Relationships @ MindSay

I feel like I've written about this already. Actually I probly haven't, but wanted to.

 

My second sister, Sarah, has been with Austin for almost 4 years. Austin left for the guards this summer. They wrote everyday, she flew out when she was allowed. And when he graduated from Basic they talked on the phone everyday. When Sarah started out at UND this year she met with Andrew. Oddly enough, I used to like this guy, and when Andrew told me he was going to UND last year, I prayed he would not end up meeting my sister. Because I had a bad feeling or because I would be jealous that he'd like her, I wasn't sure. But no matter what, I just didn't want those two meeting.

On day one, they met. Since then, they've been together every day/talked every day. Today I get a text.

 

"I am horrible person." To which I thought, yeah she is. Anyway, I asked her why. So she told me she likes Andrew. Who wants her to leave Austin. Because Andrew has made her question every bit of the last 4 years. She thinks Andrew would be better for her. But she can't leave Austin. Andrew gave her the option. Him or Austin, she picked Austin. And now she's lost Andrew because he can't stand liking her and not having anything back.

 

Austin likes country music. Austin was in Sarah's class. They grew up together. He's tall and buff. He wrestled and played football in High School. He dresses from American Eagle, Hollister, Aero...ya know.

 

Andrew likes heavy metal. He grew up in a bigger city. He's average height and very thin. He was in the band in High School. Dresses from Hot Topic, Spencers...ya know.

 

I told her she's bored with Austin, because he's not around. And she likes Andrew now and will for a while because she's curious. So she can leave Austin, go with Andrew, find out what he'sreally like, crawl back to Austin who will have already left her.

 

I used to like Andrew while I was dating Brandon for about a year. I stuck around long enough to find out what Andrew's really like, and stayed with Brandon. Who broke up with me about four months later. Which Austin just might do to Sarah when he gets back. But hey, I wouldn't trade those last four months for the world.

_{Thoughts after reading some of Klosterman's "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs." Contains mild profanity.}

Chuck Klosterman posits, in his essay, "This Is Emo," that it's impossible to ever be satisfied with a relationship. Why? Because we see happy relationships in the stories, in most of the romantic comedies and love songs that are widespread through our culture. And we want the same thing in our lives. He declares, "whenever I meet dynamic, nonretarded Americans, I notice that they all seem to share a single unifying characteristic: the inability to experience the kind of mind-blowing, transcendent relationship they perceive to be a normal part of living."

He then proceeds to blame the entire problem, humorously, on John Cusack. Superficially, on the notion that, "every straight girl I know would sell her soul to share a milkshake" with Mr. Cusack. Initially, I'd misremembered this quote as being "every straight girl in America," and considered this a gross generalization. I've been labeled as representing the all-American girl for years, and I have the opinion that John Cusack's roles invariably seem to represent a whiny guy who's not doing much with his life and can't hold a relationship together. However, being only straight, and not in fact an acquaintance of Mr. Klosterman's, his statement could still be considered accurate.

This comes up again later. Klosterman describes a ploy of his for the second date with a girl, when he'll ask her what religion she follows.

     'Invariably, she will say something like, "Oh, I'm sort of Catholic,
      but I'm pretty lapsed in my participation," or, "I'm kind of Jewish,
      but I don't really practice anymore." Virtually everyone
      under the age of thirty will answer that question in this manner.'

I considered this statement, and then I mentally looked around at the friends I hang out with. The vast majority of them are between 20 and 27, and with five notable exceptions, they're very solid about what they believe. Actually, with most of them, you wouldn't need to ask on the second date - they would have told you before the first. The problem with Mr. Klosterman's phrase of "virtually everyone under the age of thirty," is that his sample group is apparently limited to the people he's dating.
This kind of makes sense, because if he's this half-assed about what he believes, I'm rather certain that nobody who's firm about their religion would want to date him.

But, back to this business of pursuing relationship satisfaction.

Klosterman describes a concept of "fake love," and slides into holding up Coldplay on a pedestal, the base of which he currently uses to beat his forehead. "That sleepy-eyed bozo," referring to Chris Martin as he performs Coldplay's "Yellow," "isn't even making sense. He's just pouring fabricated emotions over four gloomy guitar chords, and it ends up sounding like love." He's not exactly whining, just building for his point later. "Coldplay songs deliver an amorphous, irrefutable interpretation of how being in love is supposed to feel, and people find themselves wanting that feeling for real."

The rest of "This Is Emo," simply further develops the idea of "fake love;" where we got it, why we can't find it, and why we want it so bad. The two-dimensional happiness that exists in our fiction-media looks and sounds real, and must have been attainable for those people (the movie characters, or the songwriters). If it looks so good and sounds so good, and we know people have gotten it, we want it, too. And of course, we can't find it, so we're never really satisfied in relationships.

Klosterman's wrong, but only because he stops too soon. Agreed, the two-dimensional fake love isn't what we do in our lives. He's got the right focal point, but the wrong angle. He claims that the problem is that we're trying for this ideal, and we can't attain it.

Fake love isn't the ideal. It's just like he said, a two-dimensional version of the real thing. It's not the pinnacle to try to achieve. It's about as comparable as having a photo of your best friend instead of the real thing. Looks like your friend. Reminds you of your friend. Absolutely freakin' terrible at playing frisbee. That's what fake love is.

And it's not a bad thing. Dude, I DON'T have a photo of me and my best friend. Kind of wish I did, because I don't see him a lot. It's cool to have some kind of reminder when your friend/love isn't around, or to pick it up later and smile about it when he/she/it/whatever is. But, dude, love? Real love? You aren't going to get that in a song. Not the lasting kind. The lasting kind has to put up with all KINDS of junk.

Getting home at 11 at night from work, exhausted, and still having to go out and shovel because one of you has to do it to get the cars out in the morning. Recognizing that she's upset because she's not as physically pretty as a 20-year-old, AND she feels like you'd like her better if she was. Holding your smart thoughts in when you're both mad and tired and frustrated. Working all the time because to you, love means taking care of her, but to her, it's abandonment because taking care of her means spending time with her. Not understanding your kids, and being frustrated at the choices they're making. Having to choose between paying the rent and paying the car insurance this month. Her mom. Your mom. Feeling like you don't measure up in her book, but in another girl's eyes you're amazing, but ignoring that and still going back to her every night. Still letting him know that you respect him when you think he's being a doofus (trust me, these are not mutually exclusive).

Weirdly, love, a lot of the time, means acting like you love the person when you don't feel love. And that's not something you can put in a two-hour movie, or a song. It probably isn't something you can put in words at all - it's just something you can feel. When for the fifth time this week your son's wet the bed, and one of you has to get up at three a.m. to take care of it, and you both have to be up at six for work, and you sigh and take it. Because you don't feel love then. You just feel frustration, and exhaustion, and you just try to say as little as possible because you don't feel an overwhelming sense of love for your wife or your son, but you still don't want to say anything that would hurt either of them later (like, in the morning, when they'll both remember it and you won't). You don't think about why. You don't feel like doing it. But you do.

It's weird. Really weird. But pursuing that through all of the mundane - making the choices that spell love even when you don't feel it - it takes awhile to get to what's beyond the fake love. I don't aim for spending time with my friend's photo - I want to hang out with him. You're not shooting for the fake love, because you know it isn't real, but you don't know what else there is. You just know, kind of, maybe, hope anyway, that there's something after all this.

And there is. But it's hard to put the value of it into words. It's a different kind of adventure. It's a different kind of intensity - a softer intensity, maybe. There are things in the world that grow like love does, but I don't know what they are. Trees, maybe - you can't get a solid climbing tree in five years. I guess.. it's not something boring, might be closer to what I'm trying to say. All the crazy, frustrating adventures, sometimes four decades' worth or more, has taught you whether or not you can depend on each other. Whether the lines you're using for your climbing harness are going to hold you, or where not to use them.

That's a decent comparison. When you're still uncertain about your equipment, you don't put it to the test on anything where you're going to get seriously hurt or killed if it fails. You do small climbs, work on different challenges. You can't take the big adventures until you know that your partner's going to be there through the whole thing.

If you aim for the fake love Klosterman talks about, you're going to be disappointed even if you get it. It's hard to get to, because life events tangle it up. But, man, you get there, and then what? It's flat. It's happy, but it's flat. The adventure's gone. You're not SUPPOSED to get there; it's a story. It's a picture. Like Cinderella - when they say "happily ever after," you know life is not a smooth cruise of bliss. They're not saying this life is; Cinderella's just a story. The fierce love that hangs on through bumps off course and flagging emotions and crap you never wanted in your life but hell you got it anyway so you're gonna grit your teeth and get through it...you can't put that in fake love. You can't put that in a four-minute song, or a two-hour movie. You can't have someone tell you about it. You're going to have to be in it before you recognize it, and like rafting crazy rapids, you're going to be too busy trying to keep things together to recognize anything. So, you'll probably only know it after it comes. And then you'll be glad you stuck it out.

And then, after that, you'll have to ask yourself why you're listening to ME about this, because I'm not yet thirty. :)

Ok, Ok Mindsay friends. I know this seems to be turning into a sort of music blog. That's not a bad thing though. I know my beloved bloggers like neonite, myclette, toplessblogger, and songforthedeaf  will appreciate it. So, I'll continue to post on favorite bands, songs, and even the occasional video. Segue way!!

Lamb is a fairly unknown British 'Electronica' style duo/band that formed in the late 90's and put out 7 albums before disbanding in 2003. They just regrouped this year to perform a few select venues, but no news of another record.

I love this band! Lou Rhodes vocals are velvety smooth and Andy Barlow makes a great blend of worldly sounds with tight beats. But what I love more than anything about Lamb is their simply beautiful lyrics! Songs like Gorecki and Gabriel are musical poetry.

So, if your in the mood to feel love, desire, passion, mixed with a dash of dance beats, then I highly recommend you give them a listen.

Here are 2 of their biggest singles.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtIeH_J-SiI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEf_FGyRDV8

Thinking about connections today.

Or something like that. The connections between people. At Camp, we're all deeply connected. This is your-friends-know-you connected. This is in-your-face-love connected. You can't be antisocial, it's just not going to happen.

Back at FCC, they break up. We don't seek to connect with the other people anymore. We don't make as much eye contact, we don't search people's faces, 'cept for the other staff. We want to be left alone. I hear about all the bad things that can happen, and suddenly going for a run at night through the city isn't fun and relaxing, me-and-God-time in the dark, it's a chance for someone to get hurt. Where I'd laugh off the random propositions I get thrown downtown, now they're a little scarier.

And I don't want to be scared of people. They're people. People matter. Really. Of all the stuff God's made, people are something different. People - you can hear a person's story, and hear it again, and hear it again, and they'll tell you different parts of it, different perspectives, every time. And you can watch their eyes, and the way they move their hands when they talk, and listen to the points that they highlight, and figure out what matters to them. And you still don't know them. Not really.

Signscout knows me deeper than anybody else. K knows me not as deep, but in some weird dimension, like deeper across a broader area than anyone else. Santas has known me longest ('cept my parents). Think about that one. I've known Santas for two decades, and I still don't know all of her. She's an adventure unfolding. So's Signscout. And man, I can't even think about what an adventure K is, because I was looking forward to having that adventure for the rest of my life.

And we get hung up on what the houses look like. Seriously?

Last night I was getting my books out of my band locker, and around the corner I could hear a guy talking to someone else about a girl. And every line from him just hurt a little somewhere. He was praising her, but it wasn't her he was praising - it was the house. It was that she wasn't too skinny, but she had the right curves, and she did this amazing thing with her eyeliner, and he kept talking. He wasn't saying anything bad about her, or even that crude - but he didn't say anything about who she was. It was all about what her house looked like.

That's all it is. The body's just the soul-house. If the house gets wrecked, it's not like anything bad happens to me, I just move out. We admire houses for their architecture, or how pretty they are, etc., but my favorite houses to hang out in are the ones where my friends are. I like Miller's house because the gang's all there. I like lilr's house because I get to play with the baby and see my friend and share time with her (okay, and we make pretzels). I love coming in here because you're here.

I appreciate the house more because you're in it. But whatever house you lived in, no matter what it looked like, that's the house where I wanna be. There was a guy that I wanted to marry, and I told my girlfriends (if not him) that I'd marry him if he were a quadriplegic. It wasn't that what he looked like didn't matter - it was that the real value was who was there. Same way you can appreciate a pretty house - I can appreciate that my guy's physically attractive, but the real value of the physical is that it's containing him.

And now he's getting fussed because he's losing his hair. So not listening. :) Although, it must be noted, we're no longer looking at getting married.

The real value of the house is who lives there. The real value of the body is what's inside it. That's you. Your value is beyond financial estimate. There's an awful lot of money in this world, but there's only one you. There's nothing I could trade to get a you - just no comparison value. You're so far beyond anything else out there. And I want to hear your story. And I want to get to know you.

Though, from what I've seen, that could take the next twenty years. :)

Lately, for what ever cosmic reason, several of those dear to me have been wrestling with this age old issue. Love is never subjective and rarely cut and dried. It is instead purely concerned with our pleasure sensors, that part of us which dares to dream and to try, that deep seated need to be part of a vague completeness, that we ourselves, are not enough in our totality.

 

The following scenarios are taken from recent communications. (I’ve altered certain things and omitted others. Some may or may not recognize pieces of themselves in which case I apologize in advance, I mean no disrespect.) I felt rather compelled for some odd reason to make some what I am afraid will be ramblings on the subject.

 

Scenario One

 

He’s honest and loyal, treats you like a queen and has the means to do it. He is rather set in his ways, a child of the forests and seasons, but you think that if you could polish this rough diamond up just a bit he’d be just perfect. He has been starving for love for a very long time and for a short while he allows you your ‘improvements’. Soon it wears thin, he is after all a MAN, and men secure in their ways often do not do changes well. It goes against their grain so to speak, and there is the ultimate rebellion, rejection and retreat to lick their wounds.

 

The truly sad part is that most women of today when faced with a man (or woman) steeped in the ways of nature, go about killing the wildness, the very thing which attracted them first about this person. They do this with the best of intentions, mistakenly believing that their actions arise out of love.

 

Once you are set in your ways, it is very difficult to adapt yourself to another person. Love has nothing to do with it; sheer co-existence can be a challenge.  Had they accepted the person for who and what they truly are, they would find much of what they are looking for.

 

 

Scenario Two

 

A young woman of my acquaintance is married with 3 young children whom she adores. Her spouse is in the military and was deployed overseas. Prior to his leaving, they discussed divorce and not for the first time. While he was gone she fell in love with someone else. The spouse came home unexpectedly to find another man in his house, bed and with his wife and children.

 

Needless to say he did not take it well. He is now back overseas, and the young woman and her lover are dealing with the aftermath. They truly care for each other; the marriage is over in her view. The lover just wants the best for her and the kids.  The husband says that no one is going to take his wife without a fight. He’s using the threat of taking the kids away forever with no visitation rights as a weapon to ensure her compliance. All three are flirting with disaster, all in the name of love. My primary concern is the children and yet my heart aches for them, and that includes the husband who hasn’t a clue why the woman he loves has done a 1-80 on him.

 

 

Scenario Three

 

Someone says that you are the only one they will ever love, they alternate between threats that if they can’t have you no one will, to threatening suicide if you don’t return their affections. You are convinced that they are more than half serious in these comments and take steps. You may begin to carry a weapon, change your name, phone number and move, change jobs, and avoid places that he knows you like. He finds you, hires people to help him do so, documents your every move. Any new endeavor or friend is a threat and therefore must be eliminated or otherwise neutralized. You become more paranoid, your ‘spider senses’ tingle and you dread the moment that the other shoe will drop. You know that it will, just not when.

 

This is not love. This is obsession and fixation and a dangerous one at that. RUN - do not walk where someone can assist you. If no one will listen or believe you, continue to document on your own, keep records, seek professional assistance, be it police, support groups, whatever.

 

 

Scenario Four

 

 You’ve been with him for some time now. Most nights he falls asleep in front of the TV with a beer. You clean up; put the kids if there are any, to bed. He doesn’t offer to help and expects to be waited on, to have his dinner delivered. He doesn’t ask about your day but often tells you about what a crappy one he has had. You’re tired, he’s sat on his ass, lord king and mayor of his domain. You are the chief cook, bottle washer, maid, nanny, chauffer, nurse, and accountant. You go to bed, seeking that most divine of all elusive things…sleep. You wonder where the romantic man you married who used to help you, who used to kiss you and hold your hand went. The insensitive man in the other room bears little or no resemblance to the man you remember and who captured your heart.

 

Later he may come to bed. He may or may not wake you up to fuck, you can’t call it lovemaking. He rolls off you grunting and starts snoring. This too is not love. This is the day to day existence which sucks dry the very well-spring which feeds love. Love needs to be worked at; it doesn’t just grow by itself. Does he love her? He may or he may not, and often doesn’t even have a clue why she has her ‘moods’. Does she love him? As he becomes more and more insensitive a thousand little ‘wrongs and slights’ begin to chip away at any feelings for him she has left.

 

 

Scenario Five

 

They are the other half of your soul, true soul mates. You both know it. It’s never been like this before, tho the two of you have never met. You’ve exchanged countless emails, and telephone calls. Perhaps even sent photos or shared web-cams. Their voice makes you melt. Every waking moment you day dream of them and the wonderful life the two of you will share. You are ready to give up anything just to be with them.

 

This first flush, is this love? Are there indeed soul mates? Is that what love truly is - the compulsion to find that individual who completes you somehow? Put to the test of time, will this last? When you meet will each of you past the test and end up where joint hopes and dreams have led you both?

 

And should it for some reason not end up on the path you had hoped and dreamed for. In disappointment do you cut all ties because it didn’t measure up to your expectations? Will you miss out on the friendship, the sharing of your lives because they weren’t ‘the one’ after all? What a waste.

 

 

Someone once told me a story about man's preocupation with that emotion. The Gods, afraid that man would one day be greater than the Gods themselves, voted that humanity be exterminated. The Goddess of Love who was herself in love with a mortal man, threw down her mirror and when it shattered decreed that each man and each woman would have their souls split into as many pieces as her mirror. That each soul would be too busy searching for the other pieces of itself that humanity wouldn’t have time to challenge the power of the Gods.

 

Thus each of us search our whole lives looking for that special someone, the other half of our souls, and this is the search for love. Perhaps this explains why some people love many, we find bits and pieces in several different individuals.  Regardless, true love remains the greatest of our emotions, from which spring self-sacrifice, loyalty, dedication, passion.

 

Perhaps it is, who knows?