(From my journal for my writer’s craft class)
I was thinking about what you said yesterday. You said that when you thought about giving up your teacher’s position, you said to yourself, “Why am I doing this when I love doing it?” I remember myself thinking that not too long ago when I decided to break up with my partner and move into a different place with different people. After everything was done and it was too late to turn back, I felt like I was throwing my life away. I really thought I had made a huge mistake and had completely ruined my life. I think my real problem was that I was just afraid of change.
I still am afraid of change, but I’m losing that fear as I become increasingly aware of the benefits change can bring. My relationship with Bruce needed a change for sure. We kept saying, “Oh we’ll change, we’ll change,” but we hardly ever did as much as we needed to. Then one day we finally said, “Hey, we’re obviously not going to change enough to improve our relationship, so let’s move on.” It wasn’t until our relationship changed in such a devastating way for me that I realized I could change in a way I thought I never could. I was so afraid of separating with Bruce for many reasons. One reason is that I couldn’t see myself ever being as close to anyone else as I was with him. I could never let anyone into my life like that again. At least that’s what I thought then, and still think, although I’m trying to release myself enough to let someone in. I don’t know if I ever will, but it’s something I think is worth experimenting with. All I can see in my future right now are friends and people who are slightly more than friends, but nobody like Bruce. He is truly one a kind.
There’s someone I know in Puebla, Mexico, that I would want to get that close to even though I hardly know him at all. I’ve just alwasy felt very close to him since I met him over two years ago. That’s the crazy part abou it: I decide first what kind of relationship I will have with someone, and I stick to that very stubbornly. The structure of my relationships is so set in my mind from the very first time I meet someone and I don’t know if that’s such a good thing. If I meet someone who I like very much and I decide that we will only ever be friends, that’s all we will ever be. Even if I fall in love with that person later on, I can’t allow myself to . . . I don’t know quite how to word this properly . . . take them in, or give in to them . . . to allow myself to love them . . . I just cannot let them completely into my heart. I don’t know if I’ve explained this well or not but my basic idea here is that I cannot release myself enough to get close to people, I’m having trouble allowing myself to do it.
So anyway, getting back to my original point. I was very thankful that I thought I was ruining my life after it was too late to turn back, because if it wasn’t too late, I would have turned back and that would have been the big mistake. Not all change is good, I realize that. But I think this change is fantastic for both me and Bruce. I think the only way we will ever improve our relationship so that we may be together again is to completely shed all our fears. We need to realize that we cannot ever completely understand each other and accept that; then move on with each other. Appreciation of our differences is the only thing that will save us, I think.
But right now it’s like the end of an era. It’s like the beautiful and strong Empire State Building collapsing to the ground in silence (as opposed to crashing to the ground in roaring flames) leaving just a pile of rubble and ashes. The good part about that though, is that from those ashes will rise the most beautiful phoenix and that phoenix will be free to fly everywhere; whereas the Empire State Building was rooted firmly to one place, to tradition, and to fears. Together we will be free soon.
