Love lost.

So I got to thinking, as I often do, about losses. First it started with a conversation. I had called my Grandmother on the phone, as I do often, to inquire about my Grandpa's upcoming doctor appointments. We talked a bit, and I mentioned my Father and got to talking about a situation that happened a couple of months ago, and how I basically said my final "goodbye" to him in a matter-of-fact e-mail. Then I got home, told my mom about how I deleted a friend from my facebook friends lists for being a "rasty moron," and went on to check MySpace and all that other internet crap to see whats going on with my "world." I thought about my ex, who had posted some new blogs... which I read, and was kinda shocked by.

I realized that I haven't really done much about the break-up. I haven't really cried it out -- and I wonder what that's about? I loved- or continue to love him, and I remember being so heartbroken a multitude of times when he failed to meet some of my most basic needs and expectations... So why is it that now that its all over with do I sit here in a kind of blank indifference? Same thing with my Father. I cried over some of the terrible things he said to me, and over being abandoned once, and over the stress of having to make the choice of whether or not to see him again... but I never cried about the loss. I figured that was because I had cried about the loss before -- when it actually happened. But it comes up, often times, in recovery (or out of recovery, when I am being delinquint) how seriously affected I have been by the loss, and that really, this loss left some huge gaping hole in my heart that a few tears and some acknowledgement haven't been able to heal -- or even hasten the healing.

So here is this guy... that I spend a fair amount of time either thinking negative things about, or ignorning all together, that I once loved for about a year and four months of my life. A guy who I really thought I was going to marry -- and who even after the break-up I'd have dreams or childish thoughts about (such as "I wonder if he'll donate his sperm so I can have a child with his genetic information?"). Yeah. Totally freaky stuff. I think about his family sometimes, and that makes me really sad... I miss them. I worry a lot about what they think of me. I felt so at home with them.

Most of all though, once I start thinking about it... I'm still angry. Totally and completely enraged (that is when I am not in denial or avoidance)! I mean seriously... Here is a smart, creative, passionate, spiritual guy who is fun to be with... but so lazy he can't even keep his home even moderately clean. He hasn't hired someone to compensate... he's tardy and truant and absent from his son's life, so much so that I've forgotten he's supposedly a "father" many times (not to mention how angry this makes me due to me projecting my experience with MY father onto the situation), and he's lazy with his relationship with God... and worst of all, lazy with me. I seriously loved the guy! I thought he was really cute, even though he was a little chubbier than I would've liked. I could deal with that if I knew he was living a healthy lifestyle, and I could even deal with cheating the healthy lifestyle thing if it weren't for all the other utter failures.

A mature person, in my mind, is one who 1.) Knows their skills and talents and has/is working on getting a job that takes advantage of them, especially when they have some of the resources to make that happen. If not, they should have some kind of hobby that makes use of these things. 2) Can keep their home clean, their bills paid, and their personal responsibilities cared for. 3) Is a dedicated participant in a relationship with a higher power -- AND is in dedicated relationships with friends and family, doing such things as sending gifts, offering comfort, making some small sacrafices, appreciating, etc...

What good are you as a person and to the world if you can't make use of yourself in a meaningful way, if you don't care for yourself and what you have, and you are one-sided and ineffective in your relationships? More importantly, what business did I have dating somebody who was like this? Maybe this is why I don't mourn... because I feel stupid for having been in a situation with someone like this and not knowing it until a whole year later.

Alone.

For lack of proper memorization of the bible, and for tired eyes, I am going to grossly paraphrase something that Jesus said. That basically, we who follow Him and his ways will be hated, like he was. It's difficult for me to accept this and apply it to my own life, because first of all, if this were true, then it would mean I was doing a good job of following in His footsteps. Perhaps not -- perhaps the Spirit has made me able. At any rate, it seems like too much an honor, too much a blessing, too self-focused to claim such a thing.

But I do feel hated right now. Not hated as in... say someone throwing rocks at me, or telling me to my face they wish I'd rot. But slowly now I've began to lose friends. Some, because I realize the type of people they are and their values strike such a stark contrast to my own, and I feel false and intimidated in their presence. Some because they are selfish, sick, lazy, or rude, and I simply don't wish to enable them or reward them for such behavior (and because I don't want to be a victim). Some, I'm afraid, I've actually offended and scared off by being more vocal lately.

I am still debating whether or not calling my best friend out on some blatant lies he believed about himself was right or not. I am trying really hard to depart from advice giving, and also trying to discipline my tongue. There was something so infuriating about that conversation with him, though... because at first it was an outright confession to a specific type of detrimental behavior. Something I am quite familiar with. Codependency, actually... here's a talented, creative, hillarious, kind and intelligent young man trying to convince himself he is happy to throw away whatever dreams and aspirations he might have for his overbearing, alcholic father and his (likely equally codependent) mother. I used to think it a sweet thing that he would jump at the chance to help a person. A real kind guy, I thought. Someone with compassion. Until he'd do things for people he never wanted to do, or end up in situations where he was being used. He's tired, feels like a failure, but still - the over-arching theme is "I must please others." He hasn't the slightest idea of how to do otherwise. So we had a conversation about this, it came about by me sharing my struggles and him asking more about codependency. As I described the charactersitics, he said, "that's me, but I don't think it's bad." So I pointed out how he had, at numerous points in his life, suffered greatly for his codependent beliefs. I simply retold many of the memories I had of times that he had been hurt, even devistated by his dependence on approval. He would agree, but continue to make excuses. All I'd do is point out where he was lying to himself and attempt to end the conversation. Here I am needing to fix him, and here he is needing me to approve of him. Well I didn't fix him, and he never got me to approve... so here we are in an awkward situation of a fairly fractured relationship.

I think in more ways than can be accounted for by this conversation. There were issues in the past about unrequieted love... and now my realization that perhaps the reason we had such a strong bond was because we were and are both rediculously codependent.

The next friend I scared off is a great intellectual friend of mine, who as it turns out, is insufferably liberal (from my perspective). There is this giantic divergence of thought, to the point where we are both disgusted with the idea that anyone could see the world from such a perspective as the other. This is hard for me, because I don't want to be elietist or stubborn or self-obsessed or self-righteous or arrogant or whatever it is that people are when they believe so strongly in something that they cannot be persuaded otherwise. There are times in history when this has been a good thing... and times when it has been bad. How the hell will I ever know if I am actually right or wrong? All I can do is use the brain I have in the ways I know, and in the ways it works, and trust in what makes sense to me after I've made my own careful analysis of the situation.

I don't believe in just throwing my values to the wind and tolerating every last thing that floats by. I doubt even those who tout the fairness doctrine or tolerence in its purest form would either. There are folks who think Christianity is absurd, and other folks who think conservatism is absurd, and folks who think alien spaceships and those who believe they've been inside one before are absurd. And some of those people are deciples of fairness and tolerence. No. I want nothing to do with it. That's right -- nothing.

I'll go with love and respect, human dignity, and other Christian principles. Justice... mercy... compassion... sacrafice. But not blind tolerence, and not "fairness" (which is totally relative anyway). Those who say tolerence and fairness are Christian principles, in my mind, are totally misinformed and may want to go back to reading their bibles on a fundamental level -- something which I need to do as well. Perhaps I am out of whack and have no idea about anything... but then, that'd be me, and I can't be anything but (so I've discovered). To thine own self be true, as Shakespeare said.