Going home was weird. The American Christmas whirlwind is only just beginning to settle, but it’s bizarre to have built two completely separate identities that I can so quickly jump in and out of.
Here’s the problem. I regularly do stupid things that I know are stupid realizing that there will be little support from friends after I do the stupid thing because they initially told me it was stupid. But I do them anyway, because there’s this little itchy part of me that says “hey, maybe it’s not as stupid as it looks???” but of course, we all know it is.
So I kind of . . . sort of . . . hooked up with my ex while I was back home. I know, I know, sooo stupid. But the deluded part of my brain was telling me “you’ve changed, he’s changed, maybe you should try again. After all, you were a bitter wretch last time you were with this guy,” and wistful memories of the time we were together came flooding in. In the end I came to realize that it wasn’t really him that I was ever crazy about. It was his apartment in a 19th century house on capital hill. It was meeting him after work at his job downtown. It was the picture of John Cusack holding a stereo over his head on the wall next to the Bob Dylan records on his mantle. It was the music he listened to, the movies he liked, the books he read, the trivia he knew. All of the crap that looks so perfect on a facebook page, but means absolutely nothing when it comes to personal connection.
Now I’m left with a feeling of utter ickiness. Could this be due to the fact that I hooked up with my ex purely out of convenience knowing that the spark would neatly fizzle as soon as I went back to Prague? . . . Okay, partly . . . but it’s also from the realization that so many friendships and relationships have been based on such trivial crap. For years, I, and many like myself, have been using such criterion to determine interpersonal relationships. But all it does is fog up interactions that would have otherwise been exposed as a waste of time. Perhaps it’s about time I stepped off that bridge leading out of adolescence, though it’s strange what we hold on to in the name of comfort.
But I digress (as I so often do). Now that one relationship has died and I’m left looking at a blank slate ahead of me, I have to push the reset button on the part of my brain that hopes for a romantic future. I’m noticing that the letters on that button are beginning to fade, it’s been pressed so often. And last night, I was wondering why and whether that button was even necessary. So I called up my sister for some sisterly advice. We talked about dealing with age and not getting what we want. She’s 7 years my senior, but had her first child little over a year ago. She’s also one of the few people I trust to commiserate because she truly realizes my plight.
And this she says: that as women, particularly women in the church, more particularly women in the church with a patriarchal blessing, it’s easy to make the mistake of becoming engrained with a sense of entitlement. The belief that we deserve a husband a home and a family, and a great injustice is being done if we don’t get it. But God wants his children born into gospel-oriented families. He’s not holding them hostage from us. What he does is his business, and whatever reasons there may be, they’re his reasons.
She also told me that before she became pregnant, she had to give up that sense of entitlement. She described the moment when she was able to look at her husband and tell him that she’d be perfectly happy if it was just the two of them for the rest of their lives. And she knew that she really would be, and was finally able to stop worrying about whether or not it would happen for her.
I have to do that too. It’s a little harder, seeing as I can’t hold my own hand and look into my own eyes, and say I’d be happy even if it’s just us. Well I could, but . . . well anyway. Therefore I’m erasing all resolutions for the new year, and am making a new promise: I will go forward with the mindset that it may only ever be just me, and I will find a way to be happy with it.
That’s it. Little words, big commitment. It’s likely to take up most of my energy, so I’m loath to make additional promises. 2010 take 2, and action!