I'm pretty sure I've hit a low point tonight. I'm sitting on my couch in oversize pj's, frantically polishing off a bag of potato chips, sobbing so hard I can feel my blood pulsing in my temples with each ragged inhale. I expertly utilize the time between sobs to stuff some more chips into my mouth, willing the salt to penetrate and somehow make me feel the taste more acutely than the anguish. Life does not seem very rosy right now, camped out in this low point, and all I want is to be able to see just a little glimmer of a happy future.
Here's the problem: I just feel so alone. It's an old, familiar feeling and I know I've spoken about it many times before. I have probably filled hundreds of pages with my commentary on my own loneliness. It is perpetual and overwhelming. It often leaves me feeling drained and hopeless. Sometimes it makes me cry, like tonight. Other times I scream and rage against it.
For so many years, I tried to eradicate it by fixing myself in some way- being more social, less withdrawn, less serious, less anxious. Transformations of character came and went but none of them helped me feel even a little bit less alone. Later, I tried to distract myself from it by traveling and moving as often as possible. I pushed myself to be in motion almost ceaselessly, and for very small, isolated moments I succeeded in feeling triumphant. But I was triumphant in my exquisite loneliness; triumphant because the only way I came to be in those extreme situations was by being so completely alone. Eventually I realized that I was chasing loneliness as much as I was running from it, and therefore only circling the beast.
Lately, I’ve tried to stop running (or chasing) and I’ve stopped trying to force myself to change. I came back to a place I know well and tried to find a community here. Tried to find love. Tried to simply understand this loneliness and why it has always made me feel so negative about myself. I just want to know where it comes from and why I can’t be at peace with it. I want to understand exactly how it makes me feel, what parts of myself it eats away at, and how. I came here to dissect my loneliness.
What have I learned in the last year here? I have learned (again) that friends can be fickle and communities are fluid. We form bonds with people because we can help one another in this moment. We have common struggles or common searches; common adventures to live or common suffering to endure. Because I have something to learn and you have something to teach. Communities grow out of necessity or fantasy and require a lot of inspiration and momentum. They are sometimes spontaneous and sometimes calculated but they make sense only in the moment of their conception and in the struggle to create something tangible. Each successive day is only a step toward dissolution, and eventually they drift apart or lose something vital. I think about this with Burning Man a lot- has this vibrant community lost something vital this year? Or is the strength of Burning Man in its enforced temporary status? In a way, Burning Man lives in the conception and creation alone- the actual event is so short-lived that there isn’t even time to see the fractures. All of this reflects the life cycles of nature. Life and death is a part of everything we create. This is beautiful and sad. This is the struggle of humanity; the struggle of being human.
I’ve also learned that my conception of “true love” is a fantasy. I want a partner in life- a friend for keeps. To me, that is the true heart of the symbolism of marriage, and it is beautiful. My sister is getting married this summer, and it is beautiful. She sees her partner as her constant companion and has planned her life with him. She thinks of her future as joined with his from now on. Of course there are many other aspects to marriage, but this core partnership was what my own parents modeled for my siblings and me in their long marriage. I have long resisted the idea of marriage for myself because it also has a connotation of staying put (of restriction) that I can’t abide by. But I can’t lie and say I don’t long for that sense of companionship. Is marriage the only way to find that? Why can’t we also see our friendships in this way? Why do we place so much more value and importance on our love relationships?
What I learned this year is that even marriage cannot give us that kind of life-long companionship. There are no guarantees that your companion will stay. It is still a fantasy, one that people all over the world continue to indulge in because it is beautiful. Love is no more enduring than any other relationship. It is also the victim of change and death.
What hurts me so much about Colin is that he refuses to engage the fantasy with me. He refuses to pretend for even one moment that love like that could exist. He, like me, is fully aware of the true nature of life and love and so there is no space for fantasy between us. He can’t commit to staying with me for more than a few months in the future because that is the reality of life. Instead of lulling me into a comfortable fantasy with false promises like “I want to be with you forever”, he truthfully tells me with an open heart, “I want to be with you right now. I can’t say anything about the future.” Anything else would be a lie or an unnecessary restriction. I understand so well. Yet I have never felt so lonely in a relationship. By refusing to engage in the fantasy of life together, he prevents me from seeing myself as a partner and makes me feel like I am temporary. In our relationship, we are two people spending time together, not two people building a life together. I must be vigilant to maintain my independence and individual support networks, because he could go at any time. I must be my own person, fight my own battles, and find my own answers. I must always be enough for myself. I can never “need” him.
This kind of relationship is so contrary to the vision of love crafted and marketed to us by a consumer society saturated in the fantasy of love that it is easy to wrinkle your nose and proclaim that I deserve better. But just stop for a moment and consider the truth in this: How many people have you seen crumble and shatter in the face of divorce or the death of their partner? How many people (especially women) neglect their support networks and forget to pursue their own interests when they are in a long-term relationship? How many people see dating as a race to reach the finish line of marriage, but don’t have a clue what to do when they get there? I have fallen into all of these categories in the past and have suffered horribly every time. What Colin is doing is a gift- he loves me but he pushes me to be a whole person all the time. In this way, I think our relationship has offered me the unique opportunity to finally break out of the destructive cycle I was in: one in which I built myself up, only to lose myself in the novelty of a partnership, only to start all over again when the relationship ended. For the first time in my life, I don’t fear losing my lover, I know that I remain strong and capable with or without him.
Instead, I mourn for the feeling of partnership now, while I am still with him. I ache for the fantasy of building a life with someone and the excitement of envisioning future adventures together. I feel hollow and dull, even restricted by his inability to engage with me in this way. It feels empty. It doesn’t feel like love at all. So, what is the greater loss? What is the greater risk? There is beauty in both the fantasy and realism. There are restrictions and freedom in both. I think I can find strength and empowerment in both.
What I can’t seem to find in either, is peace or a reprieve from my loneliness. I am trapped between losing myself and losing my partner. What is the answer for me? Is there a way to combine these things- fantasy and realism- into something like the relational equivalent of a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel? Can my heart live in a world of magical realism? Would this relieve the burden of my loneliness? Perhaps I will always feel lonely, but maybe if I could find some way to suspend my deep and painful awareness of my loneliness in a state of innocent, playful enchantment, I could finally live alongside it instead of under it.
Here's the problem: I just feel so alone. It's an old, familiar feeling and I know I've spoken about it many times before. I have probably filled hundreds of pages with my commentary on my own loneliness. It is perpetual and overwhelming. It often leaves me feeling drained and hopeless. Sometimes it makes me cry, like tonight. Other times I scream and rage against it.
For so many years, I tried to eradicate it by fixing myself in some way- being more social, less withdrawn, less serious, less anxious. Transformations of character came and went but none of them helped me feel even a little bit less alone. Later, I tried to distract myself from it by traveling and moving as often as possible. I pushed myself to be in motion almost ceaselessly, and for very small, isolated moments I succeeded in feeling triumphant. But I was triumphant in my exquisite loneliness; triumphant because the only way I came to be in those extreme situations was by being so completely alone. Eventually I realized that I was chasing loneliness as much as I was running from it, and therefore only circling the beast.
Lately, I’ve tried to stop running (or chasing) and I’ve stopped trying to force myself to change. I came back to a place I know well and tried to find a community here. Tried to find love. Tried to simply understand this loneliness and why it has always made me feel so negative about myself. I just want to know where it comes from and why I can’t be at peace with it. I want to understand exactly how it makes me feel, what parts of myself it eats away at, and how. I came here to dissect my loneliness.
What have I learned in the last year here? I have learned (again) that friends can be fickle and communities are fluid. We form bonds with people because we can help one another in this moment. We have common struggles or common searches; common adventures to live or common suffering to endure. Because I have something to learn and you have something to teach. Communities grow out of necessity or fantasy and require a lot of inspiration and momentum. They are sometimes spontaneous and sometimes calculated but they make sense only in the moment of their conception and in the struggle to create something tangible. Each successive day is only a step toward dissolution, and eventually they drift apart or lose something vital. I think about this with Burning Man a lot- has this vibrant community lost something vital this year? Or is the strength of Burning Man in its enforced temporary status? In a way, Burning Man lives in the conception and creation alone- the actual event is so short-lived that there isn’t even time to see the fractures. All of this reflects the life cycles of nature. Life and death is a part of everything we create. This is beautiful and sad. This is the struggle of humanity; the struggle of being human.
I’ve also learned that my conception of “true love” is a fantasy. I want a partner in life- a friend for keeps. To me, that is the true heart of the symbolism of marriage, and it is beautiful. My sister is getting married this summer, and it is beautiful. She sees her partner as her constant companion and has planned her life with him. She thinks of her future as joined with his from now on. Of course there are many other aspects to marriage, but this core partnership was what my own parents modeled for my siblings and me in their long marriage. I have long resisted the idea of marriage for myself because it also has a connotation of staying put (of restriction) that I can’t abide by. But I can’t lie and say I don’t long for that sense of companionship. Is marriage the only way to find that? Why can’t we also see our friendships in this way? Why do we place so much more value and importance on our love relationships?
What I learned this year is that even marriage cannot give us that kind of life-long companionship. There are no guarantees that your companion will stay. It is still a fantasy, one that people all over the world continue to indulge in because it is beautiful. Love is no more enduring than any other relationship. It is also the victim of change and death.
What hurts me so much about Colin is that he refuses to engage the fantasy with me. He refuses to pretend for even one moment that love like that could exist. He, like me, is fully aware of the true nature of life and love and so there is no space for fantasy between us. He can’t commit to staying with me for more than a few months in the future because that is the reality of life. Instead of lulling me into a comfortable fantasy with false promises like “I want to be with you forever”, he truthfully tells me with an open heart, “I want to be with you right now. I can’t say anything about the future.” Anything else would be a lie or an unnecessary restriction. I understand so well. Yet I have never felt so lonely in a relationship. By refusing to engage in the fantasy of life together, he prevents me from seeing myself as a partner and makes me feel like I am temporary. In our relationship, we are two people spending time together, not two people building a life together. I must be vigilant to maintain my independence and individual support networks, because he could go at any time. I must be my own person, fight my own battles, and find my own answers. I must always be enough for myself. I can never “need” him.
This kind of relationship is so contrary to the vision of love crafted and marketed to us by a consumer society saturated in the fantasy of love that it is easy to wrinkle your nose and proclaim that I deserve better. But just stop for a moment and consider the truth in this: How many people have you seen crumble and shatter in the face of divorce or the death of their partner? How many people (especially women) neglect their support networks and forget to pursue their own interests when they are in a long-term relationship? How many people see dating as a race to reach the finish line of marriage, but don’t have a clue what to do when they get there? I have fallen into all of these categories in the past and have suffered horribly every time. What Colin is doing is a gift- he loves me but he pushes me to be a whole person all the time. In this way, I think our relationship has offered me the unique opportunity to finally break out of the destructive cycle I was in: one in which I built myself up, only to lose myself in the novelty of a partnership, only to start all over again when the relationship ended. For the first time in my life, I don’t fear losing my lover, I know that I remain strong and capable with or without him.
Instead, I mourn for the feeling of partnership now, while I am still with him. I ache for the fantasy of building a life with someone and the excitement of envisioning future adventures together. I feel hollow and dull, even restricted by his inability to engage with me in this way. It feels empty. It doesn’t feel like love at all. So, what is the greater loss? What is the greater risk? There is beauty in both the fantasy and realism. There are restrictions and freedom in both. I think I can find strength and empowerment in both.
What I can’t seem to find in either, is peace or a reprieve from my loneliness. I am trapped between losing myself and losing my partner. What is the answer for me? Is there a way to combine these things- fantasy and realism- into something like the relational equivalent of a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel? Can my heart live in a world of magical realism? Would this relieve the burden of my loneliness? Perhaps I will always feel lonely, but maybe if I could find some way to suspend my deep and painful awareness of my loneliness in a state of innocent, playful enchantment, I could finally live alongside it instead of under it.
