of it this way as “refining the list”. Sometimes it was just learning to recognize the qualities in someone when I found them. It was a long and detailed list, and I don’t expect to find someone who is everything on it all the time, but it seems to get a little closer to complete each time. I can hold the list up against my current relationship and check ‘most everything off of it, but it was a long road to this point, and it’s possible that my list will alter in unforeseen ways as time passes and my needs change.
All of which is by way of saying, I think putting a consciously chosen list into the world is a very good thing. And I think reviewing and revising it often is healthy. And I wish you the very best of luck in finding a good match to it.
Re: making a list, checking it twice…
This is a good way of thinking about it, thank you.
Mostly, my lists have been “don’t fall for xxx again.” Right now, the top of that list is stay away from guys named Chris. (I am sure that will fade over time but it was a doozy this time around).
When I did the enneagram and realized that these really different guys I had been involved with were all 9s, I started to see what I was attracted to and how the flip side of those traits were the things that broke us up and hurt me the most. Since them, I have been able to see them before getting myself caught in the trap and I am so grateful for that. Unfortunately, I am so delightfully bitter and cynical lately, I see the negative in almost every type.
Finding matches is definitely a mix of the head looking at these lists and the heart attaching itself without regard to the head.
Greetings from the outer circle
Hey Gina…
I read most of the LJ’s that I do for a number of reasons. Some are just for fun little tidbits here & there while others are to keep up with how some friends are doing in a more convenient way than calling all the time.
I comment when I feel I have something to add to the discussion, not just to poke my nose in and make sure someone knows I am reading. Could be many of your friends do the same as well. This is a good place to let things out sometimes, things that might just start eating us up inside if we didn’t give them their freedom to roam. I have also found that some of my ‘outer circle’ of friends have turned out to be far more precious than I would have ever known without my LJ.
Good wishes be with you.
-Bert
Re: Greetings from the outer circle
I understand and agree with what you are saying. My point was the change in who was showing up that seemed to stand out.
Mea Culpa.
Faire has eaten my brain.
I still want to get together w/ you for dinner, chat, and maybe a run through the cards.
You know what really sucks about livejournal posts? The computer can’t read your mind and say “Ah! If a friend were *hearing* this, it would sound important!” and turn on some importance meter.
Because I know that sometimes the things that are really important to me get slipped by.
It’s a funny kind of thing, I suppose. Comments in LJ is one of those few times where you really are best off expecting nothing, and taking everything you get as a nice surprise.
While I don’t know if I’d say that you can’t get anything from the universe that you can’t imagine, I do like the thought of sending your imagination out into the universe, and seeing what comes back. It sounds like it could have productive results for some reason. (Or, if nothing else, it could be fun… which is reason enough
)
The idea I have about “you can’t have it if you can’t imagine it” make sense is not that it won’t happen if you can’t imagine it but that you won’t recognize the opportunities for something you would want if you haven’t gone through the process of imagining them. If you never thought of a gold coin, you will probably miss the glint of yellow on bench and never look closer to see a gold coin sitting there.