So it’s been way too long since I’ve posted anything up and I’m pretty sure most, if not all, of you probably thought me dead, dying, or kidnapped by angry bookies. But I have returned, like a phoenix from the ashes, I’m back. I can’t speak to the quality of this post because I’m unsure of what it will become (I’m not really writing with a clear topic or idea in mind, just more reassuring my audience that I’m alive after 2 months).
To put your mind at ease it has not actually been any aliens or the like that kept me away but rather a lack of impulse to write. It struck me some time ago that I may very well have murdered my muse. I know that sounds a bit melodramatic but let me explain. The final chapter of the Nicole saga has been written. On her three year wedding anniversary I decided to embrace the darker side of myself, the little bit that had been hiding in the shadows for oh so long, and when I did I found the strength I needed to force her into admitting to her husband that she’d had an affair. As to the extent of the aftermath and fallout from that, who knows, but I did it. In doing so a part of me died.
The impulse I had harnessed for so long, the driving force behind my better writing that was done more for catharsis than anything else was snuffed out in that singular action. So dealing with the truth of what I’d become, what I’d found myself capable of, was both sobering a bit disconcerting. It’s annoying as can be to find that you can’t trust yourself. But I’ve since realized that while the action may have been the most depraved and vicious act I’ve ever undertaken, I did invest some of the most pure and intense emotions of love, affections, trust, and honesty to this woman while we were together. So in that regard I don’t feel like such a cad, just more like a man who had reached his breaking point.
Think of it like a drug addict who finds that his drug of choice no longer affects him the way it used to. So off he goes to find a greater high. I had been releasing torrents of raw emotion in such a way as to make them palatable to you, and still managing to find my own catharsis, but it got to a point where it wasn’t enough. I needed to bleed (figuratively) and cut away the last lingering tendons of that failed dynamic and move on to something better. What I didn’t expect was getting so much release that I’d end up contentedly numb. Thus, the site has since sat here collecting dust and remaining silent. I’ve got cleaning crew coming to dust and repaint. Hopefully they’ll be here before the week is out.
So with all of that out in the open, I’m sure the question has become, what has brought me back? What or who has stirred the creativity within me in such a way that I’m back here to deliver a heaping helping of my bathtub mixed fuck sauce? Oh wait you guys are here for the blog, not my fuck sauce. My bad. Nikki, put the bottle down! We’ll have them on sale in the lobby after the show for the low price of only $9.99. Anyway, to answer the question, the thing that’s brought me back isn’t so much anything concrete but rather the return of a great feeling.
When any of us enters a new dynamic or relationship with someone we really adore, even if it’s someone we’ve admired from afar for a while, there’s generally a sense of anticipation and hopefulness. A kind of trepidation that things will work better, will be better than before. A kind of unspoken promise that the universe has altered the rules ever so slightly and we’re not doomed to repeat the same mistakes. For most of us, the feeling comes and goes almost as quickly as it shows up. We embrace the feeling, most often without realizing it, and then fall into the grind of day to day living, our significant other chasing away the feelings of loneliness and isolation, and slowly but surely we begin to reconnect with the world. Before long we’ve got a permanent plastic grin on our face, and we’re reveling in all of the innate beauty of the world, farting rainbows, shitting unicorns, and unable to be less than six inches off the ground at any time. But when the feeling, the novelty if you will, passes, the world begins to return to the normal luster and intensity of the attraction is gone. Life is no more harsh that it once was, but because we’re making the trek with someone it seems less vicious and only when the dynamic ceases to be does the universe begin to seem like it’s singling you out for condemnation and retaliation. Almost as though a penance for your happiness is due and the universe has decided to foreclose on you.
The reason I bring it up is because right now I’m assailed with those who’ve been in relationships for any length of time, bemoaning how they want to break out and live their lives. See the world, find fulfillment, be unchained or unburdened by the expectations of what it is to be attached. And on the other end of the spectrum I’m bombarded with those who’ve lived the single life for so long that they’ve begun to actively pursue, almost desperately, anything they can get their hands on to fill the void.
Now it wouldn’t be so bad, but it seems that on both ends of the spectrum the issue is that everyone is looking for what’s been lost, the passion and the fire that comes from a new relationship dynamic. We’re barely aware of what it is when we have it and once it’s gone, we can’t work feverishly enough to get it back. So we mire away in the discontent, masking it with the joy we feel in the relationship, reveling in the happiness of the other person, but our hearts slowly begin to want more and more for that feeling.
Now I’m not saying that all relationships get like this, just that an implied understanding for the ones that do work, is that the passion eventually goes away. Nicole told me once that my passion for her would burn out eventually and that we’d end up in the same rut she was in with her husband, because nothing lasts forever. But my counter then, and now, is that unbridled conviction, devotion, and unwavering passion in the face of all obstacles can and will maintain if there is understanding of where it comes from.
From where I sit, the primary issue facing most relationships is that the love within is based on the ideal of who the people are, not the reality of who they are. All the honesty, disclosure, and confiding will only serve to show a measure of trust, but it doesn’t truly convey who they are. To bare one’s soul, to lay everything out on the table and express all feelings in that moment, everything from lust, discontent, satisfaction, want, affection, joy, disillusionment, betrayal, you name it, the feeling should be conveyed regardless of the detriment to the other person’s feelings. Not brutally, but honestly. Too often the kid gloves go on for fear of losing what you have, so many fights, discussions, arguments, and disagreements are choked away before they begin and then explode into massive episodes when the boiling point is reached.
Telling someone about Nicole is great for disclosure. Relaying all of the things I did, the lengths I went to in order to keep her happy and make it work, is testament to my feelings for her, but to truly show what kind of person I am it’s the things I do every day, and not just for her, but for others. Gestures that have no expectation of recompense or compensation, advice offered without judgment, and a genuine intuitiveness and understanding of the nuances that makes the person you’re with feel that they truly are the most important thing in the world to you. I know first hand that it’s not hard to produce this kind of behavior. Just listen, pay attention and respond with honesty about what you think, feel, or believe.
I know a lot of this probably wishful thinking, clouded reasoning, or even just a pipedream behavioral expectation, but it does work. I’m testament to that fact. So really I think it just boils down to the simple fact that if you’re miserable do something to better your situation and if you’re content take a second to realize and make note of it so that if the feeling begins to slip you know what to fix.
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