Understanding

No man understands a deep book until he has seen and lived at least part of its contents.

Ezra Pound

Yesterday, I mentioned that when I get over my hesitance about having someone new in my life, I wanted Diana Gabaldon’s version of hot. It led Bryn to comment that she listened to the audio book of Outlander and was now listening to Dragonfly in Amber, in part to understand me better and wanted to go back through my blog to find the references. I asked her if I was right, did she see how the book explained me to me? She did.

Dana and I were connected by the brain and heart infinitely closer than Claire and Frank, which is why my feelings regarding Argo were so scary to both of us… and yet, there was no part of me that could escape them. As I said in an earlier entry, having appropriate boundaries with love was a future that did not happen. It is coming together nicely now after recognizing the disastrous train wreck I was capable of causing. I had to get tired of creating drama where it never should have existed in the first place. However, the type of emotional abuse I endured rendered that capability innate rather than external. I wasn’t causing drama for its own sake, but what had been modeled for me since childhood. I had to destroy those old tapes to move on and be capable of deep discernment for what I wanted later on. I wasn’t capable of moving on while I was in relationship with both of them, as much as I wanted it. Dana put me between a rock and a hard place, unintentionally, but still. She wanted to KNOW what was going on between us, and at the same time, we deserved our own thing.

They both had deep and separate compartments in my head. The way they lived dangerously far away in my mind allowed me to reason that it was fine to love both of them as long as they never crossed over. I was sure that the wrong feelings for Argo would pass, and in their place would become beautiful right ones. I was, in fact, correct. It just didn’t happen on Dana’s timeline. It happened on mine.

Separation, in retrospect, is ridiculous. Life is connected if you’re doing it right. No offense meant to anyone in DC. If there’s anywhere in the world you’ll live where LOTS AND LOTS of people have to live their lives in a disjointed fashion because of the levels of confidentiality involved, it’s here… even me. If I had a government job, it would probably be Secret or Top Secret, because I am most likely to get a job in computer support or working with databases. Worst. Job. Ever? Knowing which Congressmen watch porn at work and not being able to tell you about it.

It’s been the same for me in relationships, erroneously thinking that the only way you get a Top Secret clearance in someone’s heart is to sleep with them. It is not reality, it is compounded abuse talking… or alternatively, being given a Top Secret clearance and being turned on by knowledge, not attraction.

If there’s anything in my life that turns me on, it is learning… no matter what kind, really, but mostly learning how people work. It’s been a long-held false assumption that I didn’t really know someone unless I fell into their arms… and they didn’t really know me, either.

In the past, the more Argo laid her guts on the table, the more it triggered the false assumption. The future holds healthy boundaries in that area, perhaps not with her (not that I’m incapable, but it is unlikely that she’d trust again), but certainly with everyone else I meet.

It is another reason why my protection walls seem to grow thicker every day, not wanting to open myself up to the possibility of hurting anyone the way I hurt her. Forgiving myself has been a long and continuous process, and I’m not finished. I will not be able to move on until I do, because I have to get an internal sense that I am indeed better before I trust myself with anyone’s heart. It was a gut punch to realize that we were connected beyond all measure, but because she wasn’t dialed in to me the same way I was dialed into her, I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t see her internal references for closeness and though I was open about mine, she didn’t understand them. Because how could she? Nothing I was saying made logical sense, because it wasn’t logical. It was emotional, which is often in diametric opposition. I couldn’t explain why things were the way they were, I just knew it was true.

But, as I told Argo directly, words and actions couldn’t line up. Apart from different orientations, I was in a committed relationship and that would have had to take precedence over orientation, anyway. For reasons I will not disclose, I had a skewed sense of commitment with Dana, too. Just because I wanted to be close to someone else didn’t mean that I didn’t feel commitment to her in spades, and that she would understand that better than anyone else because of her own internal references.

I wanted both women to understand that those feelings were real, but there was no reason to act on them. They were emotions that needed to be recognized and left alone, because in no way did I want Argo to unintentionally cross a boundary and she definitely wouldn’t if she was aware. I wanted her to be sensitive to the fact that she was capable of it so it wouldn’t ever happen, because in those days, I had a very strong sense that we would have a relationship in real life and that those emotions might change drastically after meeting on the ground, or they might not. I wouldn’t always be my writer personality with her, and who knows if my on the ground personality would have reached out to hers in the same way? Who knows if I would have felt differently once pictures became real? Maybe they would have deepened, maybe the things that were being written would have seemed annoying to actually hear. Her writing tone is blunt, no bullshit. In person, I don’t know if I would have been appreciative or if I would have recoiled at her “in your face” approach. But then again, maybe in person that would have been muted. WHO KNOWS?

What I did know is that Outlander undid me, for evil and for awesome. The more Claire struggled with her feelings for both men, the more I wanted her to stay in that place and talk about it. Seeing her married to both men at different times and places helped in my distress, because it forced me to look at what was bullshit and what wasn’t.

My conclusion is that the way Argo opened me up was like putting a racing engine in a Corolla. My brain power jumped exponentially, because I was thinking about bigger things than the minutiae of my own life. She believed in me more than I did or ever thought I deserved. Trust me that any award I ever win for writing has her fingerprint on the plaque.

In that way, part of my heart will always belong to her, but not in any way that is tainted with darkness. To have our shining, silvery chord run dull in spots is unbecoming of my true emotions where she is concerned. I want our music to always play in a major key. The moment I realized it was a metaphorical Piccardy third ringing in a cathedral, it was so immense and powerful.

I cannot begin to know how she feels or even consider it, because to wonder is to often go in the wrong direction… to think she has feelings that bear no similarity to what is tangible. There are very few things I know I don’t want, and that is one of them.

Rumination is toxic, and prayer is powerful. In prayer, I ask for her every good thing, and for mine. Since she is an atheist, I lean on these words all the time: I’m starting to count on you being my pinch hitter.

Consider it done.