i have genuine concerns that once you make it to the top you’ll try and sleep with other people. “let’s worry about that when that happens—or are you saying that you believe in me? So why would i want to go somewhere else?” i’d spent no small amount of time over the years trying to reconcile this idea that i won’t ever find someone i want to marry and, because of that, i’m not cut out for it—it’s better for me to go from stepping stone to stepping stone. Was that ideal? I don’t know—maybe it was. The point is to be true to myself, so, I ask myself, “Is it a matter of finding the right woman?” The conclusion i come to is that, given the bounds of civilization and a happy, secure life, it would seem that yes, you don’t want to be left alone, so you should find someone and forge a path that you can share.
But I can’t help but think that eventually the woman i’m with will get lazy and go in another direction—somewhere I don’t want to go. If that’s the case, then the affair would have to end, and i would have to find someone else to travel with. To let into my life. I don’t think that would diminish that which came before—when it was working; but i go places in leaps and bounds, and i worry that others, those I choose to be in my life, might not be able to keep up. If that’s the case, then they deserve better than what I have to offer—and I deserve better, too. Then i swing back in the other direction and think: “i’ll find a woman that can keep up with me—and at the same time, build something that i wouldn’t want to walk away from—such as a permanent home—one that would compete with the home i had when I was living with my parents.”
But why can’t I make a home like that for myself? Why can’t I have visitors—people that are on my side—somebody that would want to come and see my paintings and somebody that I could have serious conversations with? Always, in the back of my mind, as I tried to make my way in this world, I hear this voice saying, “you never get to go home.” Meaning i never get to completely fit in somewhere—I’ll always, in my lifetime, anyhow, be a little misunderstood, and I won’t be able to build a home with someone because that someone will expect me to do the heavy lifting in the relationship—and, if I don’t, the partner, most likely, would walk away. For that reason, then, I never want to marry—i don’t want someone to take me for granted because i know what would happen if I took someone for granted—it wouldn’t end well. So, I might, at some point have to eat my words, but, for now, I say, “I won’t marry.”
In the eyes of those that matter, nothing is ever unforgivable—ever. But depending on what you did, you could suffer a lot. You might struggle to find people that can accept what you did—that can’t understand why you’re not in prison—that can’t understand that prisons are not the answer—and if they are, you need help, not punishment, or unfavorable living conditions. But even if you can’t find people that will try to understand you, and understand that you couldn’t help what happened, and you know that you can’t be that person again, you always have those in the next life that won’t hold your experience on earth against you. You will be understood—you will be redeemed; this life, to them, will seem like a dream—a place that, whatever happens, is that which is beyond your control—and, with respect to that life, then, cannot hurt anybody but you.
i don’t want you to get too happy, happiness that you got, in part, from being related to me, and take me for granted. Yes—i had experienced this urge—to be relatively safe in a relationship, and want sex with others that may or may not be inferior to your partner—the age old notion that you could have your cake and eat it, too. So she had reservations, too, which, ironically enough, gave me this idea that i might hope eventually for something so powerful that neither of us could imagine being with someone else whether it was for excitement, or this notion that, although things were good for a while, they could, at that point, be better. I’m talking about loving someone so much that you believe that they cannot do anything to you that would hurt either of you, unless it was an accident.
But was i pushing Ursula away? Was I thinking or feeling that she would find me and my disabilities to heavy? Was i trying to show her that I didn’t need her help because I didn’t want her to reject me if I allowed that to happen? Well, if it was bound to happen it was bound, but what about the case in which she wanted to help me? Then what? Did I not want her to help me because I thought I could do better after I’d been with her for a few years—and I didn’t want to feel like i owed her anything? I didn’t want her to think that she could look after me and, in so doing, earn the right to take me for granted? Maybe that was happening a little bit—i can be a little cynical at times, but, in my experience, a little cynicism helps you to keep the good things about you inside where they belong—until you get to know somebody and you can trust them.
So what was happening? Well, i liked it when people helped me—I interpreted that to mean that they wanted me to be a part of their life, and, as such, I wouldn’t have to rely on a social worker to talk about my day—or week, as the case may be. What did I really want, then, if nothing else than to offer something to my partner in return—so that i wouldn’t “owe” them? Such that, in spite of my disabilities, in the overall analysis of the relationship, you could say, with certainty, that I was carrying my share of the weight—or, that is to say, I was making my partner happy in ways that balanced out the happiness I felt when they looked after, and loved, me.