Invitation
Invitations.
Like Frodo in the badlands, "We've been here before."
***
1.) You know how you can tell the people who really like receiving gifts, because they're really good at giving them?
Not that they'll give you the stuff THEY want. But they'll observe you and listen to you, and ALL OF A SUDDEN and OUT OF THE BLUE, you get this perfect gift from them? And you think, "I will get them the perfect gift TOO."
And they take such astonished pleasure in it, because maybe they've been good at giving gifts all this while, partly out of enjoyment of the gift, but also partly out of longing to be observed and noticed and given to, too.
***
Okay, so it's not just me. This is also observed behavior in several others. Specific people too. Not all people. But it's also me.
Some people are good at things I'm not. Like, calling on the phone. Or, appearing out of the thin air to hang out, and in that hang-out time, the quality of their presence is so intensely present, and you realize that you are never THAT present with anyone unless you make this CONCERTED effort, but with them, it's like this other kind of gift they can give. Even if they don't call. Or email. Or give gifts.
What they do is give of their... um... haecceitas. Their "thisness."
I am probably using the word haecceitas badly.
BUT ANY EXCUSE TO USE IT, sez I!
***
2.) And I'm like this with invitation too.
I have this compulsory invitation trigger finger. I like someone, or a group of someones, and I want to know them immediately. I want to start the knowing NOW. I want us to have known each other already since CHILDHOOD, and since I've wasted 31 years before bothering to accidentally bump into this particular person on this particular planet, there is NO TIME LIKE THE PRESENT.
I can organize events. I can host dinners. I can make an overnight or a group-date happen. These are things I can do. I have that energy.
You know what I don't have the energy for?
Inviting myself over.
When someone says to me, "Come over any time; you're always welcome!" even if they MEAN it, I cannot go there. It's where I stop. I cannot say to someone, "I'm off Tuesday and Friday; can I come over?"
The limit of what I can do is say, "I'm off Tuesday and Friday, and I'll be in (blank place), if you wanna come and hang out?"
I NEED to be invited. Maybe because I'm part vampire. I dunno. I cannot go where I'm not welcome. Or even when I'm not sure of welcome. Even if I'm told I'm welcome. If I'm told I'm welcome, but not SPECIFICALLY, I cannot go. Because what if, by the time I gather the courage to go, no one is home, or things are going badly that day, or it's just the wrong time, or what...
And not everyone is like that. Some people just show up, sure of their welcome once the welcome is extended. That's not me.
***
3.) What drains me of energy is when an invitation garners no response. I don't mind a "no" so much. It's really just what it is. It may even be a rejection. I'm sort of used to that, my line of work. I mean, there's a sense of disappointment, but it's gone in a flash.
But the lingering anticipation of waiting for a response, slowly disintegrating into a lingering disappointment, not only in the fact that the invitation was never responded to - so no closure - but that it was ignored, which might mean ANYTHING.
It might mean something as simple as, "I was waiting to see if I could, and then it was too late, so I couldn't." Or it might mean, as my friend Mir has observed, "Sometimes a lack of response is in itself a response."
I hate that. I hate having to figure out the code of silence. Just tell me no.
What also drains me... When I do so much inviting, and it is responded to - sometimes, more often then not - but there is no reciprocity. Pleasure, courtesy, friendliness, but no invitation back. Man. That cracks me.
I recover. I bounce back. I have that energy. And I'm glad I do. But I don't have it indefinitely. There comes a day when I stop inviting, you know? Or stop writing letters. Or stop giving gifts. Or texting. Or whatever.
And that makes me feel less myself. To stop. But I think... That must be what the other parties want, right? Or they'd've... given something back.
***
4.) The thing is, I want to be the person who is always welcoming. I want to be the person who invites regardless. I want to be generous. I want to be respectful of other people's boundaries, but I want to throw my doors open wide.
And I'm discovering I'm not that person.
Which kind of sucks.
***
On the other hand, that's what I'm feeling today.
Maybe I'll be generous again tomorrow. That'd be nice.
***
Hey, and at least the WEATHER BROKE! It's like 30 degrees cooler today! How much easier it is to do everything! I do not mind the heat, but the EFFORT it requires to do anything but loll about in the least amount of clothes, looking sultry!
I dreamed last night of guillotines and porcelain dolls.
***
Like Frodo in the badlands, "We've been here before."
***
1.) You know how you can tell the people who really like receiving gifts, because they're really good at giving them?
Not that they'll give you the stuff THEY want. But they'll observe you and listen to you, and ALL OF A SUDDEN and OUT OF THE BLUE, you get this perfect gift from them? And you think, "I will get them the perfect gift TOO."
And they take such astonished pleasure in it, because maybe they've been good at giving gifts all this while, partly out of enjoyment of the gift, but also partly out of longing to be observed and noticed and given to, too.
***
Okay, so it's not just me. This is also observed behavior in several others. Specific people too. Not all people. But it's also me.
Some people are good at things I'm not. Like, calling on the phone. Or, appearing out of the thin air to hang out, and in that hang-out time, the quality of their presence is so intensely present, and you realize that you are never THAT present with anyone unless you make this CONCERTED effort, but with them, it's like this other kind of gift they can give. Even if they don't call. Or email. Or give gifts.
What they do is give of their... um... haecceitas. Their "thisness."
I am probably using the word haecceitas badly.
BUT ANY EXCUSE TO USE IT, sez I!
***
2.) And I'm like this with invitation too.
I have this compulsory invitation trigger finger. I like someone, or a group of someones, and I want to know them immediately. I want to start the knowing NOW. I want us to have known each other already since CHILDHOOD, and since I've wasted 31 years before bothering to accidentally bump into this particular person on this particular planet, there is NO TIME LIKE THE PRESENT.
I can organize events. I can host dinners. I can make an overnight or a group-date happen. These are things I can do. I have that energy.
You know what I don't have the energy for?
Inviting myself over.
When someone says to me, "Come over any time; you're always welcome!" even if they MEAN it, I cannot go there. It's where I stop. I cannot say to someone, "I'm off Tuesday and Friday; can I come over?"
The limit of what I can do is say, "I'm off Tuesday and Friday, and I'll be in (blank place), if you wanna come and hang out?"
I NEED to be invited. Maybe because I'm part vampire. I dunno. I cannot go where I'm not welcome. Or even when I'm not sure of welcome. Even if I'm told I'm welcome. If I'm told I'm welcome, but not SPECIFICALLY, I cannot go. Because what if, by the time I gather the courage to go, no one is home, or things are going badly that day, or it's just the wrong time, or what...
And not everyone is like that. Some people just show up, sure of their welcome once the welcome is extended. That's not me.
***
3.) What drains me of energy is when an invitation garners no response. I don't mind a "no" so much. It's really just what it is. It may even be a rejection. I'm sort of used to that, my line of work. I mean, there's a sense of disappointment, but it's gone in a flash.
But the lingering anticipation of waiting for a response, slowly disintegrating into a lingering disappointment, not only in the fact that the invitation was never responded to - so no closure - but that it was ignored, which might mean ANYTHING.
It might mean something as simple as, "I was waiting to see if I could, and then it was too late, so I couldn't." Or it might mean, as my friend Mir has observed, "Sometimes a lack of response is in itself a response."
I hate that. I hate having to figure out the code of silence. Just tell me no.
What also drains me... When I do so much inviting, and it is responded to - sometimes, more often then not - but there is no reciprocity. Pleasure, courtesy, friendliness, but no invitation back. Man. That cracks me.
I recover. I bounce back. I have that energy. And I'm glad I do. But I don't have it indefinitely. There comes a day when I stop inviting, you know? Or stop writing letters. Or stop giving gifts. Or texting. Or whatever.
And that makes me feel less myself. To stop. But I think... That must be what the other parties want, right? Or they'd've... given something back.
***
4.) The thing is, I want to be the person who is always welcoming. I want to be the person who invites regardless. I want to be generous. I want to be respectful of other people's boundaries, but I want to throw my doors open wide.
And I'm discovering I'm not that person.
Which kind of sucks.
***
On the other hand, that's what I'm feeling today.
Maybe I'll be generous again tomorrow. That'd be nice.
***
Hey, and at least the WEATHER BROKE! It's like 30 degrees cooler today! How much easier it is to do everything! I do not mind the heat, but the EFFORT it requires to do anything but loll about in the least amount of clothes, looking sultry!
I dreamed last night of guillotines and porcelain dolls.
***