...and you find yourself preparing to deal with it, everything seems to have changed again.
A large part of this art and science of navigation has to do with responding to changes in winds and currents, right?
So what in particular am I talking about. When your girlfriend changes her Face Book relationship status to Single you do take notice, even those of us who have a tendency to be oblivious now and then. To be fair, and accurate in my reporting, I must say that our situation changed some time back, but we both decided that we wanted to continue with a public image of being involved with someone. But when the public notice was served after our most recent misunderstanding, it was a little bit of a shock, especially when she said nothing about taking the action. And really it's not a big deal. In some relationships it would be, but at this point, in ours it not. Still it was a jolt of sorts, unexpected.
We had promised to try talking things out rather than parting company when problems surfaced. This was one of you basic agreements with each other. I suppose that she felt it no longer mattered.
After a week or so later, I changed my status to It's Complicated, but then made it visible only to me.
I will probably change it to Single soon and when I do so, I'll make it public. It's not that I am already looking again
I think we all consciously or unconsciously wait with anticipation in this situation to see how the other is going to react. I'm pretty certain about myself, and I think she may be too. I don't see it as playing games. It's often the last stages of our learning about who this other person really is.
One of the things I've been thinking about with the slow demise of the relationship is how we (as humans in general ) tend to stop learning about each other as time goes on. We cease to find out new and interesting things at some point. I think that this is when things begin to decline.
But the big surprise was when I asked about a trip to see her that was planned, but not yet booked. ( Oh I forgot to mention that this was a long distance romance, sorry. ) She said, "Well, why not. We're still friends." But then a few days later in another conversation she asked about me joining her on two other trips during the Summer. That coupled with some comments with regard to things that had been written by a few different female friends on Face Book lead me to believe that maybe she does still care.
Feeling that nothing matters to the other person does simplify things significantly. Realizing that they may well still have some feelings makes it all a lot more complicated. That's why I am changing my status to Complicated.
I'm not sure that she and I will go traveling together this next Summer, but I am not ruling it out. That will require me to shift gears a bit. I had already made some long term changes, because of what I saw as a lack of a future. I had returned to some earlier thoughts about an early retirement, which would allow me to devote much more time to art and writing. I like and often love my day job, but it gets in the way of my other work, my first loves- all of the arts really. I was sure that I wanted out. I was aching, dying to go, but reluctant to actually burn that bridge. Doing this will require a major downsizing in terms of my basic expenses. It's not that my lifestyle is so extravagant, but California State Teachers Retirement is not quite like winning the California Lottery. Making the needed changes will require time, lots of it.
I would have to get rid of a lot of stuff. I may need the entire Summer to do what I need to do. When I considered moving in with my former girlfriend, sorting through my accumulations of the last several years loomed as a major roadblock, at least in my mind. I am one who needs to look at most of what I am releasing, rather than simply throwing things away. To me the latter is an act of destruction and disrespect, because much of what has been collected are things which belonged to or were created by family members or others of great significance.
This whole shift was initially disturbing, because I had slipped back into some of my old plans. And they were comforting after suddenly feeling unloved, by someone who had earlier displayed an extraordinary amount of affection.
But after a few moments (hours-days) of disequilibrium, things seem to be falling into place. Perhaps I could stay another year or even two (What the hell, I am starting to have fun again!) I can continue learning about all things off the grid, but I'll also investigate things which might be done in a city or smaller community which is not so remote. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. And if I stay on task and consider lightening my load, getting rid of stuff as another part of my work, part of sustainability then I might actually not end up as a prisoner of my possession.
Hmmmmmmm. Well, We'll see what actually happens. More later :-)
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