an endless series of unclosed doors
right now it feels like my life is made up of a series of relationship-doors that are just slightly ajar. somehow, in my life, it's rare that people decide "i'm done with you, forever. it's over." which, for the most part, is a good thing about people, or so i'm told. i think some of us have more doors left in this ambiguous state than others though (possibly owing to our defective cores, which lure people in and then scare them away). this makes it hard to live, trying to keep track of your various statuses with this long list of people who were really there at some point, and aren't now, but sort of are, and maybe will be, but maybe gave up long ago and didn't mention it. for those of us who fall into this category (defective cores resulting in endlessly unclosed doors), there is a question about the benefit of permanently shutting doors. a shut door lets you move on! and as was pointed out to me last night, what is a permanently shut door anyway? it's just a mindset you can stand to live with regarding the door, but actually in no way changes your ability to open it down the road, should you so choose. or does it?
i would argue that i have a unique ability to shut doors with too much force, and maybe i'm compensating for that, out of fear that the door won't be open-able in the future. or maybe it's not about ME being unable to open it later, but the feeling that if i shut it with all my permanently-shutting-the-door-forever force and self-righteousness, i assume i'll do damage to the door itself, and the other person involved, that will permanently close the door for *them* and were i to try to open it later, it would be a total lost cause - out of my control. and god do i hate things being out of my control (thanks dad!) or MAYBE the real issue here is that 9 times out of 10, i experience being in a relationship as forcibly bracing a door open until i let go a bit, slam it shut, or find the resistance too great to merit battling eternally. this is how, being a megalomaniac, i always believe it's my fault, MY DOING, when someone abandons me. i'm accustomed to fighting to keep the door open, whether it's a battle with myself or with someone else, or both, so when the battle's over, obviously I just failed at my own game. so what satisfaction could i derive from slamming the door shut after the fact? I already lost! i can't fix that by saying, "yeah, me too! watch me shut the door i spent all my energy trying to brace open!!" that's not very empowering now, is it.
i'm not bad at performing permanence. since i excel at approaching questions of justice and right/wrong in black and white terms, it's not a stretch to make people feel written off. but really, i wonder about resolving conflicts that date back to 9th grade, or before. so, i don't think i've truly closed a door in awhile. in some ways this makes me a hypocrite, since there's nothing i hate more than someone dumping all the agency for a situation or its end on me, and here i am wondering if this asshole or that asshole might some day apologize, or perhaps reveal to me what my essentially defective core does to people, so I'll know that i deserve the relationship-purgatory i'm always sitting around in. either way, i know i can't act on that person anymore. so the agency i could exercise would have to be on my own thinking about the situation. to let it go for myself. to reach my own resolution about it. yet, the fear of reaching personal closure, and thus foreclosing possibilities involving these people i've cared about so much over the years, is impossible for me. even if i can rationally convince myself that reaching closure isn't foreclosing possibilities, or is even possibly enabling possibilities.
people who know me well know that there are few people in the world who i have ever been close to, who i wouldn't take a bullet for now, despite whatever contempt i developed for them over the years, or whatever horrible things they've done. in fact, i think there's just one. and i haven't seen her since i was a teenager, so what's the likelihood of her getting shot at in my presence anyway? really?
i've been talking to someone i love dearly, who's a good bit younger than me, about stuff she's dealing with around betrayal and loyalty. thinking about her situation has also helped me reflect on my own -- on sorting through my values, what this deep loyalty is really about, and even if it's always such a good thing. what's the relationship between loyalty and fear of betrayal? how does the experience of betrayal leave us programmed to react like we're being betrayed, or about to be betrayed at every moment? how do we compensate for that with sometimes undue loyalty to people who have treated us terribly? do we think that our blind loyalty might help retain people we don't want to lose? win them over enough to keep the door open, just enough to constitute a relationship?
i am so sick of fighting to be in people's lives. and yet even as my commitment to relationships of mutuality deepens, my inability to sever ties of loyalty to those who have hurt me continues. they don't even know it! and they probably don't even care! but in my heart, i believe all this loyalty can somehow fix everything else. if i'm good enough, solid enough, unwavering enough, maybe someone will notice someday and these doors can just open up, without force even. of course, upon admitting this bizarre-o notion that lives somewhere just beneath conscious thought, i realize i should probably accept that anyone who doesn't want my loyalty doesn't deserve it.
it took me more than 5 years of non-communication with my mother to admit that i missed her to anyone other than myself. letting the door stay shut with a parent who seems indifferent to your existence can be easy, for awhile at least. the heaviness of my self-righteousness and the icky, grossed-out feelings that so often go along with unpacking family narratives were also helpful. i don't want to treat the people i've invited into my life and heart the way i treated my mother. (and by "treated" - i really just mean how i thought about the situation in my own head). and if it's true that i seek out relationships where i have to force people to love me, because i'm trying to win the battle for love and attention that i fought with my parents throughout my childhood, then why, when i have clearly lost at my own game, am i still so unwilling to treat them with the clear, black+white write-off that i used with my mother? there are some important differences - my mother failed at controlling me because i don't allow myself to be controlled by others. the fact that she also didn't particularly care about what i was doing or who i was, was sort of a tangential element of our relationship. whereas, in these chosen relationships, no one is trying to control me, it's just the pattern of disinterest that i've replicated from childhood. feeling controlled would likely yield the door-slamming response from me. disinterest sort of endlessly fascinates me -- like a game i can't accept defeat at.
maybe what would help is if i wrote myself a telegram from each of the people i feel is hanging in the balance here. it could read:
dear Louisa,
you changed my life, and in the end, i didn't like it. i don't like you, and there is no way you can win me over again. furthermore, if you COULD win me over, you would find the sad truth about me: i'm incredibly BORING.
signed, not yours,
some tool
i would argue that i have a unique ability to shut doors with too much force, and maybe i'm compensating for that, out of fear that the door won't be open-able in the future. or maybe it's not about ME being unable to open it later, but the feeling that if i shut it with all my permanently-shutting-the-door-forever force and self-righteousness, i assume i'll do damage to the door itself, and the other person involved, that will permanently close the door for *them* and were i to try to open it later, it would be a total lost cause - out of my control. and god do i hate things being out of my control (thanks dad!) or MAYBE the real issue here is that 9 times out of 10, i experience being in a relationship as forcibly bracing a door open until i let go a bit, slam it shut, or find the resistance too great to merit battling eternally. this is how, being a megalomaniac, i always believe it's my fault, MY DOING, when someone abandons me. i'm accustomed to fighting to keep the door open, whether it's a battle with myself or with someone else, or both, so when the battle's over, obviously I just failed at my own game. so what satisfaction could i derive from slamming the door shut after the fact? I already lost! i can't fix that by saying, "yeah, me too! watch me shut the door i spent all my energy trying to brace open!!" that's not very empowering now, is it.
i'm not bad at performing permanence. since i excel at approaching questions of justice and right/wrong in black and white terms, it's not a stretch to make people feel written off. but really, i wonder about resolving conflicts that date back to 9th grade, or before. so, i don't think i've truly closed a door in awhile. in some ways this makes me a hypocrite, since there's nothing i hate more than someone dumping all the agency for a situation or its end on me, and here i am wondering if this asshole or that asshole might some day apologize, or perhaps reveal to me what my essentially defective core does to people, so I'll know that i deserve the relationship-purgatory i'm always sitting around in. either way, i know i can't act on that person anymore. so the agency i could exercise would have to be on my own thinking about the situation. to let it go for myself. to reach my own resolution about it. yet, the fear of reaching personal closure, and thus foreclosing possibilities involving these people i've cared about so much over the years, is impossible for me. even if i can rationally convince myself that reaching closure isn't foreclosing possibilities, or is even possibly enabling possibilities.
people who know me well know that there are few people in the world who i have ever been close to, who i wouldn't take a bullet for now, despite whatever contempt i developed for them over the years, or whatever horrible things they've done. in fact, i think there's just one. and i haven't seen her since i was a teenager, so what's the likelihood of her getting shot at in my presence anyway? really?
i've been talking to someone i love dearly, who's a good bit younger than me, about stuff she's dealing with around betrayal and loyalty. thinking about her situation has also helped me reflect on my own -- on sorting through my values, what this deep loyalty is really about, and even if it's always such a good thing. what's the relationship between loyalty and fear of betrayal? how does the experience of betrayal leave us programmed to react like we're being betrayed, or about to be betrayed at every moment? how do we compensate for that with sometimes undue loyalty to people who have treated us terribly? do we think that our blind loyalty might help retain people we don't want to lose? win them over enough to keep the door open, just enough to constitute a relationship?
i am so sick of fighting to be in people's lives. and yet even as my commitment to relationships of mutuality deepens, my inability to sever ties of loyalty to those who have hurt me continues. they don't even know it! and they probably don't even care! but in my heart, i believe all this loyalty can somehow fix everything else. if i'm good enough, solid enough, unwavering enough, maybe someone will notice someday and these doors can just open up, without force even. of course, upon admitting this bizarre-o notion that lives somewhere just beneath conscious thought, i realize i should probably accept that anyone who doesn't want my loyalty doesn't deserve it.
it took me more than 5 years of non-communication with my mother to admit that i missed her to anyone other than myself. letting the door stay shut with a parent who seems indifferent to your existence can be easy, for awhile at least. the heaviness of my self-righteousness and the icky, grossed-out feelings that so often go along with unpacking family narratives were also helpful. i don't want to treat the people i've invited into my life and heart the way i treated my mother. (and by "treated" - i really just mean how i thought about the situation in my own head). and if it's true that i seek out relationships where i have to force people to love me, because i'm trying to win the battle for love and attention that i fought with my parents throughout my childhood, then why, when i have clearly lost at my own game, am i still so unwilling to treat them with the clear, black+white write-off that i used with my mother? there are some important differences - my mother failed at controlling me because i don't allow myself to be controlled by others. the fact that she also didn't particularly care about what i was doing or who i was, was sort of a tangential element of our relationship. whereas, in these chosen relationships, no one is trying to control me, it's just the pattern of disinterest that i've replicated from childhood. feeling controlled would likely yield the door-slamming response from me. disinterest sort of endlessly fascinates me -- like a game i can't accept defeat at.
maybe what would help is if i wrote myself a telegram from each of the people i feel is hanging in the balance here. it could read:
dear Louisa,
you changed my life, and in the end, i didn't like it. i don't like you, and there is no way you can win me over again. furthermore, if you COULD win me over, you would find the sad truth about me: i'm incredibly BORING.
signed, not yours,
some tool