In upstate New York, studies were done looking at the mating rituals of a certain group of geese. The reason for the study lie in the concern of environmental factors, you see there had been some chemical agent in the water that was effecting far more of the male geese than the female and since geese tend to mate for years at a time it was a topic of discussion for what the females would do. They adapted. Many of the geese began pairing off with female geese in the flock. When the population levels approached the normal, expected ratios, the geese returned to their typical male-female coupling.
I think about that often: to how many curve balls do we adapt in our every day lives? After Evan left me I looked at adopting a dog. Not just one. I fell in love with a beautiful puppy but he was adopted before I was able to contact the agency. I tried again. I tried two more times and each time something happened to take the dog away from me. Coming off everything with Evan, coming off the loss of my hopes, losing something else to love was not easy to take. I don't think I've ever talked that much about the days following, the days when Evan and I tried, the days when I lost it. This wont be an exception. It was difficult for me to have something else I wanted to love taken away and I remember the physicality of defeat.
I recently became rather ill. I was fortunate enough to be able to take some time off work and have a chance to recover at home. I had been putting off going to the doctor for months, much to the chagrin of a few people in my life that had offered to literally hold my hand during an entire exam if it would make me go to see a health care provider. When I went to see the doctor, I had ample opportunity to ask for anything I wanted, to bring up any other concerns that I had and yet I didn't, I did my best to utter as few words as possible. I wanted pills. I wanted some magic pill to hep me be happy. I have talked so negatively about anti-depressants but I thought that I had already done the work, I wanted to be happy and this was a way to help push me a small bit over the edge, I wasn't ask the pill to perform a miracle. I didn't though. I left with a handful of prescriptions, notes, and follow up requests but in the end I only got one of the four prescriptions, threw away all the notes and never called for a follow up.
I went to an event this weekend, one that I typically look forward to for quite some time when it occurred to me that I had no real desire to attend. I had thought, at that point, for a few weeks that I wasn't looking for what I thought I was anymore. I don't want; I don't need a relationship. I thought that if I help up this ideal for a relationship, treated it with the respect and adoration it deserves that I would eventually find that. Some point a few weeks ago led me to the realization that a relationship wasn't something I was searching for anylonger. I had come to accept and nye, even enjoy being single. To point, the idea of entering a relationship sounds taxing, annoying, and claustrophobic. So what do I want?
I went to the event on Saturday a bit perplexed, there is nothing there that I want. I was approached by a few people and the only thing that helped was that I didn't want any of them. No one appealed to me for other than the most basic of physical desires and even those were fleeting. I commented, again, about the my divvied up desires: Dave for rope, Nick for choking, Kurt for anything sexual, etc but I am not wanting any thing more from them, I want nothing more from most people. I miss Daniel. I miss few others. I have faith though.
I wanted to write a post about the nature of goodness about what it means to do the right thing in the face of such unyielding life. To me it still means everything. To do the right thing simply because it is the right thing is as close to pure as a sinner can get. The true, the good, will do the right thing because of the love they have for God and for others and the desire to express God's love through their own actions. I cannot be that person but I can come in a close second: I can do the right thing because it is the right thing and thus i live my life. I make every effort to do the right thing because it is the right thing. That does not for a moment stop me from judging and sadly it has not been enough to help me stop judging but it is enough to make sure that I act even while judging. This means then, that if someone I hated were to call me in the middle of the night from jail I would be the one to go get them. This means that all of my actions have to come from a place of definitions which, in turns, reinforces my black and white nature. I will never date a person who limits my interaction with another friend because it is the wrong thing to do. I will never have an affair because it is the wrong thing to do even if the wife seems to think it is ok. I will never cut across the street and force the on coming cars to stop as I jay walk. I will judge others for doing it though and I will be consistently and constantly saddened by other's decisions to do such things. I will be dissapointed. It will hurt me.
The thing with the geese is that their position still isn't favorable. They suffer to maintain their status. To have a partner they are forfeiting something. The geese that chose to have a relationship with another female, or in other cases the male geese that choose to have male-male relationships get put in an unfavorable position: they are forced to occupy the outside ranks. By choosing to have a relationship these geese are put in direct harm. The outside position int he flock is the position most exposed to the outside world, the most vulnerable to predators of all sorts.
I had a wonderful time at the event, by far and away the best time I have had in a long time. I enjoyed most all the people I meant, I felt more confident and was able to relax a great deal more. I had accomplished a small goal the day after that had been weighing heavily on my mind. I have, in general, been experiencing better relationships and had some good things reinforced. I have been eating better and exercising. I am healthy again. I am not in a dire financial place. I have no majorly pressing concerns other than my long term ones and yet I am miserable. I think that is the key.
At the party I met a girl that I had fun with. I had specifically not been looking for anything and yet had a lovely time with her. In the book I am currently reading, it says that in fewer than 3% of people do their sexual preferences fluctuate. Most people are able to tell their sexual attraction to the other sex very young. Mine is changing but for no true reason. I still like guys better but am certainly not opposed to girls. I had considered briefly that perhaps it is the measure of the times: not getting what i want from men i decided to go to the outside and try the available alternative. It does seem about accurate that men have all been eating up by some remote chemical agent that only effects them. Nothing seems to help though.
By and large I am happier now than I have been in a while. I feel more calm more at peace and at rest. I don't feel quite so much that I am struggling all the time. I don't feel as if I have as much to prove. I feel less tired. I feel less like I am fighting for the chance to hold onto a hand rail and yet...
I keep imaging a scene where there is a window separating me from the rest of the world. I look out the window and see a raging forest fire. I can see myself scarcely reflected in the window plane. I watch the fire with no emotion. I see the flames in mostly orange consuming the trees by my house. I see their leaves crumble and fall away to a sicken ash. I see the bark as it falls away from the tree. I see the sap inside run dry. I see the frailty of the trees. I see myself reflected back in a purple robe, wet hair and hot coffee mug. The steam rises faintly, obscuring the view of the fire. I know that by touching the window, I will burn my hand. I know that the fire is close enough that i will feel its effects forever more. I am higher, on the second floor and i can see that there is no longer any life down with the trees; the animals all ran away but the trees were caught. From my vantage point there is less smoke than i expected. I know that there are helicopters over head and that they could bring water but most are simple from the news stations doing as I am, watching it all burn away. It's as if they are the children, the voices I used to hear but they have given up on me too, they know i wont save them. It gets dark but i presume it is from the smoke. There is little for me to do any more. I move my hand close to the glass, sip my coffee and shut the curtains.
I hear people tell me that I am crazy. It bothers me far less than one might assume. I also hear, and more frequently, that I am pretty tame and keep my crazy pretty hidden. I require little energy they say. It's merely because I don't see a reason to explain it anymore. I don't see a reason to try. Why call the news van when they can watch the destruction from above, from after.
I saw a dog online today that caught my attention. I thought long and hard about if I could do this: love a dog, watch a dog, be a friend to someone else, be stable. It wasn't an easy thing to consider. I could hear eduardo's voice telling me that I should do this, that it would be good for me. Took my several hours but I did. I contacted the woman with the puppy and she told me she had already gone to a good home. It felt about right.
I wonder about the geese. Why not just hold out? Why admit to the decrease, to the futility of it all? I think about their choice and the cost. Being on the outside if it means not being alone. It is almost like the drugs right? It is make the decision to be happy. It is forcing it. Less than 3%. But then for the 97% maybe it is easy. 10% of the geese chose the female-female coupling. Maybe they were always the ones in danger.
I am happier now than I have been and yet we are so close. I think about the idea of continuing to eat right, exercise, do the things I should. I think about the enormity of trying, caring, going through the same motions for the rest of my life, the rest of my natural life. The inevitability of it is more than I can comprehend. Faced with the option of waking up every single day and taking a shower, looking at the window at the orange flames, even it means I get something, even if it means I get a pretty girl, even if it means that I am more relaxed, even if...I will still know, I will still know that I am on the outside, I am still not getting the puppy. It sounds so small and in truth I am happier than I have been but it's odd because the entire time that I've felt happier there is this smaller feeling inside me saying I don't care, saying the magnitude of all of it is too much. Who are these idiots that say life is too short? You walk away from the fire because it will all burn anyway. The geese in New York adapted to nothing but a momentary acceptance. I'm just asking why believe in the momentary at all with the forever is the painful endurance we have to tolerate.
Take a shower, get dressed, eat the right thing, answer the phone calls, go to work. All for the chance to ring the right door bell. What do you do when the hope of a door bell is no longer appealing. I am capable of getting pills, making it easier to be happy, but why would I? Why prolong what is already doomed to repeat ad infinitum? I am happier. It's not worth it.
Maybe the geese move to the outside not because they are forced but because that 10% is ready to admit defeat, admit it doesn't matter, admit that temporarily this relationship is fixing something but that they are fine to sacrifice themselves because it's not a sacrifice, it's a relief, it's a breath, it's a way to not return to happier.
Fly away home. Fly away little bird.
Faith tells me not to worry. They come back. It's migration. It's instinctual. Why do they come back to me? My fear grounds them. I contain it. I feed them. They believe. But I lack the wings to fly myself, and worse, I'm content to watch them burn. Watch the sky turn to black. Have the voices silenced. The geese die out from the chemicals, their populations never return. The trees succumb to the fire and leave behind no evidence the wind can fix. How long must I wait for the same fate? Acceptance is the new suicide as nothing is more depressing than knowledge. Why can't I fly home?
