06 February 2008

Things that go unsaid.

More than a few years ago, I was writing a paper which included a small section on Antony and Cleopatra. I had a great deal of trouble with the paper as I felt that I was in entirely over my head. I was trying to deal with questions about the nature of skepticism and acknowledgment both in the play and in my own life.

I can say this.

I was in the process of waiting for this man to say something, words that I had been waiting for years to hear. And they just weren't coming. I was crushed. It was pathetic really. But graduate students can be really socially inept creatures, and I was certainly one of them.

The entire situation was kind of interesting because as I read the play, I could empathize with both Antony's and Cleopatra's struggle with words and their desire to prove love through words--and some outrageous actions. And here I was just waiting for something, some semblance of that exact sentiment (pardon the alliteration) to be spoken or even written in an email.

It never came.

Well, last night, I had a conversation with this particular man. It was one that was long overdue. I owed him a phone call that I wasn't all that interested in making. In the last couple of years, the conversation has become as dry as the type of white wine that I don't like to drink.

And my goodness (!) was the conversation uncomfortable and boring. I found myself wondering why I had such a thing for this particular man--why I thought that the sun practically rose and set because of him. Crushes can be strange things, can't they?

I suppose what ended up happening in the end was that I had to find the acknowledgment that I was looking for in myself. I couldn't just sit around waiting for it to happen because frankly, it was never going to happen. Sure, it was nowhere near what I had wanted to occur, but in the end, I think that I did become a better person for it. All relationships, whether fantastic or terrible, teach us something about ourselves.

Or at least I'd like to think so.

The hilarious part of it all was that last night he said something that I would have loved to have heard several years ago.

Now? Not so much.

8 comments:

cs said...

Great post, MA. It's funny when we look back on our IMPORTANT MOMENTS from a different place in our lives and they don't seem so life or death anymore, even though they were then. And may be again.

You're doing better than most: you're actually still in touch with your former crush. Or is that worse?

Lord Chimmy said...

Former crushes...I've had a few. What I find interesting is how I can go from adoring to abhorring in just a small passage of time.

Seni said...

I try to avoid overdue conversations. I see it as a perk of being a socially inept grad student

Anonymous said...

Cuff, I know. And we don't really talk all that much anymore. Just like once every six months. And I'm starting to love the word crush because it can encompass so many things.

CG, Adoring to abhorring. That would make a good album title.

Seni, I should avoid them as well. I think I was substituting this conversation for another. haha. :)

Jenni said...

I think you're great, and it's posts like this that validate my thinking.

Isn't it funny how things always work out for the better...It's like that country song that goes something like "I thank God for unanswered prayers."

I have a few that I thank him for too!

Anonymous said...

Jenni, Awww. Thanks. You're great too. I thought of you when I passed the prune juice in the grocery store.

HomeImprovementNinja said...

Well, I think you know you are over your crush when you move from pining, to hatred, to indifference/boredom.

Taoists see life like a series of interconnected chain links. Everything in your life, good or bad, is connected to every experience you ever had or will ever have, and each experience brings you closer to what the tao ultimately intends for you.

Anonymous said...

I think that this is totally a part of my new Zen/Taoist training, HIN.