March 28, 2011

"Afflatus"

I have the dictionary.com app on my Iphone, and today’s word is ‘afflatus.’ Afflatus [uh-flay-tuhs] : noun, meaning ‘a divine imparting of knowledge; inspiration.’ I’ve been asking god to help me stop hurting—to send love and light to those I don’t want in my life any longer, and to help me heal. Because I want to be the best person I can be, but right now I’m trying to get my bearings.

My life seems to be doubling up on me—these relational losses coming in twos every time. My divorce was final and I let go of my rebound guy six months ago. This current out-flux is also a coupling, paired as such: one person wants to stay, the other wants to go. They cancel each other out perfectly. It reminds me of a prophesy a psychic once told me about the babies I’m supposed to have; “You’re gonna have two, one right after the other. Boom, boom,” she said, “Just like that: boom, boom.”

For so long I’ve relied on other people to define me, believing since college that Confucian teaching that I am only as good as my relationships. I’ve tried to be the best friend I can be, the best listener I can be, the best ex-wife, lover, and daughter I can be. And this approach brought a bounty of blessings, but with so much of my attention on others, I have also stayed on the edge of myself.

Whenever I went on vacation for the past year or two, I’ve gone solo. I’ve sat at tables for one wondering about the eerie burned pier on stilts that still stands in Brighton Bay, eating Spanish paella off the Moll Costa in Barcelona, drinking sangria in Roses watching a rusty sunset, and drinking free wine at that Italian place in Long Beach with the bartender who looked like Johnny Depp. I’ve wandered and got lost in London happening upon a farmer’s market with ‘drunken’ purple cheese and every colored perennials. I’ve flopped past the Suva library’s three bookshelves just before the end of my marriage, Ulysses, staring me in the face; on that random page, “For you, Achilles, Death should have lost its string.” I’ve checked out Prague’s Charles Bridge and paused for as long as I wanted at each statue, cruised through Bobolli gardens in Rome, and shared the cool reprieve with Bernini’s marbles; the dust clinging to my sweating skin.

And rather than freak out in new cities all alone, I’ve actively sought out these refuges, finding solace in the sound of my own voice in my head. I even practiced being alone in this last, recently-ended relationship, only seeing him once or twice a week. Looking around my life, I don’t have to check in with anyone. I can cry for as long as I like without anyone feeling uncomfortable, and I can have nightmares without anyone there to hold me, or assure me everything will be okay.

Last night, I started awake weeping again. He told me he did love me, promising that he just wanted me to be free. “I don’t believe you,” I said. Because if he was partner material, he wouldn’t just abandon me during this time of flux. He wouldn’t cut his losses to make sure he doesn’t get hurt. He would be brave. He would be my champion.

It occurred to me that the possibly cancerous nodule in his throat might be a reason for this breaking. He told me he was going to have it checked out over Spring Break, that he was supposed to have done it six months ago. But that’s not the reason he gave me. “I want to be free in case Miss. Right comes along. I want you to be free for Mr. Right, too,” he said.

I’m not a mind reader. I’m nothing but a girl who was starting to care too much for a boy who says he wants to be friends. Fuck, who wouldn’t? I want to be my friend because, truth be told, after so much practice and focus, I am a fantastic friend. I will have your back and tell you the truth and not judge you when you don’t take my advice. I am never jealous. I am practiced in the art of letting go, allowing you to take as much time as you need away from me and welcoming you back whenever you’re ready. I keep my crying fits about you to myself, waiting it out until I learn to see your perspective, even if you never attempt to see mine. I will write your story even though it breaks my heart, but I will come to you with solutions rather than complaints. I will accept you on your terms, allow you to be yourself, and be your biggest cheerleader in whatever you dream. I will make you laugh. I will let you cry. I will state my needs and understand if you can’t fulfill them.

Today an old friend I’ve known since I was eleven called me. He’s getting a divorce and he has three little boys. “What pisses me off the most,” he said, “is giving her my money to go back home, find another guy, and spend it with him.” Having recently been through something similar, having given my ex all my money so he could move back home and spend it on liquor and other women, I told him what got me through. “Money comes and goes, and you can always make more. What you can never replace is another person.”

And even though I’m literally paying the price of not keeping enough for myself to live, I have to trust that god has a plan for me—that this sureness, this ‘afflatus’ that I’m connected to every being in the universe—that I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be, learning exactly what I need to grow, from exactly the right people is the only way I got through today so far, breaking down only twice in the privacy of my car.

Which makes me doubt I can be friends with training wheels guy. Can we go back to being something we never were? Meeting on Match.com means our stated purpose was to procure something more than that. And this whole time I thought we were moving toward something that is no longer a possibility. Do I want to stick around to see him find Miss. Right when I thought I might be that? I don’t think so.

I think I may have told him how we could be friends, how I would show him, but that was before he lied to me then came clean about That Thing and referred to us as having a ‘relationship.’ Something shifted when that happened and I stepped over my boundaries to accept him on his terms. And maybe I over-gave, which is why I’m especially reticent to starting something that will likely only bring me more pain.

For now I’m settling into this not-having-to-be-responsible-for-anyone-else-ness, and it’s an odd feeling; something I imagine the green sea turtle felt when she decided that land was not her habitat. Floating for the first time, the weight of her shell lifting from her old bones, the cool of the ocean against her leathery skin, and her eyes affixing to the blue everywhere, she was probably a little scared she might like it too much, just like me.

What if she could live there, on vacation, forever? She’d need to find out what to eat, how to sleep without the snore of wind or the tapping rain, how to glide rather than tromp. She’d need to brace herself for missing the rough of bark against her cheek and the wet scent of grass, the sweet tang of flowers. She’d miss most of the mammals, but she’d still have the birds. In the end, she did move. And that’s where she resides today—on her own turf, by her own rules, with like-minded creatures.