I struggle to find a relationship, a mate. So do about 51% of other women in America, apparently, according to statistics, according to the tabloids, according to the first hand testimonial of a number of my friends. Even relationship-oriented guys. My male roommate, who's about as good as the human male gets... strong, smart, good looking, kind, responsible, thoughtful... has been texting ad nauseum with a girl he met about two weeks ago. He asked her out to a movie this weekend... and she was more interested in her Cinqo De Mayo plans to go drinking with her friends. She did not say "wow I'd love to catch a movie with you but I'm booked all weekend - how about sometime next week?". Nope. This confounds me. How do you spend 12 hours a day corresponding with someone for days on end via text, but not want to actually spend any time with them IRL? A product of our generation? My own attempts at interpersonal hetero-sexual relationships are no less confounding - to the point where I've all but given up seeking one. One of the most popular TV shows of our generation deals with just such this issue.
I ask myself if I am flawed. Damaged. Broken. If there is something somehow wrong with me. But the more I look around, the more I begin to suspect that if I am, then there is something wrong with all of us. I watched the film "the new world" last night (again). John Smith and Pocohontas are in love. She's as lovely as lovely can be in every way. Still, he leaves her. He breaks her heart. Why? because he was a coward. Does he regret it? Oh yes he does. When they meet again at the end of the film, she says to him, "Have you found your Indies John? you will." and he replies, with sad longing in his face "I think I may have sailed passed them". Later he says to her "I thought what we had in the forest was a dream. Now I realize... it's the only truth". But it's too late for him.
How human is that? How many dreams have we all sailed passed?
Are we all just sailing through life too fast to see or appreciate what is before us? Are we too distracted by all the glitter that is not gold? Do we dream too big or want too much? Has marketing invaded our psyches to the point where we can't tell the difference of what's good for us and what's bad for us anymore? Do we compare ourselves to the golden ideal so much that none of us feel worthy - are we all too scared to take a chance? Or is it just the human condition? In my ancestry.com research, I came across a 1910 census form that literally listed categories for insane, and some other categorization for the emotionally walking wounded. Is this then, the human condition?
1 comment:
I'm starting to think that the most important things in the world are:
1) To really believe you deserve to be happy, in the way that you specifically would be, and to pursue that happiness, without guilt or shame of any kind - neither "forgetting" to speak up for yourself, nor overstating your own case
2) To know what you are responsible for and be responsible for it - if we need to change something about ourselves, we just do it - no excuses, no "I'll change when so-and-so changes" but just recognizing the benefit of growth in our own lives, for our own sake, regardless of the impact it has on anything else
3) Learn to truly let go of what you cannot control. If its someone else's, and I've done all I could, then I'm finished - even if I only just started
and 4) maybe the most important thing of all DON'T WAIT. Don't wait for things to change, don't wait for people to catch up with you, don't wait for a miracle...do your best and KEEP ON GOING...because life is short and getting shorter all the time
Anyway, to me those lessons sort of encapsulate, to me, the most important things I need to be thinking about every day - and if I'm thinking about them and clear on them, life is good...or at least, a lot better.
If John Smith loved Pocahontas and he didn't think that was *that* important, that was his choice. Nothing she could do about that. Perhaps she tried to show him the truth, if so, that was a kind and generous gesture. If he wasn't open to it at the time, perhaps he couldn't be. He later regretted it, she moved on, we have to learn from these lessons - grow and move on, always forward, towards a new hope, a life we've yet to live, because we will live it as new people - people who know more than before.
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