I’ve been exploring the relationships in my life recently (hmm, wonder why), mostly those relationships with men, both romantic and platonic. Looking at the men I’ve chosen to be involved with, why I’ve chosen them and what their treatment of me has been. It’s been an interesting process and somewhat disturbing.
I heard myself utter the phrase “so I won’t have to beg for their love anymore.” What the hell was that and where did it come from?
Looking back at my very extensive romantic history (all half dozen guys), I do see a trend where I find the guy most likely to seem like everything on the surface yet, underneath, there is a lack of emotional connection. They’re really good at the surface stuff – remembering dates, buying lovely gifts, showing off for the public to see what a great relationship we have. But when the doors are closed and it’s just us, that connection that should bind us together is non-existent. I didn’t realize this until recently.
Yet, I am a person who craves that emotional connection. I have it with my few girl friends. But with the men in my life, it seems much harder to come by.
Then I picked up The Artist’s Way yet again (some day I’ll actually get through the whole thing) and read the chapter on Crazymakers and it all made sense. Crazymakers are the blocked artists who cannot or will not express themselves. They seemingly do but yet shy away from anything that will really make them face their creativity and let it out, let it loose, and see where it takes them. They find a zillion excuses as to why they are not fully doing what drives them creatively – job, opportunities, relationships, bad agents, no time.
Many of the key relationships in my life have been with these types. Each important man that, up till recently, I have been very close to – again, both platonically and romantically – seem to not be able to fully embrace their creative life. They are deeply creative and deeply talented in their own fields but cannot seem to allow themselves to release that inner creative child.
Having faced that myself, I guess maybe I looked at them and thought I would be able to allow them to release their creativity, and then maybe I would be able to get to mine, after they were done. Or in some way, my creativity would be released with theirs, solving their problems along with mine.
But having almost lost that creative life this year, and having that creative life challenged viciously recently, made me realize two things – too many Crazymakers in my life (although I didn’t have a name for them) and too many emotionally disconnected men in my past.
I think the emotional disconnect is familiar because I never really got to know my brother as we were growing up. He was five years older and couldn’t be bothered with me. To this day, I don’t talk to him unless I’m at my mother’s and he calls. Then it’s usually, hey, what’s up, kind of stuff. My father, who I adore and who is really responsible for my love of movies, worked nights all through my life. When we did connect, it was very, very special because he was not around a lot. We had an unspoken connection but a rare one. Maybe that’s why I found the emotionally disconnected man familiar – that’s what was existing in my life.
Now I find myself in the company of extremely gifted and talented men, including my three favs. as well as a list of others who are constantly in my sphere. These men are the first in a long time who appear to be fully embracing their creative lives. Their dedication to their craft, whatever it is, is full and committed. They don’t shy away from challenges and they examine their creative life as often as possible and try to find ways to make it even deeper and fuller. For the first time in many years, I am left alone to explore my own creative life because I don’t have anybody else’s to fix.
I also find it immensely easy to be connected to these guys. They are open in a way that not too many men in my life have been. Whether it’s a shoulder to cry on or an ear to listen when I need it or to just wrap their arms silently around me and tell me it’ll be okay, they’re not afraid to be open with me and accept me exactly the way I am. They respect my creative life and openly encourage it in every single way they can. They embrace my emotional life and allow me into theirs, with no judgments, no pre-conceived ideas of what that should be, just open, honest connection.
It’s hard to me to sometimes understand this and accept it. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, for these very special men to find something wrong with me that will drive them away. Or I keep waiting for me to do something that will prove that I am not worthy of their respect and affection and force me to push them away because I do not deserve them.
But each time I show them the flawed side, they embrace it. Each time I drop a shoe, they pick it up and hand it back to me. Each time I show my insecurity and my fear, they show me theirs and we share them together. They show me every single time I see them that I am worthy of their respect and their affection and that they are not afraid to share that with me.
This is all very new to me, especially as I have just begun to be able to recognize the pattern in my life of drawing the creatively-needy to me, the emotionally-challenged to me. I am hoping that, with seeing this trend and understanding it, and with the experience of having these very special, intimate relationships with these several very special male friends, in the future, I will be able to avoid the pitfalls of the past and find myself firmly embracing one who will not drain my creative life but one who will share it, one who will not build emotional walls but who will find the paths around mine, one who will not rate and judge but will accept and respect.
I thought I had him once but now I see that I was wrong. And maybe, maybe, he’s somewhere out there right now, reading this, and he doesn’t even know what he means to me and doesn’t even know what I mean to him. But that will come clear eventually, we can only hope.
No comments:
Post a Comment