judecorp | Relationships, Africa, Fecking Blah (Reply)

I was thinking today that it's been almost exactly two years since my last big relationship ended. While it wasn't officially /over/ over (legally, things didn't end until June of last year), we had decided to go our separate ways. When I was walking back from the Short North post office this afternoon, I had a few moments to think about everything.

It started because I was reading journal entries from the beginning of my journal, and followed them to July 14th, apparently the day that A. said he wasn't in love with me - the vocal beginning of the end, if you will. In there, I got some sobering remarks from

juliann about how marriage was about partnership more than it was about love, and that if we wanted the marriage to work, it would. I still debate the truth of that statement somewhat (sometimes I think all the work in the world won't fix everything), but there's definitely some reality to the fact that neither one of us, by that point, was terribly into the idea of trying to work things out, and so it was time to let things go.

I'm not foolish enough, naive enough, or romantic enough to believe that good relationships don't require hard work. On the contrary, I believe that sometimes the work is /more/ difficult when things are going well, because it's so easy to let little things slip when everything else is on such an even keel. We're so conditioned in our society to buy flowers, for example, after an argument instead of when things are pleasant. Regardless of my tangent, the fact of the matter is that while I believe that the best relationships take work, I also believe that if you're doing all of your time working and fixing, something's not right. When your relationship becomes a job you don't feel good in, it's like being chained to your desk/cash register 24 hours a day. That can't be good, either.

I was telling Jennifer this afternoon at lunch that I think one of the reasons things had to be put on hold with us last summer was that my mind and my heart were simply unable to grasp the concept of working at a relationship at that moment, since I was still coming down from so many years of working too hard. It's not that I believed that our relationship didn't need (or deserve) work, it's that I just wasn't able to give it at that moment. We needed some decompression time, and unfortunately it took a big explosion for us to realize that, but hey, everyone screws up and misses stuff. ;)

While I think I've healed and am willing (and prepared) to put out effort into relationships (ours in particular) again, I don't want to work /too/ hard at it. Right now, the feeling of contentment and right-ness comes so easily to us, and I have to believe that that is one of our greatest strengths. I don't want to analyze it or think too much about it, because to rationalize whatever it is that makes us special would cheapen the experience for me. While reading the Tao this morning, this passage reminded me so much of her, and of us, that I had to share it with her: Do you have the patience to wait / til your mud settles and the water is clear? / Can you remain unmoving / til the right action arises by itself?

For a long while, even a while into my relationship with Jennifer, I was still struggling with wondering whether I'd done wrong by "giving up" on my last relationship so quickly after everything was out in the open on his side. I was struggling with whether or not I was rebounding by getting into another serious relationship so quickly after ending the first one, or whether it was a mistake to get so emotionally involved when the loose ends still weren't settled with A. In short, I was a big fat glassful of muddy water, and I was drawn to her so much, and wanted her so badly, that I didn't realize it (or that hers was muddy, too).

I think the break we took last summer gave each of us, in our own different ways, a chance to let our mud settle and our waters to clear. Both of us are actors rather than waiters, but the forced separation, and withholding of even much phone and computer contact, made us wait instead of try and try. Jennifer's decision to go to camp last summer and my decision to stay in Columbus - both decisions we thought signified the end of our relationship - are what allowed us to be where we are right now. Amazing.

I asked her at lunch if she thought it was too soon for us to be starting our life together - if two years after my marriage was a long enough time between making a commitment nearing that magnitude again. She reminded me that less than two years ago, she was engaged to another woman. I'd forgotten, since all of my relationship doubt is always focused on me, not her. I think both of us really didn't have much choice when it came to being together.

So yeah, I definitely could have continued to work hard at A's and my relationship, and I really do believe that we would now be right where we were then (or worse). I believe that whether I knew I was doing it or not, the non-action of the Tao was helping me to stop trying, to let things go in order for the right thing to happen by itself. In making my choice, I used to berate myself, in my dark days, for "giving up," but now I like to think of it as remaining unmoving.

And let me tell you, when it comes to