Life's Big Buckets in 2010, part 2 of three - This part is a Biggie - bigger than it should be, I'd think. But what is Life without Love?
Men, Sex, and Love - Or some combination thereof...sometimes. The biggest trial of all. As usual. My half-full glass and pragmatic romantic view prevails. It was a good year. There was progress, there were setbacks; but more progress than setbacks.
As we entered 2010, I was enjoying a romantic interlude with Hiking Viking. We seemed to be navigating our complexities and individual needs, desires, and directions well. We were even growing closer and more emotionally intimate with whispers of sweet nothings and love. Perhaps this was the harbinger - we really didn't belong in that territory, as lovely as it was - because CRASH!- BANG! -BOOM! we had some deep uglies suddenly and immediately afterward. Uglies that left me reeling and confused, though in hindsight, it was more likely a necessary course correction. We managed a bit more in a gentle, kind, supportive friendship - two people who seemed to get each other...with benefits. But nice, and even right, as this was, it was not safe or comfortable territory for me. I tried to feel my way around this zone...but CRASH! BANG! BOOM! in one of these (perhaps misguided) conversations, I encountered anger, blame, vitriol - hurling accusations and spewing resentment - and our friendship was mutually declared over. I have never in my life declared a friendship over - I've grown apart (sometimes intentionally); I've created space; I've lost time and priority in friendships that had mutually served its purpose. But I have never actively severed a friendship. It left me reeling and destabilized again. Another area, as the year closes, where I have found myself destabilized and second-guessing myself, and my mojo shaken. Enough bandwidth...onward and upward.
Vegitect is a big character in this year's screen play. Springtime, and all is possible. New, green design gigs and newfound legs underneath himself made him ripe for romance when we met. Here is an awesome man....witty, sexy, creative, handsome, and international. :-) We found ourselves and each other in shared a passion for creativity in its infinite forms, and in our individual resilience always manifesting from the core. Our compatibility and chemistry was notable. I sometimes long for the promise of April - venturing to Paris with friends, and getting sweet, funny international text messages on l'autobus and brilliant sketched postcards for my birthday. But I feared... no, I knew... that he was not ready for involvement, and I told him as much, while I carefully skirted emotional attachment. Hell, I was so fuckin' prescient, I even wrote into My Main Gal Hax about the issue on an online discussions in June, that was later published in the Washington Post in September. And prescient indeed... timing and time is important. And as time passed, the messiness and acrimony of his divorce became more apparent, and the reality of throwing his dreams, drive and financial stake into a start-up in a crap economy became all-consuming. It was a shit-storm in which I could not get sucked into the vortex, nor toss the life ring from the edge. I have had my own shit-storm, and as recently emergent, I can say that life's personal shit-storms are best weathered independently. But here and now, Dear Vegitect, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your wit; your bizarre and endearing sense of irony; for sitting on my porch on early summer evenings talking with a bottle of chilled Spanish Cava or with sparklers in hand; for your photos, sketches, and sexy texts; for a well-planned mystery picnic; for teaching me the secrets of a perfectly fragrant and delicious daal; for the flowers; and for your continued friendship. XO.
And while a few other minor characters made cameo appearances as love interests - one in particular that was not to be - it was a most of all a year of love and learning. And my learning has essentially led me to believe that it is timing that is mostly determinant, and that it takes time to see if love will stick among the competing vicissitudes. And for the moment, I'm taking a chosen break, but surely not forever.
Irony This was the year that I learned that Dear ex-Husband re-married. I learned it on Facebook. Two years after the fact. This may well be my most mortifying and humbling moment. I was enraged! Anger and fury that I rarely feel, let alone express...but I did both to the fullest. It felt amazing. But I know the source of my anger is also my disappointment, my sense of betrayal, and my sadness. He and his wife are now expecting a baby any week now. And Dear Daughter suffers at the hands of an evil stepmother - it is not a cliche; she is a character study of immaturity, insecurity and passive-aggression. And Dear ex-Husband continues to make bad decisions that only spiral him downward, and his charm cannot save him anymore. And the only good thing to come out of all his 2010 shenanigans is that I am freed of the horrible guilt and self-flaggelation for our failed marriage that I inflicted upon myself daily . Did I make mistakes? Yes. Will I do things differently with my next partner/husband from the insight I have gained into (un)healthy, (dys)functional love and partnership? Indeed, I fervently hope so. Do I share the responsibility for our failure? I do. But I no longer blame myself. There is nothing I could have done differently to save our marriage - as much as I tried and wished. His latest antics are only proof that he could not and did not show up. Not for me, and sadly, these days I worry, not even for himself. And with all his hooey, I'm clearly, markedly, definitively better off without him.
