Water, Water Everywhere

Life is an adjustment, surely.  It is ever-changing, certainly.  The current sweeps sometimes; the current bends; the current carries you as if you were a guest on a luxurious inflatable tire; the current sometimes rolls you beneath the water and leaves you there, if you let it; and sometimes there is no current, sometimes life is placid. 

At least, I think it's placid sometimes, isn't it?  I don't know, it's been awhile.

Sometimes I wonder if not knowing of life's placidity has something to do with me. Is my best at getting through life just a ride on the inflatable tire?

Take love and relationships for an example.  It should be easier, no?  I mean, if it's love, it should have a hint of placidity, even if the current sweeps in once in a while.  Am I wrong?  If it's love, isn't there a steady basin, deep and strong, to catch you and your mate, even if the current overturns you; even if you feel like its hand is holding you under?  Does love always move from adoration, to complacency, to anger, to regret, to indifference? 

Or is this just my baggage?

You know, I jumped on the inflatable tire a few months ago, amidst the swirling - whirlpool - of grief and I sought solidarity with someone else.  I was desperate for that solidarity, for that shoulder to cry on and to lean on, even though I knew that there probably a pretty good likelihood that I would get sucked under and into his whirlpool, or thrown out of the boat and ignored.  Being ignored, I think, is worse than the ripping off of the band-aid or being slapped in the face with the hand of rejection because it's a constant looking over your shoulder for the person you were really beginning to like.

Anyway, this could be old news, this could be recent news.  it doesn't matter because it all follows the same path:  adoration, complacency, anger, regret and finally indifference.

Yet, even with the failure of another relationship in my line of sight, I am able to look beyond it - at that cloud-line that promises something better, or someone better, someone able, someone ready to give and take; someone ready to hold onto my hand and swim with me through the currents.  I have to believe that I will someday swim to those placid waters.  And even if it never happens, isn't it still better than living with the idea that it won't?

In any case, I didn't recently get dumped; nor was I the dumper.  It just so happens that I began dating and really beginning to like someone who was incapable of returning the feelings - though, for awhile, he pretended very well, for his sake, I believe - and it went from talking all day nearly every day to nothing for days on end; then it morphed into a texting thing; and finally, after I looked back on what I have accomplished in the past three years, I stopped trying.  I am astonished by the lack of integrity (perhaps on my part too) to just ignore a person and hope she goes away on her own.  That's just weird for me - I mean, in high school, okay it's understable but in an adult relationship? I tried to figure it out, to be there, to console.  Then I got angry. Regretful. And now, indifferent. 

Same path - different country.

I was blessed with the knowledge that maybe, someday, a good relationship is possible.  I was also kind of tapped with the belief that maybe it's just me.  I mean, the first real relationship after a bad marriage and it goes into the pooper so quickly, and without an apparent cause other than "here one day, gone the next"? Am I that naive in the dating world? 

Ah, I can hear my dad:  "You sure know how to pick 'em."

Bah.

Time to hop on the raft and ride on down to the next bend...