I think I miss writing, because it's a way to step back and calm down and make sense of the world. Everything moves so damn fast, especially since I have no self control when it comes down to gluttonously hoarding and indulging in experiences.
I really need to run. I just want to take all of my hurt, restless, and misguided energy and channel it into the mountain.
Running in the foothills is one of my favorite things ever. With just the right amount of coffee and water in my system, each bend in the trail opens into a new breathtaking swish of tall grasses and the crest of a glowing green-and-brown hill; dry and desolate and hauntingly peaceful, like the desert. On Tuesday, I was running up a little trail that cuts between two hills on the northern side of the foothills, close to the Huntsman Cancer Institute and the medical center, and I saw two hawks so close I felt that I could reach out and touch them. They were not scared away by my heavy, tromping feet skirting the mountain brush and wildflowers, or my breath obtrusively heaving and hefting my unwieldy body up the hillside. Instead, they flew ever closer, to investigate their rude visitor. They caught low-lying thermals, gliding as they scrutinized me, falling from one lift of air into a dip between thermals before being lifted yet again. And then they rose slowly on more thermals, hardly batting a feather to aid in their ascent, circling slowly into the sweet, cooling night air as it opened into sunset, bathing the valley in ancient light.
Relationships are hard. They hurt, and they take work, and sometimes you hit a point where everything is in this beautiful limbo of perfection; that was me during senior year, and the summer afterwards. I was surrounded by the people I love, and we saw each other and spent time together every day. Our bonds were close, to the point of codependency, but it was something I'd really never experienced before. Not with my parents, not really with any other friends, and I'd never had a boyfriend up to that point, either.
It's been hard to rediscover these relationships. When I do catch a glimpse of the rich, beautiful vein of friendship I once shared with these people, I cling to it for dear life, because I hardly ever see them, and it hardly ever feels the same.
I think I spend far too much time analyzing and overanalyzing, hashing and re-hashing, these relationships. I think that they require less time thinking, and more time enjoying, to regain their former luster. It's hard, though, because work and life and new friends get in the way of these things.
I think that I sacrificed deep connections with many girl friends in the search of a deeper connection with the singular boyfriend. I think that this happens to almost everyone in their first one or two serious relationships, so I can't blame myself (nor would I, because the beauty of the way we feel comfortable with and connected to each other is not something that most people ever encounter in their lives. We are in love, plain and simple. But, as I said, life gets in the way sometimes.)
So I'm a little worried, as far as relationships go, with how quickly Dave and I seem to be moving. Or really, not moving. He's not healing my soul. We are powerfully attracted to each other, yes, and when we're hooking up he's completely engaged and I'm pretty damn happy. But I don't feel like he's that engaged in conversations or thoughts when it's just the two of us hanging out together, alone. It sometimes makes me insecure to the point that I start feeling that nervous clench in my chest again, that creeping pain of inadequacy, questions of how to make and keep good friends. I don't think I'm insecure in myself, but the way that relationships and life have been in constant and complete flux for the last two years sure haven't helped my conception of self; because to some extent, although it seems weak to be so reliant on extrinsic means of self-affirmation, we are all defined by context. We are shaped by time and place, and by the people who raised us, which is mostly our dear friends and not our parents, if we are to be perfectly honest with ourselves.
Dave may have wandered into my life when I'm in an especially vulnerable place; in fact, he almost certainly has. Maybe this will allow him to be my healing experience. All I know is that, it doesn't feel the way that it did when Gordon and I started dating. When G and I started dating, he laughed at my jokes, and we flirted and we vibed and he was always engaged in our conversations, if not completely dazzled and enthralled by them. It was fucking cute. I will never forget or regret the way we met.
Dave isn't as open with his emotions. His eyes drift when I'm telling stories or trying to engage him in conversation. I think it is honestly just a mannerism that I am yet to get used to, but I still feel like I'm in that early insecure phase of a relationship where I'm trying to be my best and my most impressive, and he is not really helping me feel that way.
I feel like that is what the conundrum of beginning new relationships with friends and lovers and estranged family members really comes down to. I can be as boring or reticent as I damn well please when I'm with my family, or Gordon, at this point, and yet they still have to love me and provide for me and spend time with me. The removed risk of abandonment makes me open up and act relaxed and crack stupid jokes and not check my speech, and removes the crushing weight of the hulking big censor slowly suffocating my words and my chest muscles into painful, silent oblivion. So, like many things in life, it seems paradoxical: to be better, you must apply less effort. I mustn't try so hard or think so much or re-hash so goddamn often. I must surround myself with people who affirm my sense of self in the way it deserves to be.
I'm not sure what it will take to have perfect moments of happiness like that with Dave. I'm afraid we're both getting addicted to the chemicals in our brains and bodies that are released when we spend time together, even though other chemicals are often loudly protesting, at least in my body, all the while. I'm afraid that it's not a healthy balance we have struck. I'm not really sure that I'm ready for a purely physical relationship and anything else that might entail. We're both attractive people, attracted to one another, but sometimes I really do wonder whether we are attracted to each others' personalities, too. We have different senses of humor, at least a little bit, and different ways of being and relating to people. But then again, maybe it is always just a matter of time; because let's be honest, the reason that Gordon and I were so perfectly close and vibing by the end of our two year relationship was that we changed each other, in subtle but powerful ways. We literally grew together, and so we deepened the vasculature of our connection, in a way both visceral and emotionally inextricable. So maybe it's just a matter of time until Dave and I figure out how to be comfortable with each other too, and how to subtly mold and mold one another so that we fit better together. I'm pretty sure that's the fallacious part of the idea of 'the one', that no one will ever tell you. There are many 'ones' that we humans can work well together with, and vibe with. I think that for those of us who are more people-inclined than others, there are more, and for others who are less so-inclined, there may be fewer; but nevertheless, I think it's not like you find someone and then you lose them and then you will never enjoy that kind of connection again.
But in a lot of ways, I know I am still in the phase of healing from whatever that connection entailed. Every day, we figure ourselves out a little more. The scary part of being an adult is figuring out that, other than the very obvious manichaean ideals of right and wrong, good and bad, most of the subtler delineations we have assigned in our lives also do not fit into such clean-cut molds. We're all a little rough around the edges, and it's hard to figure that out within and without ourselves, I think, because it means constant reassessment. Sometimes I don't know if I should be trying harder to actively change and better myself, or trying to learn to heal and embrace and love myself more. I think everything down to the basest roots of our culture feeds us conflicting messages on how to deal with these things.
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