SOMETIMES WE BIND OURSELVES TOGETHER
Sometimes we bind ourselves together...and seldom know the harm in binding...that lonely feeling...that cries for freedom...that needs unfolding...and understanding...and time for holding...one single mirror...with one reflection...to call our own....
I heard them say the words forever...but I don't know if words have meaning...if they are borrowed... with fear of losing... what can't be borrowed...or lent in blindness...or blessed by pageantry...or sold by preachers...while you're still walking... your separate ways....
these are words from the lyrics of a song by Richard F...he was a wise man...and a 'wise guy'! very funny. very fun...very in love with his wife, who was a singer just like he was...he taught me a lot about song...and he was how I found Alex, who I was married with...who died...who is another story....
The song always reminds me about marriage...what goes on when marriages fall apart...This one is just thinking about how getting-out-of-being-married feels like...why people do...all the reasons....what marriages look like years later...why love is so elusive later on...just trying not to follow the cliches here...not to make it all too simple, too simplistic.....
First, Superficial Signs Noted: when couple who have been married for lots and lots of years, and are starting to split-up...they both seem to know exactly who "owns" what...down to small things...kitchen stuff... tools...the books...the CDs...DVDs...even the tapes...all the art on the walls, of course - down to tiny things...knick knacks and so on...how and where do we store all these ownerships in our minds? and, for so many years!...whose little thing belongs to whom and so on? it's amazing, when you think about it..what does it mean, that so many of us actually know, when we are splitting up, whose stuff is whose?..were we knowing, somewhere inside, all along, that the split-up could happen?...I mean, I think the question is a very real and intimate one...a symbol or something like that...but, of what?....
Then there's money...folks who actually have told me they don't care that much about money, really care for money a great deal when the divorce is going on. Again, who is going to get what...it's a big, big, big question. the answers are terrible quite often. and they get more terrible and fights can happen. some people are always fighting about money in their marriages anyways...but still...when they are leaving the 'other', money can come to mean several - heck...more than several! - metaphors for who the couple were, and what each of them are going to be when they are away from the other...lives can be actually ruined, really ruined over the money business, all on its own...
When I left my marriages, I gave away as much as possible without jeopardizing the kids and myself into poverty. it was just my way. but, I have no idea if my partners saw it all that way. no idea at all. maybe they still felt taken for a ride or something. I was the one who left them after all, in the short run and in the long run...the money can come to be the code word for all their anger at me for being a jerk in their lives. I do take responsibility for that...but does it change anything at all? probably not....
The Kids. even if they are all 'grown up', kids are hit so hard by divorce. that's just a fact. it's useless to rationalize it. they aren't happy when their parents split...if either parent divorces more than once, it's even worse: it's a sign. it touches them fully. they may break ranks with the parent or both of them, or step-parents or whatever. it's so reasonable that they behave this way, up to a point... it helps them sometimes to use parent divorces as a reason for not getting their own lives to work the way they'd like their lives to go. but, no matter what: they are very badly affected by divorce. no sense in pretending that they aren't. and, when they are little guys, it takes all the work and love in the world to help them to feel OK, much less 'good', about all the changes that keep happening after...not that the parents should feel all guilty, tho some of them sure could. it's just so incredibly important to feel responsive to the kids and responsible to them 24/7. They hardly ever have one single thing to do with the split-ups...but they feel them way into their guts as bad as their parents do...maybe even worse....hard...really hard.....the grand kids, too. same deal...it's so hard on everybody....
So then, why don't people just give up and never get divorced, so that they won't be so destructive and horrible?...looks like their is one great huge list of reasons and also excuses that get people into these split-ups, of what used to be a 'loving' relationship...usually...at one time....
I think most people, like I have been three times, tend to leave, or to be left, from their marriage(s) for selfish reasons...not saying that's always a 'bad' thing...often it is, tho: they've "fallen out of love"...or they're tired of or dissatisfied with, the sex, the intimacy, in the relationship...to all kinds of degrees of dissatisfaction...or they just can't get along anymore...or never did 'get along'...or fight too much...or have too little in common anymore...if they ever did....or they really hate each other...or one of them does, anyway...or....well, I bet most adults, and a great many kids, know lots and lots of reasons that people "break up"... still...these are also really good reasons to leave a person...it's better than lying to them all the time...saying "I love you", when you don't...to hold on to the security...or just not "making waves", which is a big reason for lying to partners....then there are the affairs....
So many married people have affairs! They have them when the marriage loses excitement, when there's no sex, or too little sex, or not-happy sex, or no "understanding", or things have gotten "old", or partners are sick, or pregnant, or one of you is traveling too much, or any number of dozens and dozens of reasons that everybody actually knows about and all too many never say they do. but, we all do. we do know all about it....we make decisions all the time about how we are going to deal with not being completely number One in our partner's life...unless we really are number One, in which case we do know that. That's the number that feels best to all of us...but, it's rare for it to last forever...for some people it does, though....the lucky ones who are number One for life...it must feel so great for them to have felt that day and night after day after night...as long as you feel you are number One, for sure, then the world is a good place...and you don't worry about the 'affairs' business...I'm sure about that....not that I'd know all about that...but I do know a bit about that....
sometimes, there are very, very good reasons to leave someone...if they're genuinely dangerous to themselves or others; or really crazy, and can't or won't get 'help'; or are abusive in any number of ways; or they're wrecking the relationship or the family in any number of ways, and can't or won't stop; or they're unfaithful or alcoholc and won't mend their ways; or they're just hurting you too much, in any number of ways...I bet the list is way endless...I know parts of that list very well....
but, most often, I think folks just truly grow-out-of-love...here in the US, where I've lived my whole life, that tends to be considered an OK reason to split-up...I'm not sure how we got that way...but we did...maybe because we don't have to struggle - most of us don't, anyway - just to survive. we have housing and food and water and 'energy' and clothing and even education and, usually, jobs even...so we have time to think about whether we are 'happy' or not. we have lots of reasons why we are or aren't happy...we think about our happiness -what 'makes' us happy. what 'makes' us unhappy...it's unique to our culture...not that other world peoples don't think about happiness in their lives. but, in our country, a whole lot more of us think about being happy than in other countries...I really believe that's true! and, we attach a great deal of our stuff about happiness on our 'partners' in life...again. I do not know why!
So, what's so bad about trying to take care of yourself...leaving some one because you are so very unhappy...because you're not loved for being who you are...because you are not getting needs met that are very, very important to you...because you can't be who-you-are with the person you are with?...I think people should live these decisions by themselves...they should work these things through...if it's important enough for you to live your own life honestly as it is...then maybe leaving a really unaccepting partner, who can't or won't give what you need, is a good idea...actually 'good'...only each single soul can decide such a thing...all alone, must decide such a thing....
you know, when you find some one you like and even love much better then the person you're with, who you've been "making-do-with"...as many of us do...then, that is very, very hard. you have to decide. it's hard...you watch and wait and check it out over and over, and it's still true...you really want to be with this other person...and that person wants to be with you too...it's hard for every body...no one wants to hurt a good person who just isn't right for you. no one wants to leave for 'selfish' reasons...no one wants to risk a new person, when the 'old' one is OK, just not so great...maybe they used to be great...maybe not...doesn't matter...breaking up a household because you have to, you really have to be with some one else is...very, very difficult...but there is nothing you can do...you have to be with the person you love that much...if the love is that much, then you have to do it...or you know you will really, really regret not being with that person you love...for ever...forever...you know it....so you go to them....and it's the right thing, and the only thing, you can do....even if you try not to...you have to...sometimes, another soul is the only soul you can possibly be with...and you have to be with him or her....it's a real kind of fate, sometimes....
If you meet enough people in life, you see that you could actually live with many of them...a lot of them...you could have an ordinary, perfectly good life with a lot of persons and personalities...it's kind of a shock to find out how many souls are a lot like your own...how many people you find attractive...how many think much the same as you do about life...how many keep house, or work, or like the same music...same as you. But, amazingly, only one or two people in a lifetime really come close to being exactly right for you at any time in life...how can we be so different...and why are we not given the right matches in the first place? and, why do our ideas of who would be 'right' for us change often...and, why does it almost always come down to one person,..the person we cannot really live without...and never do well without...unless, by some miracle, the time and place and planets are all in the right hearts at the right time...now, there's a gift in life, a real gift: if you are very, very lucky, you 'get' the right person...and the time is right too...a real gift, for sure....
Occasionally in life, I have personally 'loved' a couple of guys at the same time...but it was always a misperception of what was really there...infatuation...a certain vanity...an effort to fill a space that needed filling...a sexuality that wouldn't be denied....the usual effort to capture what a 'first love' had been like...remembering, always, what his body and spirit felt like...wanting that...how far would my imagination go to try to recapture feelings and innocences long gone....pretty far, it turns out...I even married people who I knew were "almost right', right from the start!...I would hope it would be OK...accepting, and easy to live with as I am... I simply assumed everything would turn out all right...and you know, for a long time, sometimes for many years, life would, indeed, be pretty good, all around...
I wonder how often that happens for others...I bet it happens fairly often...although many of us, myself included, have lots of rationalizations and denials about all that, deep inside...we tell ourselves we are truly in love at last...and then think about the person we really love or loved, even from long ago...all of the time...and don't even question that there might be a disconnect there!
There are so many ways for men and women to love each other...there are friendships that are truly platonic and great...others are friendships that become marriages...there are marriages that become friendships later, and not sexual at all any more...others where the friendship isn't that satisfying...because the other partner wants sexuality in life, and it just isn't there...sometimes sexuality was never there...and that's OK...sometimes it's not...sometimes the love is just a habit, a word people say...to avoid the confrontations, the blaming, the misfortune of looking back on love that really wasn't love at all, even though you both called whatever-you-had 'love'...you both knew the difference, but could not say....and sometimes love hits one and not the other...and people live together that way as well...there are lovers who stay lovers forever through the changing times...there are lovers who marry, and the feeling of love is gone after a few years, or even more, of declining sexual life together...but they stay together because of 'the family', and the love of each other through 'family' becomes enough...for others, it isn't enough...and when the kids are grown and leave the 'nest', they have to leave and find love again, or something inside of them will die... and they don't want that part of themselves to die...others can live with the peace of still being 'family', when all the feathers of the nest have blown into the winds...there are a few, a very few...who refind the Great Love Of Their Lives quite late in life...they have a look of eternal joy on their faces that every body can see...people comment on it...how lucky they are...look at how they are holding hands...those two older people...right over there...see them? Aren't they beautiful?.....and sometimes...such a love comes too soon...and you are too young to see it as it is...and you pass it by...and then...you have to live with that Love Not Being In Your LIfe for the rest of your days...unless you are very, very, lucky...and somehow...that One True Love finds you again...and you begin again...as it should have been...so long ago....
When people leave marriages, they learn more about themselves, and about who they were, and about who the other person may have been, or thought that they were...things come out, that you almost knew, but didn't know well, and you learn more about those things...all that new understanding and knowledge may be useful. it may not. but it does happen...
When people Die in a marriage...it's another way of leaving...there may be some relief...if there was pain - of any kind - in any way - but there may not be relief...
There is always pain at this loss...and not a thing can be done...you live with that pain and go on. or you do not go on well...or you do not go on....it's not as predictable as you would think...ahead of time.....
Thinking about Marriages and how they 'fail' goes on and on and on and on like a River with an endless source high in those Mountains of Love where the clear waters once tumbled and ran and danced over every obstacle...every rock...every turn...with sweet abandon....the River goes on and on and picks up so many muds and silts and boulders and woods and debris...deposits some...carries others right to the sea...slowing and growing murkier by the mile....but then, there is the sea....the River dumps it all. mixes with the deep and endlessly forgiving and cleansing Sea of Changes...becomes one with all that water and sweet decay and living salts....
Sometimes we bind ourselves together....
the dreamings of loss...the harsh and so human realities of loss...
it's all one thing....
We are only human.
We will bind ourselves together again...
Love is such a bondage...
the bindings can be true again...
the bond may well hold.....
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment