Searching for a sign.

Tonight, I once again loaded Eat Pray Love up on my DVD player. I guess it was one of those nights where you look at your life, trying in vain to realize what's going on, and then you sit back and sigh, then try to find something that will give you a sign as to what direction to go next.  I figured I needed to watch the movie because it would tell me something profound like it always seems to do.

I sat in my big, fluffy desk chair today staring out the window and thinking about the person I've been spending time with over the last three weeks. He's sweet, handsome, and wonderful in every respect when it's just he and I, and he has catered to every emotional need I've had, drying tears and putting up with my growling with effortless grace. He made me realize what I was missing by not having someone to share time with. But inevitably, we all have to realize and accept that there's no point in trying to live in a bubble. Outside influences, along with a whole list of baggage problems, have finally made me realize that although I may like someone a lot, and find them more precious than a handful of jewels, well, when you try to play the gracious host welcoming another person into your life, you also have to deal with your baggage along with the baggage that they carry as well; and then you have to decide whether or not you're available to be an emotional baggage bellhop and/or figure out if you have the storage space to deal with all of their baggage that you try neatly to store next to your own.

As we all know, I'm working hard on rebuilding my life. I've spent the last two years purging every single last piece of emotional baggage, tried in vain to discard every last box filled with bad memories and just spend time trying to find out who I am and then figure out if I really want someone to share it with.

The person I've been spending time with over the last three weeks has really been angelic dealing with my what seems like constant moodiness, my inability to keep my blood sugar at a constant level because I forget to eat and all of the other circus features of my often mixed up life. I think he quite possibly could have qualified for his halo and wings by putting up with me, but on the flip side of that, maybe I have as well.

It's not easy trying to deal with a new person in your life. Take a look at me, I've lived for two years by myself with barely any human contact outside of school and my family and even Nan will go so far as to tell you that if you move something in my apartment without my express permission, I get a little freaked out. Yeah, as you can guess, he's moved a few things around, stored some dishes in places they don't belong in and even went so far as to misunderstand what was going on in my kitchen one Saturday afternoon, effectively ruining the lunch that was waiting to be eaten after an hour and a half long phone call with my boss, plunging me into further blood sugar deprivation. Of course he took care of me through it, but it became something that I looked at with a discerning eye.

But as we say, it takes two to tango and no one is ever without fault. Even though he's so sweet, I can't bear to see him anymore because at three weeks in, I'm having more and more reservations about it. He has an incredible amount of baggage that, even if I tried to play Tetris with my emotional storage space, I couldn't even begin to house it all. The worst part of it all is that our tastes are so very divergent that I have problems trying to keep up with the most simple of things, like going out to eat. I'm a Spago girl, I've been going there since it opened here in Vegas in 1992. I know the maitre'd, I'm definitely on speaking terms with the chef and it's been a very safe place for me for almost 20 years. After all, they were the ones who picked me up when my 28th birthday became a tragic horror story and while I fought back tears, they were the ones that began the tradition of Creme Brulee and champagne for my birthday every year. The food is sublime, the company always friendly and I can't think of anywhere else in the world I would rather go to just sit back, unwind and feel like myself. It's part of who I am, for better or for worse. On the flip side, the man I've been seeing is balancing so much (I won't go into details, but when I explained it to Nan, she winced, if that's any indication), to ask him to try to fit into my not-so-carefree life (but pretty darn close), or for me to try to fit myself into his very baggage-laden life, it doesn't seem to want to gel.

But back to the movie again. I watched the part where Liz has moved in with the "Yogi from Yonkers" and his ever-constant state of unemployment and their arguments that arise from it, I kind of knew that even if the guy I've been seeing was made of gold, he still has a lot of work to do on his life and there's not much room for me. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I'm not trying, I sat through dinner at the greasy spoon, I've been more than supportive, accepting and everything else...but let's face it, when one person's life is on the way to being organized and the other person's isn't and in danger of falling into further chaos, even if you tried forever and a day, someone is going to end up dissatisfied, hurt, triggered or something else. In all, I think it's just a really bad case of bad timing, it really breaks my heart because he is really wonderful, but the timing just isn't right.

But there is one thing that I didn't count on in all of this, that the sweet, gentle man I've been seeing for the last three weeks has inevitably been running head-long into situations that cause memories of my ex. It's not his fault that my marriage was just doomed from the outset, nor was he there for every single excruciating moment of a relationship that had no business existing in the first place. Nonetheless, being that he's the first person that I've had something going on with in over two years, I guess it was inevitable. I guess I'm not done putting away all of my baggage that would allow me to be a healthy, active participant in a relationship. It makes me sad because I guess I'm just not ready yet and that that poor man had to put up with the angst I still have over how badly I was hurt.

But as Liz Gilbert so eloquently put it, "Ruin is the road to transformation." When we look inside of ourselves and find that even though we've been ransacked, pillaged, burnt and torn down, we all find a way to build ourselves up again. I guess that's the sign I needed that said that I'm not broken, he's not broken, we're just in a state of transformation. It takes time to build yourself back up again after being so torn down, so I guess I just hope with all of my heart that his transformation will go smoothly, that he'll someday find who he wants to be again, while I sit and do the same. It's like what Liz said, "We all have to be ready for endless waves of transformation."

I guess it's easy to misunderstand where I'm coming from. It could happen, but we all have to look at our lives individually and determine where they want to go. It's like what Doc T once told me when we were discussing how to write well and convey what we mean, he said, "When you write, you're your own deity. You determine where things go, you determine what meanings are made from what you have to say. So just write, and live the way you write. You determine everything, so just go with it." Yesterday's post was about my attempts at embracing Liz's "endless waves of transformation" and how I reacted to them. I can't help how I feel about things and how I view the world, it's who I am, to be any different would be the equivalent of giving someone else power over my decisions, and I've done quite enough of that, thank you very much.

So, I'm going to take Doc T's advice, determining my own path and just going with it. I guess today I need to remember that from ruin comes transformation. That should hold me over for a little while.  I'm sad things didn't work out, but I'll just remind myself that even though I'd like things to go a certain way, I can't force people to live the same way I do, however much I'd like them to, and no one else can ask me to live the same way they do either.