Thursday, January 29, 2009

One for the road.


Well, I managed to do it again. I fell asleep while watching the news and just woke up. I was gone from this world, as they say, and oblivious of everything. I may as well have been drugged and knocked out for all I know. Comatose is a word that comes close. I think a small horde of people could have entered the apartment and emptied it of nearly everything but the sofa and I wouldn't have known about it. They might even have been able to move the sofa with me on it.

My sister and I took the dogs for a brisk walk at noontime. It was near freezing, but the sun was shining and it was nice as long as you didn't walk in any shady areas. Still, I should have worn my gloves and alternately put one hand in a pocket. A walk is just long enough for my sister to tell me all that's going on in her life and I listen and make the odd remark and comment. I tell you, I'm a good listening post. In my next life I'm coming back as a therapist.

It's always been my job in this life to be a listener to people and to be patient and to absorb whatever is said to me without becoming overloaded. I seem to have that sort of attraction to people because I don't judge. I just listen and try to understand and not condemn them. It's always been that way and grew even more so when I gained psychological insight and started to understand the motivations of people, but I have always had this patience to listen and calm people down. Having had complex parents probably prepared me for that role.

It gives me the appearance of being very competent, when in fact I am not always. People have high expectations of me, because I seem to have a lot of knowledge. Nobody knows that I sometimes survive by the skin of my teeth and that understanding and logic applied to other people's lives, doesn't mean you can always apply it to your own life. On the contrary, I come up short often when it comes to dealing with my own problems, although I must say that there has been a vast improvement these past eight months since I've been single.

That's a funny thing. When there is nobody else in your life to muddy the waters and to muddle your thoughts, it is amazing how quickly you can put your finger on the sore spot and come up with the right solution. You get to the point where you want to be much faster. When left to your own devices, it turns out that you are more ingenious than you thought you were and far less helpless. When faced with an immediate problem, you have to figure it out on your own and reason it out in your own head without any outside help and you get it done quicker and better.

It makes you wonder how much of sharing the load is really true when you are in a partnership. I wonder how much help the other person really is in soothing your fears and worries. In helping meet them head on. I think in my case I've never found the person that really made things better and easier. It may have seemed so at the time, but looking back now, I am convinced that it wasn't. Looking back, I see that all the so called 'help' was only a prolongation of the problems and that there was never a solution or a teaming up together to eradicate the difficulties.

It's made me very weary of relationships, for me in particular and those of other people in general. All I see is the potential dysfunction of them. I think you have to be very healthy to have a good relationship. Or agree to the degree of your dysfunction and the seriousness of it. Now that I'm single, I feel that I've escaped from some terrible fate and I would never willingly go back and take that relationship up again.

At this point, I think I will stay single, because I like it too much to give it up and I do not feel the desire to share my life with anyone. I don't miss there being a person in my life that is always hovering in the background. Right now, I don't think I am generous enough to share myself with anyone else. I am too greedy of what is mine.

I have been married twice and both times it ended in a divorce, although the marriages were very different and so were the husbands. In between those two marriages, I had a serious relationship that was also very dysfunctional. I don't have a very good track record up to now. I think it is more important that I learn to live with myself than that I learn to live with somebody else. At this point, that's the most important thing and, oh yes, the fact that I get along well with the Überhund is very important too. Hee, hee.

Well, so much for philosophizing. It is late and I will go to bed and sleep for a while. I hope for a long while.

See you tomorrow morning.

Ciao...

7 comments:

Maggie May said...

I think you have hit the nail on the head, Irene. The secret is to learn to live with yourself.
Funny I also seem to be the one that people talk to about their problems and I think those problems always seem so much easier to solve than my own. X

Bev said...

It is definitely glove wearing weather here too. I went for a dog walk yesterday for half an hour and couldn't feel my feet at the end of it! Snow from the Baltic forecast for the weekend, apparently.

I may buy Scamp a coat, every other dog seems to be wearing one. The miniature poodle down our street wears a Burberry.

Wisewebwoman said...

An old wise shaman said to me one time, Irene:
We can never live successfully with anyone else until we honour our own vibrations.
Her name was Katie.
She was ready when she was 75. They lived happilly ever after.
I'm not ready.
Not by a long shot.
Plus I like my own company far too much.
As do you.
XO
WWW

John M. Mora said...

My best, Irene, life is full of twists and a few miracles.

You are brave, strong, funny and brilliant.

Honest tutu.

A well tuned hug.

Jen said...

Having been married and divorced twice I too often think being single is easier. And it is. It can also be lonely at times but my track record isn't any better than yours and a good book is preferable to me than the baggage of another ex. I am happy learning to like myself again.

Irene said...

Yes Maggie May, you see how I finally do catch on, and yes, solving other people's problems is relatively easy, isn't it?

Hey Bev, I've thought about buying the Überhund a jacket if it keeps getting colder, especially after he has been trimmed.I wonder if he would be embarrassed?

Mary, I might be ready at 75, maybe. It would have to be one hell of a guy, though. I'm of the sisterhood right now. The one you belong to also.

John, thank you for your more than kind words. Here's a hug for you.

Jen, thank you for coming by for a visit. I hope you come by again. I visited your blog and added it to my reader. I'm intrigued by your hair.

Pamdog said...

Much of what you say about relationships resonants with me... I'm in a second marriage now and often wish I had been strong enough just to stick it out and manage on my own. Meshing with another person takes effort and commitment and, although it can be rewarding, I think a solo life would provide much more time for relfection, spirtual growth and even friendships! My husband is rather needy, as you may have guessed. Not to paint a gloomy picture of my state of matrimony, just expressing an awareness of the potential benenfits of the alternative.
Thanks for sharing your (lucid) thoughts...
Pamela