"Nothing is real. Strawberry fields forever."
X stopped by to talk about her relationship with Y. She compared herself to an abused woman and talked several times about the "cycle of abuse". I listened. I think I identify most with Y. Shameful thing, to be an abuser, to be the hostile outcry of a relationship, to be someone else's downhill slide. Made me feel grateful for what I have now with K versus what we used to have when we were a couple. Nothing more frustrating than trying to get what you want out of someone who sees you as nothing more than a less-desirable mirror of himself. Now we can actually say that we're friends. There's enough distance that we don't have to dream each other up so intensely any more. But God.
God.
People are just so f---ed up in our relationships with each other. I was listening to X talk about how she wanted to live with someone who wasn't chronically so unhappy and I thought of that line from The Big Chill: "I haven't met that many happy people in my life. How do they act?" Not that life is one miserable plate of cold refried beans after another. I have a lot of joy in my life and I know most people have moments of content and peace and something close to happiness. But I think there's more to life than trying to be happy. I pretty much start with the assumption that happiness isn't going to happen. Survival is enough. Making that survival meaningful is what I struggle with, and since I don't know what "meaning" is exactly, I just try to be--I dunno--useful on a given day. Slightly unselfish from time to time. For a self-centered egoist like me, that's enough of a challenge.
I was thinking about Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton today. They were both suicidal early in life, then had a period of healthy functional adulthood, then killed themselves anyway when they were a little older. I'm not thinking of them because I'm suicidal--exactly the opposite. I have a healthy functional adulthood--at least I think so. In my 20's, any day I could stay away from the razor blades was a good day. I have higher standards for my 30's. But sometimes I wonder...what made them backslide? Was it something that had been lurking under the surface for them all along? Or was it just a bad moment. ...they both had kids, didn't they?
Okay, enough deep thinking for now--at least out loud here. *This* is exactly what popular entertainments are for: to distract from this kind of masochistic mumbling. I hope X finds what she's looking for. I hope she gets both peace and connection in the same relationship. Glad I'm not required to have her answers--I've barely got my own. Now I'm off to go facilitate a meeting I haven't prepared for. Cheers.
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