I've been sick lately. It's been getting worse. I used to get sick all the time and finally it stopped a few years back. But, last ten days or so I have been awful. Sick nearly every day and just miserable. Tonight is by far the worst. I've been so ill the past few hours I could hardly move. Part of it is that I frightened myself but after hours of misery I am ready to concede the rest of it.
I went out with him the other night, Eduardo. We went and ran these errands and got his dry cleaning and some groceries and had a wonderful evening.
You know the worst part of an affair? I mean naturally the trust is gone and the betrayal and the hurt are hard to deal with it but there is something that I think we forget.
I want to have grace. I want to accept people but I am not sure how. I was so inspired by Nicholas that Grace has become my word of the year. To learn to accept others without judgment but to be there for them, through everything and support them even, and perhaps during, times of errors. That is hard to do. I remember clearly the day that I realized that I loved Evan and his faults not in spite of his faults. But, Nicholas, to his credit, has never judged me, he has been there for anything and at times he has pissed me off and ruined many, many of days but I truly believe on some level he has never meant to hurt anyone.
I complained to him recently that I don't always know to whom to listen. I hear friends telling me that I am being used by this person and the other and then other friends will tell me that friend is manipulating me when he says that and still others say the third friend is pathological. But the second and third like each other as to the first and third...
I'd like to know how to have grace and morals. Eduardo tells me the problem with this group of people he and I know is that there are no boundaries. The way that it is set, everything is ok, everything is encouraged and no limits or justifiable ends are established. At no point is it ever viewed as ok to say 'no, that is not ok anymore. That is wrong.' everyone is just so busy being encouraging and open that we forget that sometimes there are limits and should be limits.
I attended this wonderful little showing of a movie where a woman asserts she lives with no money. Instead she housesits, lets others buy her travel and masquerades as laboring and bartering for food. What she doesn’t ever account is that money isn't evil; it isn’t as bad as she insists. She is so busy telling everyone that they can do with out these restricts and arbitrary conditions and forced worship at the foot of the dollar that she neglects to see that money is simply a tool. And sometimes it is for the better, sometimes it helps. In fact, money is simply a way of bartering with an established cost where the buyer is as much protected as the seller.
So how do I know when something is just wrong and when it’s ok to say its wrong? How do I still be open while saying 'no. What you are doing is immoral and wrong.' and do I still stand by that person? Lets look at some examples shall we? Lets say that you know someone who shoplifts regularly. Clearly this is bad but its not awful and its hard to pin point exactly who is being hurt. But the action is wrong. Ok so if we go by action or motivation perhaps? The motivation there is arguably not to hurt someone so perhaps I could be more forgiving. What about an affair? How do I stand by and watch my best friend have an affair and hurt his girlfriend? How do I watch my best friend profess his love for someone while slapping me on the ass and flirting with me? I mean if that would ever happen. Maybe that is harder because people are being hurt. So is that the rule? Be accepting of things as long as everyone involved is saying its ok? It seems like at some level that shouldn’t be enough. That at some level it should be expected that I jump in and say no. That I should defend and protect those who cant or aren’t protecting themselves. I mean its all fine and good to say oh yes I am open to everything and whatever you say is good and I accept it but its far harder to say this is what I stand for, you are in violation of that, you don’t want to change, but I will continue to be your friend. On some level are you obligated to make them change or walk away? I’m just not entirely sure.
How do I have grace there?
The worst part of an affair is that those are the moments you need your best friend to talk to and when he cheated on you, he took away your best friend at the same time. The person you needed to have around the most, the one you needed to talk to, and that’s whom you have been robbed.
I dream of my father nightly anymore. I don’t believe in recurring dreams but this is close. I see him and he looks fine yet he knows he is going to die and he is going along with it. No effort to stop it just letting it happens. In the one two nights ago I was going to an opera and he was there as well. I was wondering why he was in attendance and was being a little odd. I went over to see him and my mother stopped me and said he was busy and I could see him after. I knew then that he was about to die and yet it meant nothing to him that I still wanted to see him, talk to him. He just let it happen. Nicholas told me how he asked for permission to propose. I realized that cant ever happen to me. To be honest, my father had no right to give me away anyhow. It always should have been Fred. My father didn’t know me, didn’t care for me. He left me right? How many times over.
I don’t need a relationship or want one. But there are some nights when it would be nice to be held. Scientists say we fall in love seven times before getting married: I'm at three. I've said it a few more and thought it twice more. I wonder what changes in us. Maybe it takes that long to learn to love a flaw or to get over our own. Sometimes I wonder if it is just that after that many we learn to accept compromise. Maybe we will never love anyone the way we loved our first love and we just slowly accept it. After seven loves... who has seven loves?!
The groceries we bought should make a nice dinner for him. I should have recognized that he has never gone out of his way to purchase food before. But I didn’t. I was too happy to be with him, to see him. Took me a few hours to realize I was assisting him in his preparation for her. I want to be the one who makes him happy. I want to be the one for whom he lights up and smiles. It so rare that he does. I wish that could be me.
I’ve been trying to take it the best I can as I ant to be there for him, I want to support him. I want him to be happy. More so than anyone I know. I wish I could be the one that did that for him but I cant. So. Grace. The only trouble is that grace is hard. And my body isn't quite sure of it. And so I lie on the floor, sick in pain, sore throat, dizzy, running a fever. It’s easier. It may not quite be grace but I’m pretty sure it is the true and moral thing to do and that is what I want for him.
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