OK, this is getting a bit ridiculous.
No, I’m not talking about the low-carb craze, though that’s getting to be a bit much. (I’m pretty sure the grain industry is gathering up a lobbying force to rival Philip Morris in its heyday right about now.) Not talking about my current obsession with Britney Spears’ “Toxic”. (Sorry, but that’s a killer pop song.) And it’s not the hub-bub over gay marriage in this state. (Crikey, get over it. Give me two happy dads over a destructive hetero combo any day.)
Now, I’m talking about what Claire Danes might refer to as “My So-Called Dating Life”.
I’m of two minds about the whole endeavor, because it’s easier to straddle the fence on the issue rather than take a decisive stand. Rather be schitzo than hypocritical, if you get my drift. On one hand, if I have enough time to devote to the fact that this part of my life resembles nothing so much as the outtakes at the end of a Jackie Chan movie, it denotes that my life isn’t all that bad. I’m not going on about my lack of a job, or lack of medical insurance, or that fact that a Mob hit left me one leg less than last week.
And yet…there’s always that “and yet” which gets me back on the ol’ mental gravy train. And even if this “and yet” comes from a place of basic privilege, it still comes nonetheless. “And yet” tells me that while life is generally OK, it could be a lot better. Doesn’t mean that my life is meaningless as is, but that there’s something definitely lacking. Comes from that whole romantic strain in me. Wish I didn’t have it on some days, this whole “Ewan McGregor in ‘Moulin Rogue’” streak. Heart bursting with song, but no one there to listen. (And hey, maybe for the best. Those who have heard me break it down karaoke-style would probably attest to that.)
I fight that strain at times, since it’s nothing but pure feeling. Very little else there. Almost entirely sense with just a smidgen of sensibility. Much easier to deal with the more mundane, the more practical. Working on a less emotional approach to life, working on a less operatic attack on the world around me. Strong emotion can sometimes be your worst enemy.
And yet…
I can’t ever really buy that argument. Just can’t do it. Might work for some people, but not for me. Yes, such emotional histrionics get me into trouble, and yes, they’ve often caused me quite a bit of heartache and grief, but i don'’ ever want to NOT feel this much. I don’t want to not be moved by those things which send my heart soaring: a cool chord change in a song, a great sequence of a move, a great passage in a book, the soft whisperings in my ear from a girl for only me to hear. These are the things that help define me, define my happiness, define my essence.
I’ve been told for the past year, in many ways, shapes, and forms, that what I am is flawed. That I need to change. That I need to stop feeling so much. That I can’t go on living like this. And if you hear that enough, you start to believe it’s true. Little worms of lies that crawl into your brain and slowly drive you absolutely insane, and pretty soon, up is down and left is right and you start spouting off supposed “wisdom” that really is just you regurgitating things you’ve been told.
And yet…
To say I’m flawed is of course completely and utterly true. To say I need to change, adapt…well, I’ve been doing that all my life. Much more in the past few years. But I what I will not do, however, is accept my way of living as wrong. I will not accept that I have to conform to another standard simply to feel better. Because that simply won’t work. I can’t be like someone else anymore than they can be like me.
My unhappiness derives not so much from a personal unhappiness with who I am, but my inability in a lot of ways to find people who can accept this altogether flawed, but basically decent, person. It’s not that I feel I am unworthy of friendship, love, affection, etc, so much as I am not sure how I could make myself, in many ways, “better” than I am. And I hate myself for trying to figure out ways that I could have acted differently to keep Girl X, Y, Z around when, deep in me, I know that that impulse is tantamount to saying, “How could I have been less like myself to keep her around?”
This might all sound arrogant, and if you think so, that’s really fine, because I’m quite exhausted from defending myself on a daily basis. Defending myself here, to my friends, to potential girlfriends, hell, defending myself to myself. To feel as much as I do makes me. To be able to watch a movie or listen to a song and be moved to tears makes me. To write down what I feel is the most unfiltered way makes me. To be caught up in the theatricality of pro wrestling, to marvel at the special effects of “Lord of the Rings”, to sing poorly but passionately to make favorite songs…these all make me.
And generally, I like me, thank you very much.
I’m not perfect, but I don’t have to be. I can’t analyze every choice I make, every sentence that I write, every move that I make. I’d be paralyzed, stuck in a corner, huddled up, if that were truly the case. I make as many typos in life as I do on the site. It’s rife with what is usually unintentional error. Maybe that’s why I’m so damn sensitive about people publicly pointing them out on the site. It’s no different than someone pointing out some unconscious/unintentional “flaw” in real life. It’s not like I’m trying to make these mistakes, and it’s not as if I notice them and leave them as is. Life’s messy, and so am I.
To say I like me is not to say I am a finished, whole product. I’m an evolving entity, but evolving from a particular set of specific circumstances. I can’t simply molt and start anew. I can’t not be the way I am. Some people don’t like that way, and that’s OK, because really, I don’t care for most of them, either. It’s not xenophobia, it’s simply conservation of energy. I can’t expend the energy on others the way some other people can. I can barely get through my day without four cups of coffee as is. Lord knows how many cups I’d need if I actually bothered to care beyond myself.
Now, that doesn’t mean I don’t care about others, I just no longer have the time to judge, condemn, or attempt to fix them. I barely have the energy to even like certain people. But if you get that from me, and so long as you say don’t kick me in the groin, you and I are gonna be pretty OK. They are being the best person they know how to be, same as me. And none of us really know what we’re doing. It’s all about the best poker face, a lot of times. And no one’s usually showing his or her hands.
I’ve run into a high school friend of mine recently. We ended up on adjacent treadmills at the gym last week, and got talking a few days later at the same gym. He’s married, just moved to Boston with his wife, and they bought a 3 bedroom condo in Brookline. Both are lawyers. I told him how I felt a bit humbled. I mean, here he was, married, defined career, owning property. Told him I was feeling a bit astray. He looked at me, puzzled, and said, “We’re all astray, man.”
And it’s true. We’re taught that certain benchmarks denote a certain accomplishment, as if we’re all heading towards the same endgoal. And even if you subscribe to the notion that “married and owning property” is better than “single and renting”, it’s not as if these things give my friend a sense of being smarter or more along than myself. All rather refreshing, really. He seems very happy to be in that position, don’t get me wrong, it’s just that he’s smart enough to know that he doesn’t have all the answers.
I don’t look at being single as being an overwhelming negative thing, and I don’t feel as less of a person because of it. But I do know, as much as I can know anything, that there’s something better for me. It’s not that I’m not built to be alone so much as I know I would rather share my life with someone. How to meet that someone…well, haven’t figured out that bit yet. Thought a happy set of accidental circumstances had led me to her, but it turns out that wasn’t the case. Maybe that’s what so hard—having actually gotten a glimpse of what I could have had. To almost taste, almost touch, and then to have it taken away…not the most fun that you can go through, trust me on this one. They say it’s better to have loved and lost, and I’d like to find this “they” and beat them with a hammer.
She tried to convince me that I was at fault, that I was the reason it couldn’t really work. And for a few weeks, I believed it. Another in the long list of people pointing out my supposed shortcomings. Hey, fifty million Elvis fans can’t be wrong, maybe this anti-Ryan chorus had a point as well. And maybe they do. Who’s to say? I can hardly be accused of being an impartial judge here. I can’t know. I can only feel.
But it feels like I shouldn’t have to change who I fundamentally am. Change certain things? Sure. Adapt to what’s the come? Absolutely. I’m not arguing for a rigid, unbendable notion of me. That implies inner perfection, and Lord knows I don’t have that. But I’m sick to death of being accused of being at my core flawed. Sick of being told I feel too much as something negative. Yes, I am ruled more by sense than sensibility, but that feeling makes me what I am. It’s not some late ‘90’s, “get in touch with your inner self” type of awareness. I know myself to be a creature ruled not by my head, but by my heart. And God and my parents allowed me the chance to develop a bit of a mind to occasionally express these emotions in a decent verbal way, and for that I thank them, but my brain will always take a back seat to my heart.
And my heart might get me into trouble, but it never lies. And it’s been hurt, and hurt a lot, and sometimes gets knocked around more than Apollo Creed in “Rocky IV”, but it always gets back up. And it keeps beating, and keeps feeling, and so do I. And on some days, it’s hard not to have someone with whom to share this.
And yet…
I’d like to think that someday there will be. And on that day, I won’t get all the answers. I’ll just get a kindred heartbeat.
And we’ll go from there.
Posted by Ryan McGee at February 22, 2004 03:46 PM