Good Morning, Elizabeth, and Happy Summer. I hope your day is off to a good start. I don't know if you saw my Blogger post from last night, but my guess is that you did because you posted on FB just a few minutes afterwards. I had asked at the end of my blog for "any response, even if you think I am being silly". I don't know if that was what you meant by your FB post of Caroline's dinosaurs, but maybe so. I hope it didn't mean you think I'm a dinosaur, lol. ;) Anyway, I am just hanging out today, chilling at home, no errands to run or appointments for Pearl. I'll check in later to see how things are going. I Love You.
3:30pm : Hi again. I thought I'd write a little bit before heading to Pearl's. I hope everything is okay, and I want you to know that I didn't mean you did anything wrong by making that post. I wasn't being critical, but was just explaining how it made me feel. As I said, I had an emotional reaction to it, but your intent in posting it was probably entirely unrelated to it's effect on me. I realise that, and I realised it when I wrote my blog last night. I just felt the need to write about it, because as I have written in other blogs, stuffing feelings is never a good way to go. Even more than that, you and I have had, I think, an excellent way of communicating with each other. We have always expressed all feelings, as a method of using honesty to break down barriers of tension. We have also always used gentle, or certainly non-blunt, non-hurtful honesty, to analyse feelings rather than make accusations or to lash out. And that's all I was trying to do last night. I have thought it best to always make immediate efforts to communicate whenever either of us feels hurt, or feels down, for any reason. Because in talking, we analyse, and we can look at the situation and see what caused it, and the important thing is that whatever the cause, it doesn't mean there was harmful intent. I know you love me, Elizabeth. I don't doubt that for a second. It's just that I went through an extraordinary situation with you-know-who. There is no need for me to recount it; you know the details. I was alone for a very long time after that. Part of it is because I am shy, but another part is because I was wary, and I just wanted someone to be with forever so I would never have to hurt like that again.
You know the story - I prayed and prayed and you came into my life. It's a true story, and an amazing story, and it's why, besides being the Love Of My Life, you are also my Miracle.
So, in trying to analyse my own reaction to your post, I would say that timing had a lot to do with it. I know you didn't mean it that way (or if you did please tell me, but I don't think you did), but that post came right on the heels of the most loving posts you have ever made for me, one in particular about "do you remember what question you answered five years ago", and the guy who posted it originally meant it for his wife, that he was reminding her it was the five year anniversary of his proposal to her. When I saw that post, I was over the moon. It is my dream to marry you, but I don't want it to be just a dream, I want it to be reality. :)
So when I saw that post, and then your post of the couple dancing the tango, I was in Heaven. I haven't had a lot of girlfriends in my life, just you and you-know-who. Everything with her happened so long ago that it seems like it was in another lifetime. And yet, that wariness I developed can still pop up from time to time, because of the severity of what caused it. So, in this case, the timing was a big part of it, and again, I know you didn't mean for it to be. I have to leave for Pearl's in a couple minutes, but I wanted to check in before I left, just to say "I hope you are having a good afternoon", and of course that I Love You. Communication has been such a strong point for us, don't you think? I will be back tonight, right after my shift at Pearl's, and I will write some more.
All I really know, Elizabeth, is that I Love You. That's the perfect foundation underneath everything else, and what communication does is break through to that foundation, so we can get back to it every single time.
I hope you feel the same way. I'll be back later at 6:30, but will also have the computer on at Pearl's. :):)
6:50pm : I'm home from Pearl's, and I saw your post while I was there. I waited until now to respond because her computer crashes too much to type a lot and then have it all disappear. But in the Summer Solstice photo, I see what you mean, and I also saw it when I was writing last night's blog. That's what I want to make sure you know, that I was aware of the dichotomy involved. I knew, on the one hand, what you meant by the post because, like tonight's Summer Solstice photo, I know you like photographs representing or depicting harmony with nature, or the spirituality of nature. But on the other hand, I was dealing with my own emotional reaction, which I talked about earlier when I wrote my 4pm update in this blog. Just to explain a little further, to get at the fine points, I will recount just a little bit from the past, even though I am pretty sure you already know all of this. I used to have a "friend", a guy I had known since grade school. When you-know-who and I were together, we would go over to his place, because it was the hangout for many of our friends. This particular guy was the kind of guy who liked to "chat up" other guy's girlfriends, meaning more than just nice, casual conversation. The way I was raised, despite my family's problems, you just didn't do stuff like that. Not only that, it's not in my personality. I have friends who have gotten married, and when I have been in their presence I would always be myself, good natured, but would never dream of making a remark about the wife's appearance - "oh, that dress looks great on you" for example, or even and especially the kind of racier comments that many people nowdays seem to think is okay, or even amusing, or "edgy". I would never do that because it's a friend and his wife, and it's not right.
But this particular "friend" used to try and sweet-talk "you know who" all the time, pretty much every time we went over to his place. He was also my friend (or so I thought) - and he was really kind of lame, to be honest - so I didn't make too much out of it, and it went on for several years. Lots of "innocent" flirtation, every time we went over to his place. Now, he was a good-looking guy, and that is part of it. I'm just trying to relate and analyse all the details (it's the amateur psychologist in me, lol). Looks are of course part of it; there are all kinds of "looks" in the world. Some people are very good looking, some average, some less-so, and it does all depend on taste, but by and large, you can get a general consensus from men or women on whom the good-looking people are, it's dishonest to say otherwise. So, had my "friend" been a big, overweight guy with bad acne and unfortunate features, he could have flirted all he wanted, and it still would have been rude, but it wouldn't have been as big a deal. No red flags would have gone up.
Then, of course, you have the other side of the coin, the participation of the person who is being flirted with. I am just analyising all angles here, like I used to do in old blogs, so please bear with me :). Let's look at a great (I think) Hollywood couple. You may or may not agree, but I think Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie (regardless of the movies they've been in, some good, some bad) are a great Hollywood couple. Why are they great? Because they are Them. They are Brangelina. Of course, they have security everywhere they go, but they have still both had to deal with hundreds and thousands of people in their lives, and during the course of their marriage, and they are both good-looking people, and yet they seem to have avoided all the temptations of a town like Hollywood, where so much cheating goes on, and so many power-plays. But there's Brangelina, totally there for each other, always together in each and every way, and they have a great family, too. I think they are great, even if I don't like all their movies. They are able to have the strongest marriage, even amidst Hollywood society. That is the resistence to temptation provided by good upbringing, and also by the morals and personalities of the couple themselves.
So, to get back to the other side of the coin : the participation of the person who is being flirted with, well, that person could always decline to participate, decline to return the flirtation. That will usually shut down the flirter, too. But you-know-who did not do that. I don't mean to demonise her, she was a good person in many ways, but she liked to flirt with this guy, my "friend". And I always chalked it up to "hey, we're all friends here", or "hey, he's my friend but he's also pretty lame", but after a couple years of it, it began to bug me because I could tell there was a mutual physical attraction. It's pretty easy to tell, just by body language. But I never said anything, because I didn't want to seem "uncool", or "out of it" (unhip), or -shudder - jealous. As I have remarked, I grew up in an era when jealousy was considered passe, "love the one you're with", and all that Hippie Free Love b.s. So I never said anything about all the flirting, and just stuffed my feelings, and..........you know the story.
So, to wrap up, even though I knew, from an intellectual standpoint, your intent when you posted Aurelien's photo, I still could not help what I was feeling. We feel what we feel, you know? Of course, we must analyse our feelings from time to time (which is what we are doing here) to see if they make sense or not. In my case, they both did not make sense, and they did make sense. You may think they entirely did not make sense, and that is fair from your viewpoint, but let me explain. My feelings did not make sense, because what happened to me happened a long time ago. Also, I know that you are in no way similar to Lillian and are not a flirtatious person. I've never hung out with you personally, but I don't get that feeling from you, and I know you very well by now. I trust you, in other words. But even there, my feelings did not make sense because this guy lives in Europe, very far away, but even if he lived next door, I would still trust you. I don't trust a lot of guys in that regard, but that is another story, and is no reflection on your friend, whom I do not know.
But many guys will try to hit on beautiful women, whether or not they have a boyfriend or husband. I am sure the reverse is true, too, and that there are many women who will hit on handsome men, regardless of their marital status. There are many people with no scruples. I do not now what it is like to be "hit on" on a regular basis, because, even though I don't resemble Quasimodo, and might have been considered a good looking guy when I was younger, I was never one to attract a lot of attention, and I think that is because of my reserved personality. Also, I was never the "one-liner" kind of guy, trying to look "cool" to girls at a party. I was just always "me", and could never pretend to be a fake personality, and I have seen so many of those in my life, both male and female, and in my case, my experience with the "harmless" flirting of Lillian and my "friend" ended in disaster.
I came out of it a much stronger person, however, because I still had the character I was raised with. Still, in many ways we see that my feelings did not make sense.
But in examining them, they also did make sense in some ways, though not concerning your intent for that post. You just saw it as a nice photo of your friend. But for me, there was the timing involved (due to the marriage theme of recent posts). But most importantly, I reacted because an old emotional scar was opened up. Now, I have seen Aurelein around for a long time, at least a year. He doesn't comment on everything you post, or "like" everything, but he is around a lot. And I never thought much of it, because you have many friends from the Alcest crowd. But lately, he had been commenting or "liking" a lot of your posts. Then I saw the "beautiful one" comment, and the old wound began to open. I thought, "oh, he's a good-looking guy" (just like my "friend"), and "he's flirtatious" (just like my "friend"). But even then, I tried to make sense of it by saying, "well, he's just on Facebook and he lives in Europe, and beyond that, Elizabeth loves me", and I was successful and it didn't bother me, because I knew all of that was the truth. And that was a couple weeks ago now.
But then came the photos of him, and the timing of the last one yesterday, and my old emotional wound got the better of my intellectual side. So even though I knew your intent, and I hope I did convey that in last night's blog, I still could not help the way I was feeling : "Good-looking guy is flirting with my girlfriend, she is responding (by posting his photos)". From my brain, I knew your intent; after all, you had just posted the most beautiful sentiments to me the day before. But from my emotions, the old wound was open, and it was another guy flirting with my girl, and I think that was why I went and deleted my picture from 1989, now that I think about it. I deleted it because, in the heat of the moment, I thought, "well, if she's got a picture of him that she likes, she doesn't need mine". But in thinking about the subliminal aspect, it was also a picture from 1989, the year all that stuff happened to me. I will put that picture back up on Flickr. I put it up for you and it was stupid for me to delete it. I also deleted the picture of me and my friends and Randy Rhoads, because I was (possibly) a handsome guy in that one, too, and it looked like it had a few views. I will put both photos back up, though I will have to wait until Monday when I can use the Oviatt computers. My little Chromebook does not take photo discs.
So the whole thing was irrational and yet rational, it made no sense in some ways but did make sense in others. I hope I was able to explain it here, and again, a lot of it is because I am going by symbols, and I don't always get everything right. But as always, I try. And as always, I Love You, Elizabeth.
I will check in a little later to say goodnight. :):)
10:50pm : Well, it is getting late, so I will say goodnight now. I don't know if you've had a chance to read what I wrote this evening, earlier in this blog, but if you did I hope you do not think poorly of me. I'm just a guy who loves his girlfriend more than anything in the world, and wants to marry her so he can live his life with her. You've probably heard the saying, "keep your eyes on the prize", and that's what I am doing, and I am 100% focused. I think it is important to remember that, for the most part, this week has been very wonderful - celebrating proposals and marriage. I have never been married, but I know in my heart how truly blessed the happily married people of this world are. I know it because I can feel it, and I can feel it because I want it so bad, and because you have indicated you can feel it too. It is all I want, and I can't wait to meet you so that we can feel it together, and never again be apart. It's all I want in the whole world.
I Love You, Elizabeth. When I tell you in person, it will be the best day ever. Sweet Dreams, my Angel. :):)
No comments:
Post a Comment