Category Archives: longing

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Love and self

When you love someone, do you lose your self?

I think that is the tricky bit about love. When you fall for someone else, do you fall or do you hold on to yourself? Where is that boundary?

I am in a flirtation. I am very interested in a person. I am interested in what he says and what he is interested in. I am learning quite a bit about some topics that really, have not been on my radar. I also often disagree quite strongly in the realm of politics. And I don’t really care that our politics are just about opposite ends of the spectrum.

I am interested in where we meet and where we don’t meet. Where we agree and where we very strongly disagree and privately think that the other person needs their head examined. I am not falling too far into the “really this person thinks like I do, they just won’t admit it” trap. Well, perhaps I am. Perhaps that is what love is: when we project part of our self and the ideal part of ourself on to the other person. They reflect and occupy some part of our ideal. That does not mean that they ARE our ideal or that they ARE the projection.

In this particular flirtation, he does not seem interested in much of what I am interested in. Well, particularly poetry. Occasionally this bothers me but mostly I shake it off. I am hoping that I have reached the age and level of cynicism where I do not expect the other person to like everything I like, to agree with what I say, to have the same ideals or ideas. I am watching myself and wondering how much of what I like in him is him and how much is my projection. Don’t know yet. The mind is a peculiar place. So is the heart.

But …. I am feeling much happier about holding on to myself at the same time as I fall and crush. I look at what he likes and wants but I also hold what I like and want. I am trying to give them equal weight, the needs and wants and desires of the two people present.

Hold and fall, at the same time.

The picture is of an etching by my mother, Helen Burling Ottaway.

Shake it off.

Also published on everything2.com

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The Path to Wonderland

I thought I’d learned that lesson
But no
The Beloved
Knew I had not
Hadn’t really faced it
Some small piece
Still wanted to depend
On someone else

Still fused.
Still thinking that you
Who know me so well
Would hear when I say please
I really need you to call
You say I will
I wait by the phone
You don’t call

I feel hurt
Anyone would
But my heart doesn’t stay broken
I survive
It happens again
And again
Until it occurs to me
That I’ve been reading Rumi
That we are each entirely part
Of the Beloved
Connected
And yet I’ve been fused to needing you
I don’t need you

I love you
I’m not used to not needing you
But I will be soon
10/22/06

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The Introverted Thinker whines

One morning, the Introverted Thinker was whining. She was about 8, she was tired, the alarm had not gone off.

“I.T., you are whining.”

She continued to droop and delay and whine.

I thought, “I hate whining.” I thought of my parents. My mother would say, “Go away and come back when you can talk to me without whining.” I’ve read parenting books that tell us to say, “I can’t understand you when you whine. Say it without whining.”

But I was in a vulnerable place myself. I thought, when we whine, we are feeling very vulnerable. And to be sent away until we stop expressing that vulnerability, well, is that the message that I want to send? I thought, what do I want to be told when I wish I could whine or when I DO whine? Certainly not to go away alone with my whiny self. I thought: I want to be loved anyhow, even when I’m behaving badly.

I hugged her right away and said, “I love all of you, even the parts that whine.”

She stopped. Instantly. She just stood there in the hug for a moment and then got dressed, ate breakfast and went off to school. She didn’t seem insulted or hurt. It was just as if I’d heard her and reassured her: I am present when you are vulnerable and I love you. The whole you.

Also published on an obscure writing website in August 2010.

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You can’t make someone love you 

You can't make someone love you


How can we fall out of love?

I mean it. If we love someone, how can we fall out of 
love?

Falling in love, according to my understanding of the 
Jungian ideas, is projecting some of your best aspects 
on the other person. You see them in a haze of love, of 
perfection. I've seen something to the effect that 
falling in love is the only time that psychosis is not 
treated. That is, when you are in love, you are psychotic.
You are crazy. You are nuts.

I, then, am currently nuts.

One of the things that I admire most about my ex-husband 
is that he is friends with all of his ex-girlfriends. And 
his ex-wife, that is, me. When we were first married, he 
told me about the ex-girlfriends. He was in contact with 
them, by phone or email. I was ok with it and admired it. 
We met dancing, jitterbug, east coast swing dancing. We 
would go to the live dances in Cabin John, Maryland. We 
would dance two dances with each other, say bye, and race 
off to dance with everyone else. Five hundred people would 
show up, for an hour lesson and three hours of live band. 
In the summer the guys would bring 4 t-shirts and change 
them as they were soaked. There was no alcohol in the park. 
No air conditioning. We didn't clap for the bands at all 
because we were too busy trying to find the next partner to 
dance with. You could signal next dance, one or two fingers. 
Not past two, because no one could remember.....

Anyhow, jealousy seemed silly. My ex-husband transformed 
each of those relationships with his ex-girlfriends from 
lover and partner into something else.

I think this is the right thing to do. If it is our best 
aspects projected on the person that we are in love with, 
then perhaps it is our own worst aspects that we project 
when we "fall out of love". We hate the person. They have 
broken our hearts. They have been cruel.

But have they? They were not required to be in love with 
us. Just because we love them does not mean that they have 
to love us back. Or really, they do not have to love us 
"that way". You can't make someone love you.

I want to be like my ex-husband. I want to continue to 
love the person that I love. As a small town doctor, I have
taken care of both halves of a divorcing couple. My brain 
managed to keep them entirely separate and not connect them 
until the day when I saw both. Even then, I had trouble 
believing that they were talking about each other: because 
what they said had almost nothing to do with what the other 
person was saying or doing. I said to my nurse, "Are they 
really talking about each other? Or is it at last name 
coincidence?"

She said, "Took you long enough to get it."

If I am rejected, I want to keep loving the person. Perhaps 
I too will fall out of loving them "that way". But if it is 
aspects of myself that I see in them and love, why would I 
turn to hate? I don't want to project the ugly parts of myself 
on them.

I'll save the ugly parts to project on the greedy corporations. 
Now, I am perfectly content and happy to hate them.......
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Say yes

At the improv tryout
for Lark in the Park
Joey said

Say yes to everything

He said

It is easier to say no
But then the improv ends

He made us try
Saying no to everything

Each skit was a fight

He made us try
Saying yes to everything

Yes

We bloomed bloomed

And is that it?

All the Beloved wants?

He said
You learn to say things
Without a question
With a hint
With an idea
With a suggestion
The other actor responds

I’ve noticed
People don’t respond well
When I say
Don’t

I need to learn
To suggest
To let them choose
To change their direction
Offer
Offer
Another idea

I need to learn
To listen
When they offer
Offer
Another idea

Say yes to everything

Is that what the Beloved wants?

I say yes
yes

previously published August 10, 2009 on everything2