Unrequited Love Blog

The post title is a reference to the movie with Gwyneth Paltrow, where the film follows two separate plot lines for the same life, depending on whether Gwyneth makes a train or the door slides shut in front of her.  I’ve been thinking on and off about what it might have been like for Jessica to have been with me rather than her husband.  Now I know she wasn’t interested and it was never going to happen, but if we could all just agree to suspend our disbelief for a while, here we go…

I think about her being Catholic, how she would never have been able to have the wedding she may have dreamt about since she was a child.  I wonder if her faith combined with being in a same-sex relationship would have been a struggle for her, for her parents and siblings, for her extended community.  That kind of thing can be very subtle, people (especially Catholics, in my opinion) can be very capable of lovingly accepting homosexuality in others but never in themselves or close loved ones, it would be felt to be a compromise.  If she had been with me, would I have been taking her away from her community in a subtle but devastating way?

I will never make the kind of money most well-educated men seem to make.  I seem to top out at around $70K.  In my area, it’s lower middle-class liveable, nothing more.  I would not have been able to offer a large house in the suburbs, expensive vacations, a certain level of comfortable respectability, or stay-at-home motherhood.

This is really what has been on my mind, more fundamentally.  How could I consider taking children away from her?  Sure, children can be adopted or test-tubed, but they would not be our children.  And I don’t think we could afford for her to stay home with them.  More importantly, they (Jessica and any children) would not be wrapped in the warmth of heterosexual privilege, of unquestioned approval and support, all those subtle messages saying they are doing the right thing, socially and spiritually.  With me, would she be lonely, unhappy, feel vulnerable?  At some deep level feel the life she had was somehow less than? I mean, I’m pretty sure she wants kids, and how could I possibly deny her that, in its fullest form?  I have a picture of the child of my Spouse’s friend, the baby happens to have Jessica’s hair color and eye color.  He is such a beautiful child, how could I even think of taking such a child away from Jessica?

I know I gravitate toward biological explanations for social behavior, I know this about myself.  I can’t help but feel that people are supposed to pair-bond, to mate and make babies together, to create a family.  That the family is the place from which we intertwine with the world, and the place from which we defend against it.  And I wouldn’t want Jessica to have anything less than this Eden-before-the-fall, this enduring fable.

The life I could have offered her may not have been the life she deserved.  I wouldn’t want her to have to compromise her faith, or question its integrity.  I wouldn’t want her to have to struggle for money or feel she had to leave her child in the care of well-meaning strangers.  I wouldn’t want her and her child to ever feel they didn’t belong.

*Door slides shut, she’s gone.*

Share/Save

I have really thin skin today.  I keep calling myself an idiot about the whole thing with Jessica, and generally feeling like a socially awkward, well, idiot. It’s funny how this cycle of self-criticism:realistic analysis:overinflated hopeful evaluation:self-criticism keeps looping around and around.  The intensity levels may vary a bit, bit it’s essentially the same stuff.

Today, a self-critical thin-skinned day, I realize how geeky I tend to come across, and I wish I were smoother.  I want better clothes, more money, more youth, more chances to start over again.  Have you seen the movie “Adaptation” with Nicolas Cage and Meryl Streep?  Charlie Kaufman is such a good writer, poignant and universal.  Toward the end of the movie, after the orchid hunter is killed, Meryl Streep’s character cries, eventually saying “I want to be a baby again, I want to start over, I want to do the whole thing over, I want to be a baby again.”  That’s kind of how I feel today.  Maybe this is tied to my feelings about my mother, and my associations between feelings about Jessica and feelings about my mother (see “Later in September Month 16″).

Also in this movie, Charlie Kaufman and his fictional twin brother Donald are talking, Charlie is telling Donald that Donald was laughed at by the girl he was in love with in high school.  Donald (the life-affirming, out-going twin) says yes, he knew that, he heard her talking about him as he walked away.  But it was his love, and no one was going to take it away from him, not even the girl he was in love with.  I also feel like this at times.  It’s my love, even if I’m the only one who feels it or even sees it as legitimate or “real” or…I don’t know…noble or something, the kinds of things love should be.  Hmmm, maybe I’ll write a film review of Adaptation for the website.

Share/Save

Watched Bram Stoker’s Dracula tonight.  Thought about the count’s position relative to Jonathon Harker, Mina’s husband.  Count is damned, lost, alone, hungry.  Also seductive, powerful, he shows his power to Mina by taming the wolf and then offers that power to her.  The power of protection, the power of love, the power of seduction or destiny or longing.  Harker in comparison is stable, dependable, boring.  But then while Mina is being wined and dined by the Count, Jonathon is daringly and dangerously escaping the Count’s Castle, climbing on high rock, falling, crawling in mud and cold, all to reach Mina again.  He loves her, too.  He is not as exciting, his appetites are restrained, virtuous – not to be made fun of, these are real strengths.  But the Count’s images of blood and war, raging against a God who has forsaken and betrayed him in his most god-fearing hour, calling on the powers of Darkness to avenge his Countess’ death  – nothing can compare to this depth of bonding, of intimacy.  I wonder who it is I identify with, the Count or Harker?  I hope I am the Count, but fear I am Harker.  All this after a couple of glasses of strong wine.

Share/Save