It hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks; a realization so unwelcome, so unexpected, and so devastating that, once it fully sank in, I felt something akin to grief.
To fully explain I must first give you some idea of how this revelation came about. The problem is that, in order to do so I'm afraid I have to make myself sound like a stupid, jealous, unreasonable child (which may unfortunately be pretty accurate, from time to time at least).
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She was rude and inconsiderate of anyone's feelings other than her own. Tactless and critical she had been driving me nuts the previous few days (despite my best efforts to not let her get to me. We were on a mission trip for crying out loud!). Worse still her behavior toward a mutual (married) friend was irritatingly inappropriate. She seemed to always be sitting by him and she flirted with him constantly. And I was jealous. I knew it. I knew it, I hated it, and I couldn't seem to do a damn thing about it.
One night while observing the interaction between these two and (silently) reminding myself not to be an idiot, that ton of bricks came crashing down on me. What I was really jealous of was how comfortable the relationship between the two seemed to be. How she seemed almost to take for granted that he cared for her. How easy the (platonic) intimacy was between the two. I realized how much I wanted to have the same certainty in my relationships. The same easy intimacy.
And I realized that none of that may ever be possible.
It feels impossible, at any rate. I'm not sure I can. I don't even think I know how. And I can't figure it out any further because I don't understand it. I can't explain it any further, can't take it any farther in my own head... so how am I supposed to fix it?
1 comment:
It seems impossible to know anyone.
My wife and I have been married since 1994. We finish each other's sentences (sometimes even correctly), and have been each other's best friend for a long, long time.
And yet...
There are days I don't get her at all. At ALL. There are days when I feel like we don't even speak the same language.
It's like watching a pro athlete-LeBron James, say-hit jump shot after jump shot. It looks easy, like he was destined to do it from birth.
You don't see the hundreds of hours of preparation, weightlifting, practice, and film work.
There's another sports analogy-pitching coach Leo Mazzone once said, "Nobody wants to hear about labor pains, but everybody wants to see the baby."
Point being, you saw a few fragments of those people's lives. It may LOOK easy for them to interact, but I'm sure it is harder than it looks.
Good luck.
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