A stoic and smartass' view on modern dating.
The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World
As a child, I kept to myself and I kept everything to myself. For everything I did, there was a lie to cover it up. So accustomed to lying, it rapidly displaced truth. It just became easier that way.
So around this time last year, I resolved thusly: to tell the truth. When I started and continued, I felt relief. I no longer felt a fraud, I no longer felt trapped by my own "bullshit." I was a free man, free from the mental gymnastics required to keep all my lies afloat and free of the guilt of deceiving loved ones and others.
So what happens when I keep things to myself again, I wondered? The past few weeks I've felt flat and frustrated until I explored my feelings within - the causes of which are numerous - and I admitted to myself: I felt angry. Then once the truth was exposed, the anger faded into a feeling of positivity, a feeling of power. Old habits die hard, especially in phases of transition and upheaval.
In this phase of the dating moratorium when I have felt most alone, I have felt an intense want to express my love - sensually and platonically - without an outlet. It's the loving part that feels wounded most of all during the whole integration process of taking one's loneliness and re-framing it as a positive and rewarding solitude.
Throughout childhood and adolescence I found it easier to "not miss anyone" due to a fear of abandonment - but now I am feeling the lack and the sorrow that comes with the foreign concept of "missing" people. I would be lying to say that I do not. A couple of weeks ago, it's possible I could have returned a contrary answer. But now I allow myself to and emerge on the other side as a stronger man.
Thus, the past couple of months have been fueled by a tendency to bullshit myself, yielding varied results. Scarcely a year has passed since the beginning of my personal journey towards manhood and I've learned so much. But twenty-three years of bullshitting oneself is not simply unlearned in less than one. But the challenge is to sustain myself through the bullshit and emerge on the side of truth - and I wouldn't trade it for anything in this world.
Embrace the Abundant
On my blog I ask a lot of questions and pose a lot of challenges. Sometimes I lose sight of my own perspective. As an imperfect being that lives in an imperfect world, I sometimes blinker myself to what is really there and it takes the intuition of another to hold a mirror to myself to reveal who I am from one moment to the next.
Recently, I experienced two such occurrences that knocked me on my arse - but now after some intense and raw conversation with my support group brothers and friends, I am grateful for having them.
One experience exposed my folly in believing some things are forever and that I can master all things in my life. I cannot - there are some instances where I must surrender to forces I cannot completely control. These unstoppable events will claim us all and claims the ones we love. We can weep and thrash and curse but it makes no difference.
I hunkered down and insisted it didn't bother me. I could bargain, plead, hate and shout but at the end of the day it doesn't change the reality of the situation. We must make peace with all aspects of our frail, yet beautiful humanity.
Another showed me how far I have yet to travel on my personal journey. Last year gave me the strength to have a good and healthy relationship with a girl that I loved and to end it with love.
But there is grieving and sorrow associated with all partings and like it or not, it deposits itself on one's being. I buried it, disavowing it's existence. I even told myself and others I felt calm when there was really tumult.
Such action can throw up feelings of shame, a disbelief in the abundant and a renewed attachment to outcome. All the conditioned traits of the "old me" I had worked so hard to expunge. Some things require patience and other things must be surrendered; its helpful to distinguish which is worth fighting for.
Initially I felt "Wow, have I really slipped so far? Has my all my learning and all my trials and challenges meant nothing?" I have life affirmations plastered across my wall. I see them when I wake, when I prepare for the day and when I dress myself for bed. Despite their ubiquity in my room, I blithely ignored them. In both instances I was not honest with myself and my integrity was lacking. Dishonesty in oneself almost always translates to dishonesty to all involved.
But like all good students, we learn from mistakes and grow our knowledge for later use and revision. The world had in no uncertain terms told me "No!" (twice!) but I can still take some positives from it.
Even though I persevered, I hit a brick wall. In less than one week, a year's work was unraveled. I wanted to prove I could handle these new challenges - yet the execution was dreadful. But prove to whom? I only seek to prove to myself that I can rise up to life's challenges. I am the only person I have to please. Failure is a part of life (It doesn't make you a "shit" as Dr. Ellis would say) and I can take comfort in at least rising to the occasion.
If I can feel happy, If I can live life to serve my own mission and to love in my own way, I can safely feel that I am on the right track.