Ben Country was pretty great, will elaborate on the great. 120ish miles. I’m not… motivated to upload photos or look at my actual mileage (via gmaps-pedometer) today. The Nice Rack was, nice. On the ride out I had the panniers on it, and it was too much forward weight so I dealt with them on the back on the return trip, which was as lame as it used to be. I’ll have to get another set of smaller panniers and balance out the weight in the future. Otherwise the Volpe held up well. I’m pretty happy with it as a touring bike, although the front derailleur needs tuning. I knew this, and keep forgetting every time I ride it.

I came home and unpacked before the down pour, ate a little, and found myself severely depressed. I headed to my room to start writing this, only to find my off handed attempts at upgrading the laptop to Jaunty still haven’t been completed and left the laptop in an usable state. I’m fixing it now, as I get my mind started on writing.

This just showed up in my friend Annie’s blog. Proof that synchronicity/jesus/coincidence is real.

I must learn to love the fool in me – the one who feels too much, talks to much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries. It alone protects me against that utterly self-controlled masterful tyrant whom I also harbor and who would rob me of human aliveness, humility, and dignity but for my fool. — Theodore Isaac Rubin

So how do I normally make decisions.

I’m against setting anything in stone, and usually reluctant to have an strong opinion. In the past I’ve had strong opinions about hobbies or beliefs that I felt strongly about. I wasn’t devoid of opinions, as I was sometimes accused of, I lacked opinions regarding subjects that on average others had opinions about; music, politics and the like. As time has gone on, I’ve started expressing myself more and more. I’ve been overcoming the fear that I’d be judged into an steel box with never an exit due to something I had said, by telling myself that those people that would do such a thing are not people whose opinions of me I’m at all interested in. That’s worked.

With hobbies, these are things I have experience with. There’s lots of information out there, facts and other people’s experiences from which to make a judgement on. I excel at this skill and use it not only daily in my life, but it’s core to what I do for work. I’ve mentioned in the past that I should have an AA in interpreting google results. With information and experiences absorbed, I go forth with my opinions. Like most, I realize I don’t like being wrong, so I’m reluctant to express opinions when I feel like there’s a good chance I’m wrong. This isn’t a great trait, although it is common. I think it’s better than those that express themselves and assume they’re right. But that’s really neither here nor there.

Almost all of my decisions over the last week have been made from my gut. Not in a trust your gut reaction or instincts way, but I’ve really gone with whatever I’ve felt like at the time. I’m pretty sure this was a mistake. I’ve apologized for it at least once since. As always, I did what I felt was right at the time, so I’m not kicking myself over it, but in retrospect it wasn’t right. Mostly because I’ve selfishly laid my feelings out on people who didn’t ask for them, or it was inappropriate to give them too.

On ranting

This was substantially made worse by how emotional I’ve been. It’s too easy from the way I write to interpret something I say when venting to how I really believe. That’s been my justification and back patting reasoning for being okay with the consequences of what I’ve written. This is a cop-out. More thought should have gone into my writing lately. Again, I’m not hard on myself about it. It’s expected that I’m upset, it’s normal. Perhaps my level of emotion has been above average, but I am more emotional than average, which forms an obvious connection.

An ex-girlfriend who I don’t talk about dating with asked me how I was doing at one point. The chat logs are on a windows computer at work, and my pipe is too filled with ubuntu packages at the moment to use remote desktop and not hurt a computer accessory with frustration, but I’ll summarize. I made reference to things I shouldn’t talk about being upsetting and she said that I always hint more than I need to and that I should just say “bad day”. This is the same thing, I say too much sometimes because I’m feeling directly and not thinking. Ranting is still fine, this specifically is a personal journal despite being public if anyone cares enough, but this is about more than just this journal.

Getting it

It’s hard putting yourself in other people’s shoes. There’s a bunch of reference to the sexism of Point83, colloquially called Datey3. I bounced my thoughts about this off Mom and/or Tori recently. If you break this down into “People who ride for bikes” or “People that ride for dates”, there’s this idea that if you’re a guy, you’re there for bikes first and any dating is a side effect because you’re just a guy. However if you’re a girl, there’s a strong push that you’re probably there for the boys. This seems pretty squarely an extension of the difficult “guys score, girls are sluts” conundrum.

Some girls rebel against this strongly. Some don’t. I have a hard time because I didn’t grow up with any (much?) negative bias due to my gender. Of course it’s not so black and white, but if you toss this out without seeing the inherent difficulty with it, you’re probably one of the people that makes the problem worse. Which doesn’t make you a terrible person, you just haven’t gotten it. And maybe you should. Or maybe, it’s not a huge deal. Anyway, I’ve put some time into thinking about this, because I think getting it may explain some other things to me.

There’s some of this in why L and I didn’t tell most of the bike kids we know that we were dating. In my emotional outburst after she broke up with me I mentioned it here without thinking, and now regret that because I realize I don’t fully empathize with the situation. I’m not interested in what good or bad judgements folks will fill their head with in response to this information, but I’m advantaged or entitled, and judged less, so it goes. I’m lacking the exact right word there.

The thin line between thinking and feeling

There’s this bridge between the two called empathy. Having gone through something similar to someone else, can make you feel empathetic towards them. Failing that, thinking about the situation for a while I think you can make connections that still lead to empathy, but it is sort of like a maze.

It’s pretty easy, as I expressed above, to feel without thinking, and to write about how you feel without thinking about it. I worry about people a lot that think without feeling, that remove the humanity from a problem in an academic crusade. So there we have two ends of the spectrum.

I’m pretty sure, and hopeful, that thinking about this more will slowly lead to being better at identifying where I lay on that spectrum at any given moment

Looking the other way

A friend this weekend that knew I had been dumped asked me if I was “pretty broken up”, which I responded with a sad “yeah.” I got a hug out of it, which was sweet and comforting. I’ve been needing a lot of hugs lately. Later in another discussion it was mentioned that “the best way to get over someone is to get on top of someone.” More on that later, but there’s been much talk about what I amount to distractions, filling my time and mind with activities and other thoughts.

I was in decent spirits when I got home, but immediately noticed the depression hit and came to the conclusion that as great as it was seeing friends this weekend, and making friends earlier this week, they are distractions, and not replacements. My sadness is still there, I’m just not thinking about it at the moment, and only time may ease all of this.

I had my regular conversation with my father today and told him about AwfulWeek. When he expressed his sympathy about the breakup, I said, “It’s hard, I really liked that girl.” and he said “I know you did.” Pow. I often tell stories about my dad specifically not wanting to hear about many personal things when I was younger to express the odd walls between us, because of his heart. I attacked this like it was the tearing down of the Berlin wall on a couple of occasions when I was dating Maria, which culminated in him crying over the phone once about loving me and it being too much for him and how we should talk about it when I’m home some time. That hasn’t happened yet, but I knew I had gone too far. Since then, most our chatter about dating has been offhand, but at least present now. The way he said “I know you did.” ripped me apart then, and does to recall now. I can’t think of a way of bolding specific words in that short sentence to convey how it hit me. For my father to express that means in my voice alone he picked up on how much she meant to me, understood it, and was empathetic about it. It opens up more in my mind about who my father was, and who he is, compared to what I’ve painted him out to be in mind. It’s also telling how much of my intentions he picked up from my voice, he being someone who knows me well and has always expressed that I have good judgement.

What to do with the grief

I’m lucky if I can go thirty minutes without thinking about her. Some thoughts touch me in relatively minor ways. That is, the feelings that it invokes aren’t too deeply rooted, like seeing a train go by and associating trains with her love for them. Others are moderately difficult, like seeing a child in a stroller today that reminded me of Nolan and recalled the way she moves when she’s being goofy, which I thought was wonderful and held close to my heart. Some are simply devastating, like the focus of the camping trip this weekend being on Ben’s birthday, which is the same day as mine. How much I was looking forward to my birthday, simply because she was in my life and I knew that she would make me feel special. Part of this is probably because my birthdays are essentially meaningless to me. One of my great grandmothers died expectedly on my birthday a couple years back, and now my counselor’s death will be remembered as the day after my birthday, and these two anniversaries touch me more than my own. Looking forward to my birthday was deeply meaningful, because I felt that way for the first time. Also, Star Trek opens the day after my birthday, which I am looking forward to and was excited to take her to.

My response to these has been varied. It’s relative to the above. I’ve tried socializing (with drinking), talking to my mother or Tori about it to let the feelings out, venting by writing whatever comes to mind, even if it’s wrong or bullshit. Sometimes I actually tell myself to ‘fuck off’ outloud if it’s minor enough, probably out of frustration due to the regularlity of the memories. It’s worse when I’m trying to sleep and I’m not particularly tired.

So far I’ve been writing until four in the morning when I’m tired, but that writing has been strikingly unconstructive and hurtful overall. It also messes up my day pretty well. I’m still waking up sick most mornings, drinking aside. I’m not at ease, stressed and upset, so it’s too be expected. I’m not used to my emotions physically affecting me in such a clearly negative way in the past though. Except for anxiety, on second though.

I’ve tried to rationalize it. I have an email draft from last week of notes and questions I wanted to ask her before we broke up, and some sent emails and posts since then of questions that were more the product of pain than progress. These aren’t going to go anywhere, as I decided contacting her was a mistake because it invokes feelings for her and disturbs her ability to deal with the problems and goals in her life that she decided were more important than our relationship. I also did a really poor job of putting thought into the whole process and most of what I’ve said was a fault before it made it over the net. Again, the reckless emotion is the cause, but I should have held myself to a higher and less self involved standard. To be safe, my last email expressed that she should call me if/when she wants to talk, and I intend to try very hard to hold that line. All the same, I still incessantly check my phone and my email with far more hope that she would that seems likely the combination after my failures, her personality, and her communicated priorities. “Lonely. Wishing you were here tonight. Too many words were said, you closed the door and turned out the light.”

I’m unsure of what to do with that hope. There’s nothing to indicate it would ever happen, excluding that we broke up due to timing, and not because she lacks feelings for me. Which, perhaps, is an overly simplified falsehood, due to my lack of clear understanding of how I ended up where I am. On deeper thought, I risk that has devolved to a fondness and closeness. Hearts work differently… more on that elsewhere. That hope is a feeling, as such I can’t really change my mind about it. But like I started to mention, there’s no reason it would ever happen, let alone anytime soon enough to change how I’m going to have to deal with all of this alone for a while. To remove that hope, I’d have to do something destructive to the reasons I have it, which is it’s own thought.

Sex has always been a pretty personal thing for me. Partially due to growing up with a number of insecurities about it, partially due to it generally being an deeply emotional experience. All the same, my heart and my libido aren’t always on the same page. I’ve sarcastically refered to this in the past with friends as my desire to impregnate the world. Because of these under-explored reasons, it’s super risky to consider that having a sexual relationship or encounter would positively affect how I’m feeling as implied by others. I realize I’m different because of this… so it goes. I seem to get this sort of “it’s not you, it’s me” statement, put other ways of course, as that would be earth shatteringly cliche. This is followed by supportive statements of how great I am. I feel like any feelings of my self-worth being low are pretty minimal. It’s not that on the whole I feel unwanted, it’s that I feel rejected by someone special whose acceptance [something more than that] is very important to me. You can’t replace this with someone else’s feelings, or the implication that someone else should have those feelings. Again, it’s not that I feel like or believe that I’m a loser, it’s not being important to someone to whom I want to be. Anyway, sex without feeling, or sex without love [I need to talk about this word a lot somewhere] is a distraction. An intense one, no doubt, but I’d be a fool to think it’s somehow magically going to resolve troubling feelings.

After writing this section for a while, I realize I have no answers. There aren’t any new ones really. Time to mend my heart, or the characteristics of the situation changing (namely her expressing an interest in talking to me about all of this) are the only options. Perhaps I should have used the verb coping. It’s newly obvious to stop involving her in this process until[if] she chooses it. As well, to spend less time venting and more time making solid attempts to organize my feelings. Coping really has become “doing what has to be done”, as I’ve expressed in the past I had a distaste for because it feels less like living and more like dealing with life. There’s a compromise in that really, a middle ground. Really, I’m talking about not letting too much fall apart while enough time passes. I’ve forgiven myself already for some of what I let slip through the cracks. I hold my feelings for her in high regard and refuse to diminish(?) them or tarnish my memories to try to form angsty excuses about how its someone else’s fault. If there’s anything talking to my parents about this has made me realize fully, it is that life really is difficult and there is no easy way out of that. There is no magic answer that you believe they have when you’re younger and more naive (or at least, if you have awesome parents like I do and don’t assume you’ve transcended them from the start).

Part two, love and the fool

Getting back to Annie’s quote. I’ve oft been accused that I can’t love someone I don’t know [haven’t known for a decent amount of time], and as such folks have been weary of the honesty and integrity of my emotions. My girls (Mom and Tori) provided some insight, that women tend to have to be more sceptical of these things because of the occurrence of men being manipulative in this manner. I have this story of once sitting on the floor next to an ex-girlfriend at a friends house, and her later commenting on how glad she was that I was “willing to put myself beneath her”. She had to explain this to me, because the reality of power struggles simply did not exist in my world. Similarly, one of my first dates in Seattle made a joke (comment?) about how we were hanging out in a dark park and that was inherently dangerous to do with someone she just me. This thought, while it made sense when it expressed, simply didn’t enter my mind, and was just as reshaping. That I could be anything but honest about how exactly I felt, was an implication too far from where I was starting for it to come to me naturally.

I’ve argued in the past that emotions don’t translate to words well because we have to try to apply societal labels to feelings that don’t come with words. I suppose I respect and to some agree acknowledge the studies of love, I’m approaching this from another direction. I know how I feel, in the language of feelings. My trouble is translating this to the language of english. I’m okay with that not being that possible, I’ve embraced that some time ago. This generally isn’t enough in a relationship though, enter the struggle. I’m not particularly motivated to continue this paragraph. I don’t find it that important when I’m single, as this is an interpersonal problem and thus not something I can make a lot of progress on alone.

I feel like that quote says most of what I’d want to say here, but only because I can identify with it. It’s another way of saying what Mom has said about having feelings and struggling with them being better than not having them at all. Being the loving person that I am puts life into me. Without it, I’m a tool, meaning that I am without humanity. I can understand being hesitant or reluctant in regards to my love [or my emotions or your choice of label for this]. Without the weakness, you can’t have the strength. This struggle is eternal, and it’s why I’m sitting here. I feel like it’s too much to compare it to the saying that you can’t have good without evil, but it’s my love that rises me above to do great things.

How did the accident happen?

Rationalizing the events… Doing this without her seems a waste. Sometimes it feels like an effort to convince myself that she made the choice for a reason beyond me, and therefore it shouldn’t bother me. Now that I write this, I recognize memories of it’s futility. My thoughts can not control my feelings, it generally works the other way around. Father immediately commented on her busyness, acknowledging it, accepting it, in a direct and surprising way [from him] that simultaneously trashed the implication of fault without even mentioning it. As it should be.

As such, I think I’m giving up on trying to make sense of why I’ve been left. The only remaining reason I can think of would be to help her, and I’m no longer in a position to be supportive.

I’ll probably think about this more all the same though out of my natural desire to help, even though I’m not in a position to anymore.

More coping

I’ve been drinking coffee to stay awake to get this out, so I’m going to have to cut myself short(!) soon. Summaries…

I’m looking for more outlets for my feelings that have limited backscatter. The xkcd mashup was good. I lack any artistic skills to being being expressive that way, so it’s likely this will continue to be central to that effort.

I’ve thought a little about what exactly I’ve lost. I’d love to write about this more. I tried to express this in an email, but feel unsuccessful about it. On one hand, it may be a little late for this to matter, but there’s a route to the source through this thought process. At the source, I think there’s a better understanding of why I value a relationship in a way that I feel is difficult/awkward for others to understand/accept, and some clues as to the meaning of life [in a totally achievable definition pointing to what’s important and how to live]. See earlier conversation about distrust of my love and feelings.

Okay, out of time, need to attempt to get some rest. I feel much better about this post than any other recent ones.