On the move, adjusting the rear view mirror

Something is happening to me. I can't tell exactly how big it is, or whether it's just a passing mood, or if it will stick, or whether it will be able to weather the next efflorescence of the depression. But some kind of potentially fundamental reorientation feels like it's taking place inside me.

So much of my life has been organized around loss, around lack (Lac[k]anians nod knowingly), around fear of future loss, around absence, around the probability of future loneliness. A personality based on an ontology of scarcity. I worry about who might love me now, but won't love me in the future. I obsess about who used to love me but doesn't now. I worry about what might/probably won't happen. I worry about what I've failed to do. And "worry" here should be read as "obsessively organize my emotions and basic orientation to the world around", because that's what it amounts to.

Now obviously, a lot of this is, has been, the disease. And that's not going away. I will have this the rest of my life. Which means I have to be on my guard at all times, and that I can't get too excited about what might feel like fundamental change (not that I'm predisposed to this sort of thing - I don't recall feeling like this since I went to college nearly 25 years ago). The reality of the depression means that I can't mistake this for more than it seems to be; the relatively rapid appearance of a new regulative ideal in my life, one of plenitude rather than scarcity.

The fact of the matter is that there has always been more, despite everything. I've actually dated more women, slept with and played with more women, than most men I know. I'm surprised when I look back at the various periods of my life to realize how many friends I've had during most of these; I haven't always kept them, but people have always been attracted to me in a variety of ways. Opportunities, sometimes remarkable ones, present themselves to me, even when I don't take advantage of them, out of fear. I've lived in the midst of plenty a lot of the time and instead, I've worried about future lack, unable to recognize what was around me.

One of the most ridiculous examples: I have not infrequently started relationships by asking women about how they plan to break up with me...planning for the worst moment at the best moment. Almost none of them has kept their word - I suppose I ought not to be surprised by those betrayals, including the most recent one. I've done much to create these situations wherein betrayal has such an enormous cost associated with it that it practically ensures that the breakup will be made as ugly as possible...including the most recent one. If I'd felt more confident that there would be more later on, maybe these women wouldn't feel as much guilt as they seem to at the end of our relationships, guilt that then gets expressed as resentment, which hurts both of us worse.

I'm not saying that I want to be one of those men who treats relationships or women or anything else casually; I don't think I could in any case.

But what if I take as my regulative ideal this simple thought: there will be more. Not just in relationships, but in all of life. Stop focussing on the lack, the loss, the probably won't, the I didn't: say the horizon had shimmering above it this simple idea - there will be more. It's so simple, and of course it has the horrid whiff of the affirmation around it. I prefer to think of it as a reassurance; the difference is significant to me - it's not about me, it's about the world. I'm still the same, but if I see reality I have to be alive to that fact: there will be more.

So much fear, so much worry, so much concern about the loss coming up in the future.

I've already seen evidence of how radical a shift this could be for me. The woman I've been playing with had a not-unexpected backlash reaction to the intimacy we've been sharing and started acting out a bit. This lead up to an unpleasant evening where she kind of went off on me. To her credit, she did write to sort of/kind of apologize the next day, though the apology was in the form of "I shouldn't have acted the way I did because it wasn't fair because you didn't actually do anything to deserve it last night - I was actually edgy because I've been upset about some of the things you've been doing in the past week."

Now in the past week the "things" I'd been doing had basically been expressing mild affection and doing some flirting, albeit at a distance. But even this was too much, evidently. So I just didn't respond to her email. For five days.

This is unheard-of for me; I usually rush to process everything, immediately, in fear that the other person might think poorly of me and cease liking me. But I decided that I had acted in good faith, and that I didn't really care what she was upset about. After all, there will be more. If it was that important, she'd tell me, not drop hints in an email designed to get me to ask. So I ignored the email and fought back every impulse to write, phone, process.

Finally, after five days, she sent me another email, asking if I'd received the first one. I immediately responded that yes, I had, but that it seemed like we both needed some space from each other and that I had needed some time to figure out whether or not I cared that she was upset about some things that I'd evidently been doing. Trust me, this is revolutionary for me. So she asked me if I was free for dinner a few days later and I've heard no more of the supposed things I'd been doing that irritated her, even though I made it clear that I assumed she'd let me know if it was that important. After dinner, she said we should see each other again soon. And we've left it there for now.

I just refused to engage, based on the assumption that, should this crash and burn, there would be more sooner or later. Absolutely mind-boggling.

This is new and therefore a little odd. But it doesn't feel brittle; it feels supple and calm, like it can actually become part of me rather than an unconvincing act. Who knows where it might lead?

So much for exorcism of cowardice.