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torquill[formerly filtered to !]
Well, I suppose after the lovely utopian scene of the last post, it was kind of inevitable that the darker side of things would rear its head.
If you are seeing this, Akien, it's because I've decided to override my own objections and make it visible to you; I am not at all sure I want to do so. It may not be visible to more people than you. We can discuss that.
The gift economy works very well in a society of individuals committed to it. It's not perfect, however; it assumes that all needs can be met, and specific scarcities will be fleeting. Sometimes in a condition of scarcity there are, as the man said, no good options. That's just as true in a gift system as in any other.
You needed Leah tonight. I could see that very clearly, and I could understand why. My own needs, in my current state, cannot be met in a day's time. We gave it the ol' college try, but the fact remains that I am still a dry lakebed, no matter how hard the tap is going. So I looked at you, and I looked at myself, and I made a judgment call.
Leaving tonight was not graceful. Leaving tonight was hard. A combination of factors -- you were still coping with your own fallout, everyone was tired, I had an emotionally rough afternoon, I could go on -- came together all at once. I had to leave while still contemplating the possibility that I would not see you again until Saturday... making it from Monday to Friday last week was difficult enough in my besotted condition, and I had lots of stuff to fill my time then. In tonight's mental state, after a physical crash and one of the worst emotional trauma triggers I've had in years, it shook me. That's where I was just before I left, and while I didn't have any details, I knew that there was no immediate cure. So I answered honestly when I said there was nothing to be done at the moment. We could talk about getting together in the interim, later.
It was fifteen minutes before I even started the car. I was aware almost as soon as I got in of what I was facing, but I refused to go back inside.
Something you should be aware of is that one of the hallmarks of falling in love, for me, is a savagely protective streak. Not overprotective, generally; I don't insert myself into situations where I think there is a risk of harm, if I am not already involved. But I get very, very deeply angry whenever someone I love is hurt by outside agency, and I will step in to stop it if the situation tells me they need help. You saw some of that when I was talking about Jen's current situation, and she's just a good friend. With those I have given my heart to, it's even more so. I am far more zealous when protecting someone else than when protecting myself.
Seeing your distress tonight triggered that protective impulse... and in your case, I am not just looking out for you, I am looking out for your relationship with Leah, because I see what an integral part of your happiness that is. I wouldn't dream of disrupting it, and it's important to me that you and she have the freedom to do what you need to to nurture it.
Which is why I left. Despite my own shakiness, you were both tired and you needed to reconnect. I would fall on my own sword five times over before interfering with your physical and mental need for sleep right now, or your need for Leah.
Which all sounds wonderful and respectful and et cetera, until we get to the fact that falling on my sword is pretty much exactly what I did. Perhaps I'm falling into the same trap of setting other's boundaries for them, and not valuing my own needs, but I would make the same decision again... because I would be damned before I went back into the house and imposed my own needs on the two of you. Especially not when there was no ready solution, and I felt like I'd be setting myself up to come up against your boundaries, which would probably hurt even worse.
I got home because my lifelong separation of the analytical and the emotional made it possible to drive while in some of the worst emotional pain I've ever had. This, tonight, is the sort of thing I saw coming when I embarked on this current quest of mine, and I told you it was going to suck. I was right. I hit 680 before I could unclench my teeth, and Pleasant Hill by the time I could breathe evenly. As vicious as I can be with anyone else who hurts the people I love, I am absolutely brutal with myself. I'm scarred enough on that front that I can face it, whereas I'm completely unprotected when it comes to the pain of those I share my heart with. So I cried with rage and stubbornly took myself home.
I don't know, from your standpoint, whether I made the correct decision. I don't know whether there was one to be made. I do not know how to handle this breadth and depth of need when it comes to the needs of others, or their boundaries, or my own. I don't know whether I'm using my own low evaluation of my worth to justify self-abuse that, on some deep level, perhaps I think I deserve. I don't know whether I'm inflicting perhaps unnecessary damage in an effort to cling to the structures I'm familiar with, rather than the ones I'm hesitant to accept.
That tendency to take the fall myself, to accept the pain rather than allow it to be inflicted on anyone else, is so deeply ingrained that I almost can't even examine it. Deep down I suspect it's not healthy, though if I can reconcile it with a better value of my self-worth, perhaps it could be. It's so fiercely held by what you refer to as my monkey that it won't brook any discussion of changing that impulse, and gets defensive if I even look at it too hard.
I am very reluctant to share this with you because I am afraid some or all of it will be hurtful or distressing (protective, yes) and because I am afraid my motivations and decisions will not meet with your approval. I expect I will consciously override those objections, because part of my respect for you demands that I recognize your position that you are a big boy and can handle nearly anything I can come up with, and that you can set yourself apart from my pain. That does not make it easy.
I'm trying to accept that allowing people to see what really happens with me is better than hiding it away, but this is exactly the sort of scenario that terrifies me. The fact that simply leaving you for a handful of days is enough to bring on an attack of screaming agony... By your own coaching tonight, you are not responsible for my feelings, and I have to believe that you follow your own advice. Because I know that in your shoes, it would be damned hard for me not to feel like I was to blame, no matter that you didn't know what was happening. I don't want to see you do that.
I also feel like telling this story will come across as a cry for attention. I detest that impulse in myself to the point that I overreact and fail to show anything that might be considered a pity party. Just add that to the "I really shouldn't share this" pile.
I'm incredibly tired; I feel like I'm babbling. I suspect that tomorrow you will pull something out of your sleeve that will restore my faith and probably make me cry again, because that's how awesome you are. Tonight the black beast and I will go to bed, and I hope that it will let me sleep.
Well, I suppose after the lovely utopian scene of the last post, it was kind of inevitable that the darker side of things would rear its head.
If you are seeing this, Akien, it's because I've decided to override my own objections and make it visible to you; I am not at all sure I want to do so. It may not be visible to more people than you. We can discuss that.
The gift economy works very well in a society of individuals committed to it. It's not perfect, however; it assumes that all needs can be met, and specific scarcities will be fleeting. Sometimes in a condition of scarcity there are, as the man said, no good options. That's just as true in a gift system as in any other.
You needed Leah tonight. I could see that very clearly, and I could understand why. My own needs, in my current state, cannot be met in a day's time. We gave it the ol' college try, but the fact remains that I am still a dry lakebed, no matter how hard the tap is going. So I looked at you, and I looked at myself, and I made a judgment call.
Leaving tonight was not graceful. Leaving tonight was hard. A combination of factors -- you were still coping with your own fallout, everyone was tired, I had an emotionally rough afternoon, I could go on -- came together all at once. I had to leave while still contemplating the possibility that I would not see you again until Saturday... making it from Monday to Friday last week was difficult enough in my besotted condition, and I had lots of stuff to fill my time then. In tonight's mental state, after a physical crash and one of the worst emotional trauma triggers I've had in years, it shook me. That's where I was just before I left, and while I didn't have any details, I knew that there was no immediate cure. So I answered honestly when I said there was nothing to be done at the moment. We could talk about getting together in the interim, later.
It was fifteen minutes before I even started the car. I was aware almost as soon as I got in of what I was facing, but I refused to go back inside.
Something you should be aware of is that one of the hallmarks of falling in love, for me, is a savagely protective streak. Not overprotective, generally; I don't insert myself into situations where I think there is a risk of harm, if I am not already involved. But I get very, very deeply angry whenever someone I love is hurt by outside agency, and I will step in to stop it if the situation tells me they need help. You saw some of that when I was talking about Jen's current situation, and she's just a good friend. With those I have given my heart to, it's even more so. I am far more zealous when protecting someone else than when protecting myself.
Seeing your distress tonight triggered that protective impulse... and in your case, I am not just looking out for you, I am looking out for your relationship with Leah, because I see what an integral part of your happiness that is. I wouldn't dream of disrupting it, and it's important to me that you and she have the freedom to do what you need to to nurture it.
Which is why I left. Despite my own shakiness, you were both tired and you needed to reconnect. I would fall on my own sword five times over before interfering with your physical and mental need for sleep right now, or your need for Leah.
Which all sounds wonderful and respectful and et cetera, until we get to the fact that falling on my sword is pretty much exactly what I did. Perhaps I'm falling into the same trap of setting other's boundaries for them, and not valuing my own needs, but I would make the same decision again... because I would be damned before I went back into the house and imposed my own needs on the two of you. Especially not when there was no ready solution, and I felt like I'd be setting myself up to come up against your boundaries, which would probably hurt even worse.
I got home because my lifelong separation of the analytical and the emotional made it possible to drive while in some of the worst emotional pain I've ever had. This, tonight, is the sort of thing I saw coming when I embarked on this current quest of mine, and I told you it was going to suck. I was right. I hit 680 before I could unclench my teeth, and Pleasant Hill by the time I could breathe evenly. As vicious as I can be with anyone else who hurts the people I love, I am absolutely brutal with myself. I'm scarred enough on that front that I can face it, whereas I'm completely unprotected when it comes to the pain of those I share my heart with. So I cried with rage and stubbornly took myself home.
I don't know, from your standpoint, whether I made the correct decision. I don't know whether there was one to be made. I do not know how to handle this breadth and depth of need when it comes to the needs of others, or their boundaries, or my own. I don't know whether I'm using my own low evaluation of my worth to justify self-abuse that, on some deep level, perhaps I think I deserve. I don't know whether I'm inflicting perhaps unnecessary damage in an effort to cling to the structures I'm familiar with, rather than the ones I'm hesitant to accept.
That tendency to take the fall myself, to accept the pain rather than allow it to be inflicted on anyone else, is so deeply ingrained that I almost can't even examine it. Deep down I suspect it's not healthy, though if I can reconcile it with a better value of my self-worth, perhaps it could be. It's so fiercely held by what you refer to as my monkey that it won't brook any discussion of changing that impulse, and gets defensive if I even look at it too hard.
I am very reluctant to share this with you because I am afraid some or all of it will be hurtful or distressing (protective, yes) and because I am afraid my motivations and decisions will not meet with your approval. I expect I will consciously override those objections, because part of my respect for you demands that I recognize your position that you are a big boy and can handle nearly anything I can come up with, and that you can set yourself apart from my pain. That does not make it easy.
I'm trying to accept that allowing people to see what really happens with me is better than hiding it away, but this is exactly the sort of scenario that terrifies me. The fact that simply leaving you for a handful of days is enough to bring on an attack of screaming agony... By your own coaching tonight, you are not responsible for my feelings, and I have to believe that you follow your own advice. Because I know that in your shoes, it would be damned hard for me not to feel like I was to blame, no matter that you didn't know what was happening. I don't want to see you do that.
I also feel like telling this story will come across as a cry for attention. I detest that impulse in myself to the point that I overreact and fail to show anything that might be considered a pity party. Just add that to the "I really shouldn't share this" pile.
I'm incredibly tired; I feel like I'm babbling. I suspect that tomorrow you will pull something out of your sleeve that will restore my faith and probably make me cry again, because that's how awesome you are. Tonight the black beast and I will go to bed, and I hope that it will let me sleep.
