It did not rank anywhere near my harshest of days, but it was harsh enough. It was an example of how at time my relationship seems like the quintessential Gordian Knot of torture and suffering.
My partner does not want to hear anything about it. She knows I had a tough day. She could tell when I got home.
What's up she asks.
Just a rough day, I say.
Kids?
No. They're fine. It was a good day for them.
What then?
It's just spring, I say.
What does that mean, she wonders. It makes no sense to her, and of course it would not. For me, spring is the hardest and most wonderful time of year... the time when I feel most alive in my body and most dead because of my partnership... the time when I am most aware of myself as a vibrant sexual animal, frisky and playful and ready to get down, to get it on. And the time when I am most aware of all the beautiful people around me who are not interested in me because I am already partnered.
These are all things my partner has a hard time relating too. She doesn't understand what its like to be in a man's body. She hardly understands sexual desire from any perspective, but especially not from my point of view. And she doesn't want to hear it. To her, my desire is over the top, out of proportion to what is normal or healthy. Which is crazy if you spend any amount of time exploring this issue at all, you'd find there is quite a range of natural desire. We just happen to be at opposite ends of it. And so we cannot understand each other at all. As a scientist she get's me... about as well as she gets our little boy so enamoured of guns and fighting. She understand that to reject his fascination with violence to to reject him on some level. The same applies to me, and so she seeks to be accepting, but it feels like an extreem act of generosity. As if her understanding is really more pitty. Well excuse me for being alive. It's not MY fault the Goddess made me this way.
And so I suffer quietly, but it is painful to me nonetheless. I physically feel the tension in my body. I feel agitated, anxious, penned in, pent up, trapped, wanting to run, like I MUST get out, and yet I go nowhere.... My heart pounds harder, my children wonder why I seem agitated and I think how I must be crazy to have stayed in my partnership so long. I marvelled at how powerful my intellect and will must be that I have done so. Once again, just like last spring, I wonder if I can make it another year. No wonder Beltane and Carnival were invented! I feel all coiled up like a snake ready to explode. And I keep it to myself.
For my partner has her own suffering to deal with. And here is where our Gordian knot comes in. I know that she does but sometimes I understand her about as well as she understands me. And when I seek to give her space to be whole, I tend to give her that which I need most for my own happiness... space apart, time to connect with others, freedom. While she often wants just the opposite... time together, to connect with me. This afternoon, all I wanted to do was run as far away as I could. Truth is I'd love to share these feelings with her, but she hates to hear it because for her it feels like I don't want to be with her... and understandably so. She gets that I'm turned on by other people. What doesn't sink in so good is that I've been this way for 20 years and am still with her. If that doesn't demonstate a desire on some level to be with her, I don't know what does!
Anyway, here's to Spring... that most wonderful and dreaded of seasons.
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