half-baked and insecure is no way to go through life
I'm cookie dough. I'm not done baking. I'm not finished becoming who ever the hell it is I'm gonna turn out to be. I make it through this, and the next thing, and the next thing, and maybe one day, I turn around and realize I'm ready. I'm cookies. And then, you know, if I want someone to eat m- or enjoy warm, delicious, cookie me, then that's fine. That'll be then. When I'm done.
-Buffy Summers
Found some wisdom? comfort? maybe insight is the word from one of the most unexpected people: me from the past.
My dad, also not a predictable source if wisdom, recently had some terrible romantic experiences, and he's been musing on dating and love in the context of getting older. It's nice to be able to talk to him. Sure, he can be a dick, and we'll never have what mom and I had, but it's becoming a pretty cool friendship lately. Tonight we were talking about the commonly-held myth that relationships should complete you, fix you, make you whole.
One of the things I was always proud of in my relationship with Tyler was that we specifically rejected that idea. We talked a lot about wanting instead of needing each other. How knowing we could live without each other and live well was part of what made it meaningful to choose to be together. Being okay alone, but choosing to be together to enrich our lives. Supporting each other, but maintaining and fixing ourselves.
Earlier I was looking through some old emails from when Tyler and I broke up in 2008. We said a lot of intelligent and mature things about the nature of both relationships and separations. I was surprised to find a letter I had written about why I wasn't ready to be as serious as we were getting. I talked about being ready for an adult life, and for a relationship that suited it, but not being sufficiently grounded in myself and the non-romantic aspects of my life to be a good partner. Feeling like I wasn't complete enough, that I didn't have enough to offer him. I specifically cited not feeling secure in my career and my social circle. I pointed out that Tyler had those things, that his life was materially much less wanting than mine, and that that made us getting serious problematic even beyond the logistical challenges facing us at the time. Good calls all.
We called it off shortly after that ... and moved in together shortly after that. I don't regret it, but I see some of what was problematic there, and apparently saw it then. Serious relationships are for people who have their shit more or less figured out, who have a stable foundation. I knew I had some big holes on that front.
I think you can keep growing, keep developing as a person while you're in a relationship, but I think it's harder. One of the paradoxes of relationships seems to be that you have to keep growing as an individual to maintain the spark, to keep being as interested and interesting as you are when you get into each other, but it's massively harder to do when you're with someone. The effort of maintaining a relationship takes up the energy you'd be spending on yourself. The coupley comfort keeps at bay the discomfort that motivates personal growth most of the time. And the desire to be the person the other person likes makes it harder and scarier to take the risks involved in changing and growing.
And that's just that basics, the balancing act you have to do if you both have complete lives, complete selves coming in. It's a challenge under the best of circumstances. If only one of you has to play catch up in a particular area, that's more and harder work to do, and until you get there, the other person is sort of carrying some extra weight. Fixable with effort, but not easy or obvious.
Plus you're trying to do all the business of being a grownup in coordination with another person, and that's a lot to keep up with. Add in a couple layoffs, graduate school, an exploding apartment, a couple moves, serious health issues, and a surprise dead parent and it's goddamn unlikely you'll get around to it. In the time we were married I never felt fully secure in my social circle,* and my lack of career path was a constant source of anxiety for me.
Part of what's frustrating about Tyler's insistence on divorce now and quickly is that I feel like 2012 was a banner year for personal growth for me. I finally found a hobby I loved and a great job in what I hope will be a longterm career for me, and I feel like I was making big strides in getting my social life set up in a way that felt right and mine. There was room for improvement, but it was coming along faster than ever before. I'm frustrated it was too little too late.**
Was, though. So now I'm starting over. But I'm pretty determined not to make that set of mistakes again. My previously stated intent not to date until I've got -at a minimum- my own car is sounding pretty well-thought-out. Props to 23-year-old Aster for seeing that light and writing about it so lucidly. And hey, she was 23 and pretty epically in love, so we're not going to be too hard on her for plunging on regardless.
One of the things that's daunting about the idea of ever hoping to be in a serious relationship again (which I do, someday) is that the bar for a whole and shit-together life for a 30-year-old is way higher than for a 23-year-old. And I'm starting from pretty far behind in a lot of ways now.
* Even though I met and befriended most of them independent of our relationship, the thing where my new friends were Tyler's old friends was hard. I never wanted to be one of those people who just latches onto their partner's friends and doesn't have people of their own. I let it eat at me more than I should have, but the way this breakup has gone shows me I wasn't totally wrong in the premise.
**Not saying that's the entirety of how and why things fell apart with us, but it's a part.
-Buffy Summers
Found some wisdom? comfort? maybe insight is the word from one of the most unexpected people: me from the past.
My dad, also not a predictable source if wisdom, recently had some terrible romantic experiences, and he's been musing on dating and love in the context of getting older. It's nice to be able to talk to him. Sure, he can be a dick, and we'll never have what mom and I had, but it's becoming a pretty cool friendship lately. Tonight we were talking about the commonly-held myth that relationships should complete you, fix you, make you whole.
One of the things I was always proud of in my relationship with Tyler was that we specifically rejected that idea. We talked a lot about wanting instead of needing each other. How knowing we could live without each other and live well was part of what made it meaningful to choose to be together. Being okay alone, but choosing to be together to enrich our lives. Supporting each other, but maintaining and fixing ourselves.
Earlier I was looking through some old emails from when Tyler and I broke up in 2008. We said a lot of intelligent and mature things about the nature of both relationships and separations. I was surprised to find a letter I had written about why I wasn't ready to be as serious as we were getting. I talked about being ready for an adult life, and for a relationship that suited it, but not being sufficiently grounded in myself and the non-romantic aspects of my life to be a good partner. Feeling like I wasn't complete enough, that I didn't have enough to offer him. I specifically cited not feeling secure in my career and my social circle. I pointed out that Tyler had those things, that his life was materially much less wanting than mine, and that that made us getting serious problematic even beyond the logistical challenges facing us at the time. Good calls all.
We called it off shortly after that ... and moved in together shortly after that. I don't regret it, but I see some of what was problematic there, and apparently saw it then. Serious relationships are for people who have their shit more or less figured out, who have a stable foundation. I knew I had some big holes on that front.
I think you can keep growing, keep developing as a person while you're in a relationship, but I think it's harder. One of the paradoxes of relationships seems to be that you have to keep growing as an individual to maintain the spark, to keep being as interested and interesting as you are when you get into each other, but it's massively harder to do when you're with someone. The effort of maintaining a relationship takes up the energy you'd be spending on yourself. The coupley comfort keeps at bay the discomfort that motivates personal growth most of the time. And the desire to be the person the other person likes makes it harder and scarier to take the risks involved in changing and growing.
And that's just that basics, the balancing act you have to do if you both have complete lives, complete selves coming in. It's a challenge under the best of circumstances. If only one of you has to play catch up in a particular area, that's more and harder work to do, and until you get there, the other person is sort of carrying some extra weight. Fixable with effort, but not easy or obvious.
Plus you're trying to do all the business of being a grownup in coordination with another person, and that's a lot to keep up with. Add in a couple layoffs, graduate school, an exploding apartment, a couple moves, serious health issues, and a surprise dead parent and it's goddamn unlikely you'll get around to it. In the time we were married I never felt fully secure in my social circle,* and my lack of career path was a constant source of anxiety for me.
Part of what's frustrating about Tyler's insistence on divorce now and quickly is that I feel like 2012 was a banner year for personal growth for me. I finally found a hobby I loved and a great job in what I hope will be a longterm career for me, and I feel like I was making big strides in getting my social life set up in a way that felt right and mine. There was room for improvement, but it was coming along faster than ever before. I'm frustrated it was too little too late.**
Was, though. So now I'm starting over. But I'm pretty determined not to make that set of mistakes again. My previously stated intent not to date until I've got -at a minimum- my own car is sounding pretty well-thought-out. Props to 23-year-old Aster for seeing that light and writing about it so lucidly. And hey, she was 23 and pretty epically in love, so we're not going to be too hard on her for plunging on regardless.
One of the things that's daunting about the idea of ever hoping to be in a serious relationship again (which I do, someday) is that the bar for a whole and shit-together life for a 30-year-old is way higher than for a 23-year-old. And I'm starting from pretty far behind in a lot of ways now.
* Even though I met and befriended most of them independent of our relationship, the thing where my new friends were Tyler's old friends was hard. I never wanted to be one of those people who just latches onto their partner's friends and doesn't have people of their own. I let it eat at me more than I should have, but the way this breakup has gone shows me I wasn't totally wrong in the premise.
**Not saying that's the entirety of how and why things fell apart with us, but it's a part.