To Date or Not to Date . . .

My hardest fought battles have been the most revealing. When I finally permit myself to deal with the “revealed”, those same battles can yield positive results regardless of the initial end-result. I’ve also discovered that when a loss yields a gain, it doesn’t diminish the loss, it just puts it in a different perspective. My impending divorce has yielded much much misery - but also so much good. I thought myself pretty bloody self-aware before, but unbeknownst to me, much of my awareness was at the surface of myself - many many juicy bits had been tucked away over time. Unprocessed misdeeds, ungrieved hurt, and lots of layers of naivity. Hard to believe that someone who has travelled the world, seen poverty beyond poverty up close, pushed my body to a limit several times could still be as naive as I have been and still am. I’m not talking naive about the possibilities of living in a fallen world - I’m talking about naive about the possibilities of my own fallen mind. The means … the means of me. In this latest long battle called divorce, I have become reacquainted with all of those mean and nasty means that had been buried deep.

Some of my less finer means include focussing on the end rather than the way - it is so easy for me to get sidelined by the current desired prize that I compromise on the good path, I try and take that shortcut … it doesn’t necessarily fail, but it certainly prolongs the win. I used to persist and would inevitably end up right where I had driven myself to get, but usually too tired to enjoy the prize. I recently read a good commentary on progress - the crux was something to the effect of - two men head out in the same direction towards the same end, both get lost. One persists. One turns back. It’s the man who recognizes he is lost, turns back, and reconnects with the right path that makes the real progress. Maybe that’s obvious to you - but plough on had been ploughed into me to the detriment of legitimate progress.

I have always refused to turn back. Ahhh, but this battle has made me wise to that. It’s all in the recognition - to recognize the misstep, turn back, realign, recenter, reconnect … then step out - that’s greater progress.

Perhaps T is right - see his comment on the previous posted entry if you have no idea what I’m referring to - perhaps we can redefine the ends, but we’re stuck with the means. It is that simple, but maybe not that easy. The means for me are the core elements of my personality, which I know are all good, but capable of bad - depending on the perspective. For example - inner drive - when I want something, I am well fueled from within, which is great, provided I am heading the right direction. Inner drive is not such a great thing when you … how shall I call it - throw caution to the wind. There are things that you learn that you forget - like I’ll be darned if I know the Pythagorean theorem, I’m impressed I can even spell it. Wait a minute, asquared+bsquared=csquared - okay, maybe that was a bad example, unless of course that isn’t the PT … “I”, go ahead, I can take it. Regardless - there are things that have been taught to me that have totally escaped me, but the things that I have come to “know” those just don’t go away, even when I want to unknow them. I don’t always know the most right direction from all the one’s that appear good, but I usually can pick out the wrong direction based on things I “know”. Then there are my means. I want to unknow that I’m really really really impatient, but it’s in my means … I know it, and when I pretend not to know it, it whaps me. So - what am I to do with all my means, my ways … might as well embrace them. They are mine after all. That’s what I mean by yielding good - I have had to get reacquainted with all the bits, and in the pit I could wallow or I could find some way to laugh when the bits yielded less fine results. In the end it seems that it has been all about means management for me - finding a way to recognize the less right direction a little more quickly - or maybe even just finding a way to turn back sooner with less disdain for having misstepped.

How does this apply to the big question of dating. Well … I know that nothing could have interfered more with me coming to terms with the true grit of my being than trying to present myself to another person. There’s something about that gentle dance between two people that brings out the armour - layers of protection. In the past the first thing to be sacrificed was “me” in the name of “like me like me”. There’s a pattern in my previous relationships that reveals that I have always been surprised that they liked me and then addicted to that very same thing, which in turn led to a lot of compromising, which in turn led to me eventually hitting some kind of wall. Many times that wall was another relationship, which meant I never ever had to own up with my part of the failed relationship I had left behind, I never dealt with “me” - it was a constant cycle of just shifting the catalyst. I do joke at times that it’s quite by accident that I have spent the last year alone - the few opportunities I permitted myself to see evaporated either when I threw myself at him, or because of some other bizarre circumstance. Deep down I know it is divine. Boy am I relieved. What a blessing to have had this space and time … learnin’ the means, learnin’ to love my means, learnin’ to manage ‘em … lonely - only for a moment or two. I wouldn’t have done it with someone else. I couldn’t have done it …

I drew a line at divorce. For me - separated is married, and divorced is single. Why invest in something with potential when there’s a cap on where it can go … I never considered that to be a bad thing, because it gave me bucketloads more time to invest in myself and my friendships - the first two most likely victims when a new relationship does start. Divorce - I might not even be ready when that time comes, who knows. So I wait … managing my impatience, secure in what I “know” - those potential misadventures are best to be missed … for now.