life is not made up of things that can be lost or won

12/31/09

leaving is always hard. yesterday i started my proceedings to step away from northwest indiana, what that means is seeing some family for the last time and saying goodbye. since there is a new years party being hosted at my dad's house, i will see much of my family there, but the notable exception - as always - is my mom. last night i fulfilled my duty to travel to her home and spend some time with her saying goodbye.

this doesnt seem as if it too big of a deal, but i have never had a great relationship with my mom. and after consideration it is through mutual fault. and as i drove to the coffee shop this morning to spend my writing time, i had some epiphanal thoughts about my relationship with emily and the way i think about my mom.

first off, i certainly do not give my mom enough credit. when my parents divorced - i was 12 i think - my family life was more like a white trash wonderland than, well, i dont know good enough words for a proper functioning family. both of my parents were alcoholics and my brother was just getting started. my sister was a princess and i felt generally forgotten. it is the curse of the middle child to be constantly overlooked. i didnt get the responsibility laid on my brothers shoulders or the overwhelming attention and opportunity of my sister.

when i was younger i read some books about it. my brother is two years older than me, so my dad was more likely to take him to work and give him actual tasks that he could work out on his own, as i said - responsibility. my sister was five years younger than me so she represented a chance for my parents to not repeat past mistakes. and i was left to just exist, jealous of my sisters attention and scraping at my brothers heels for information. this led to earn my brothers scorn - he took me lessened responsibility more as my freeloading while he had to shoulder a heavier workload. and i was mean to my sister becasue that was a fast track to being noticed, even if in a negative way.

my mom and i

certainly, none of these things were apparent to me at that time. (and, i'll be honest, right now i am having trouble focusing this entry back to where i was initially heading. so i will just follow it naturally - structure be damned.)

my parents marriage led to divorce, so far as i know, becasue of infidelity. again, at the time i wouldnt have known this but the signs were there. my dad was often gone nights and my mom took us kids to homes of her boyfriends during the day. during the divorce fighting i heard my mom yelling at my dad for all the flings that he would have, but i dont think us kids were ever privy to it. and then when they started getting divorced, i beleive it was my mom's decision. she had found a guy that she wanted to be with more than my dad and, if i recall my dad was devastated. i think that guy was her current husband - gordon.

and this is where things wrap into my recently ended relationship with emily. i got my basic ideas of life from my parents and etched deep into my subconscious are the patterns that i learned from their lives. emily and i were in an open relationship for our entire time together. an open relationship allows the partners to see other people freely and openly so long as good communication exists and general rules are established. our general rules were that making out with other people was just fine and dandy, but having sex with another person is something that would need to be discussed beforehand. no nights of passion, act like adults and make things work.

for most of our relationship neither of us really exercised our open options. sure, we would make out with other people but there werent many times that are carnal desires strayed from one another. then 2008 happened. our relationship wasnt the happiest it had ever been. our communication was still okay (actually, i would say it was great because she helped me so much be more open with how i am feeling and say the things that are hard so we could move forward), but with growing frequency we found ourselves talking about intense things at the kitchen table, with tears streaming and honesty eventually coming out. we still liked each other, but we were becoming more like great friends instead of lovers. and then she met someone new. and around the same time i met a friend of mine that i had liked for years.

and so we talked about this and agreed to explore these peripheral relationships. and this is the thing that hit me as i was driving to the coffee shop this morning - this is where it all comes together. but, sorry, i want to say one more thing before i get to it. after my parents divorce i saw little of my mom and that has persisted to this day. this has led me to not really know much of anything about her. just the menial day to day things that she would tell me on our yearly phone calls or every-other-yearish visits. and so i made her a voice. a voice that i would use when i was talking to emily about what my mom and i talked about or when i was talking to other people about my mom. that voice - if you will imagine it - is kind of like a muppet crossed with a duck. t (mean, i know, but honest to my feelings at the time and hopefully...eventually in this post...i will make up for some of it.)

and there was a time when i was recreating (read: mocking) something emily said and in the recreation i slipped into my moms voice for emily's voice. she did not appreciate that.

and so, this morning, i think i figured out why that happened. when emily and i both embarked on secondary relationships within our primary relationship our ideas of how this would look were askew. my idea of it was that i would have a friend that i saw and spent time with, not as a reprieve, but more as a complement to my relationship with emily. i had things that i wanted to go out and do. i wanted to go ice skating and rock climbing, square dancing, i wanted to sit at a bar or something like that. and consistently emily didnt want to join in these activities very often. she encouraged me to go with another person or to go by myself, but i really just wanted to go with her. i wanted to share these things - new experiences and things that i find great joy in - with her. so, i used my secondary relationship to fulfill some of these things.

and it was great. one day a week i would go with my new friend and we would do something fun out on the town and then come back and have pretty good sex. it was reinvigorating. i wasnt looking at this as a supplemental relationship or anything, more like a good friendship with a friend that shared the desire to explore and be adventurous with me. and, in the interest of maintaining good communication, i would tell emily about my time out with as many or as few details that she desired. i wasnt trying to keep anything from her becasue i wanted my relationship with emily to work.

emily, on the other hand, approached her new relationship differently. she didnt want to just have a fling with another person or a once-a-week date. she wanted a secondary relationship. something that held similar weight to our primary relationship. and, to this end, she would go out for dates with her new friend and have different experiences. i just started to try and write about these experiences, but - and this is the thing - i have never known much about them. she was less forthcoming with her nights out so i gave it time. but then something developed that, to me, became a wedge in our primary relationship.

emily started staying the night at her new friends house. now, just writing that, it may not seem like a big deal. but, for me, a large part of a long term relationship are the simple common joys. falling asleep together, having a warm body next to me in the bed, having dinner together, unwinding about our days, you know - the things you take for granted. and so i brought up my discomfort, perhaps even my jealousy, about her other relationship. and this led into a deep discussion about our personal ideas of what these secondary relationships mean and their level of importance.

and so our ideas about these other relationships we were engaging in differed largely. i liked the idea that we would both just have friends that we also have sex with. and she felt that having a relationship without a considerable emotional investment was not worth her time. and so this is where it parallels with my mother and father. my father, i do not think anyone denies it, had sex partners that were not my mother while they were together - friends that he also had sex with. my mother, i know full well, was carrying along secondary relationships with considerable emotional investment.

and, although i had never thought about it much before now, this is why i used the imitation of my moms voice for emily. this memory of how my parents conducted their lives has permeated and become manifest in my own life. i think if i were smarter i wouldve come to this conclusion sooner.

and so, as i said, last night i started my goodbyes. i drove to my moms house after she got off work and i was kind of dreading it. generally she and gordon just sit in separate rooms and watch tv until they fall asleep, we dont really talk about anything until it comes time for me to leave. then my mom gets teary eyed and talks of how she doesnt want me to leave. well, this time it was a little bit different.

my mom had gotten a gift from her work friends - a table size bottle of sangria. we opened it upon my arrival and proceeded to drink the entire thing throughout the night. my mom asked me questions about my life and i answered in kind. she asked about my relationship with emily and i told her my perspective of what happened, not what has been written above - that didnt dawn on me until this morning. we talked about my trip, the places i have been and where i plan to go next, she wanted to know what i was going to do with my life.

at some point we got to talking more generally about life and happiness. she told me a story of when she and gordon nearly got divorced, and then we were talking about my siblings. and in a roundabout way i apologized for not being a more present son. and she just blurted out a question - "well, are you happy?" and i told her that i was, and as a mother should, she said that was all that mattered.

at some point i recalled to her my date with vaughnda and my mom got schoolgirl-ish. she tried to take my phone away from me so she could call her and "introduce herself." i thought that was hilarious but i dont think she mustered the courage to do such a thing. and it dawned on me that i was having fun with my mom. that we were having a good time, and i felt bad about the way i have characterized her throughout my life.

i want to be a better person to my family. i am sure that there are more surprises that await me if i were around to apply myself more and just be more present.

1/2/10

well, new years happened. and i wish i had a good story for it but i dont really. the sad thing about new years happening is that now i must go. the happy thing about it is that i am just going to chicago and i am looking forward to some days there. i called vaughnda on new years eve, but during the day. i dont know her well enough to call her at midnight that might be a bit overbearing. but it had been a couple of days since our date, and although i dont really understand dating rules, i was pretty sure that not calling soon after the date would look bad.

so i sucked up my dislike for talking on the phone and dialed the numbers. really i dont dial numbers anymore, i just hit buttons. i got her voicemail - and was happy for that - then proceeded to leave what was probably a too long and not very clear message. you know how i do. my parents planned to have a party for new years, and to my surprise that party was set to start at 2 in the afternoon!

this was just sledding for kids and such, but when the party starts the drinking starts. house rules. shortly after that vaughnda and i had the chance to talk on the phone and that was nice. afterwards i plunged on with the day. i had invited my friend becky to celebrate the ringing of the new year with me, and eventually she showed up. as i have said before, she is crazy. i invited her because i wanted to be with someone, i rarely have a date to enjoy a family function with so i hoped this would be a nice changeup.

the party was just some family, pretty small, and becky showed up late. late, meaning before midnight but about two hours after she said she would arrive. that was fine. eventually the new year was rung in and we all danced and welcomed it together. quickly after that everyone left. becky and i went up to bed and had a nice night. i actually slept in the other room, but it was still a nice night. the morning was different, however.

i wanted to start prepping to restart my trip - cleaning my room and my truck, making some rounds, etc - and she was determined to take as long as humanly possible to leave. i have a thing about time, something that i am trying to manage. i loathe being late for a thing (my method for coping/getting over this/accepting this is not setting times for me to be somewhere), in the morning i like to pop right up and start my day (i enjoy some alone time in the morning, but still i generally just

beckia

get up and start), and i am sure there are other things. so becky's taking extra long in the morning irked me.

she left after about three hours of being together in the morning. then i went to my brothers house and watched "hedwig and the angry inch" with him. this is one of my most favorite movies and a damn fine musical, i dont know why i recommended it to him, but he got it and said that it would take me watching it with him for him to watch it. i liked it, him not so much. during my time there my brother was determined to give me a video camera for my trip. he had just gotten this little flip camera thing for christmas and kept on that i would do better with it.

i accepted it, only after giving him all the things i was planning to take back. it worked out okay, he took the stuff back and only had to spend about $30 to get himself a new one. then i came back to my folks house and started doing laundry and cleaning my truck out. that wasnt much fun. things were absolutely frozen back there. i had to thaw out my futon mattress and my "boyfriend" (you know, the pillow with arms), and washed my blankets and such. then i started repacking everything back in there.

i finished that up this morning. but, before i get too far away from the contributing stories, i want to talk about love. the idea, the word, the feeling, all of it. i dont have the greatest words for it, but i do have some recent experiences that are prompting this.

on new years eve, during the day (after sledding, before becky arrived) i was found on facebook by my ten year old girlfriend. not in the pedophile way, but the girl that i dated when i was ten - when we were both ten. her name was hannah carnell, i have written her name a few times previously on this trip. she found me and started chatting with me.

i was happy for that, i had always wanted to find her again. i wanted to see what kind of person she became and how her life had shaped itself after i left it. my mom made the mention, something along the lines of, "she has never stopped loving you" when we were talking. why my mom would know what things have persisted in the life of hannah carnell when she couldnt even tell me how to get a hold of here is beyond me. but i dont think so much that she was so wrong in her assumption.

hannah was chatting me up and somewhere in the conversation, talking about our memories she admitted to being in love with me and asked me if i loved her. after consideration i acknowledged that my ten year old self was in love with her. and i kept the conversation very much attached to my ten year old self and never my current self. i am not sure if feelings about a person can persist through 17 years of not seeing one another or being connected in any way or form. i really dont think that they could.

so i worked through that awkward conversation thinking about what it all means. about what it means to be in love with a person, certainly i care about all the people that have had an effect on my life and the first experiences i had with her are stowed in my heart. they could never leave. is that love? i dont know. i am certainly not smart enough to discern something as weighty.

and then last night happened. after parting ways with becky she called me a few times but i kept on with what i was doing, i would call her after i had left. but she was ever persistent and resorted to sending me a stream of text messages. and the gist of it was that she had never gotten over me and the relationship we had seven years ago and thought that my coming back here was a sign from god. she told me of her undying love for me and that he would follow me anywhere if i ever wanted her too.

i havent yet responded because i just havent discovered the right tact for saying that i dont want her to follow me anywhere. that she is a nice person, but i came back here to visit my family - her god character never intervened. when i do respond i will just have to tell her that she is a wonderful person with great qualities and she just needs to apply herself more to finding what she wants in her life. i wont be there for her and she will have to accept that and move to become a stronger person. change the combination to her heart and drop hints with other people she fancies. i dont know.

and this stuff happens when i am working through the breaking of a long term relationship and i have to reconcile my feelings on that as well. i think the ultimate lesson here is that life is confusing, but there is a light. sure, you have to fight through a blizzard of emotion but eventually you will find that one perfectly backlit snowflake that is so pure and so cold that you almost cant stand it. at least thats what i am hoping for.

i will say this. i am surprised by how much i have grown in these last few months of my life. and i have an idea of what i want but no idea how to materialize it.