YWBB rules on dating/remarriage readiness

An Ideal World


Pearl S Buck house .

Image by JARM13 via Flickr

“Life without idealism is empty indeed. We just hope or starve to death.” – Pearl S. Buck 

 

A friend told me last week that I should stop trying to create an “ideal” world. This was in response to a note I sent him about his reply to one of my last posts on the YWBB. He was critical of my stance on the negativity that finds such an easy foothold on the board in part because of the grief but also because those of us who know better are too slow to correct the naysayers and voices of despair. I told him, no, because I am not going to stop trying to share my own experiences or hoping the world will become a better place. I am not going to let darkness prevail. To which his response was that I was going to do well in Canada.

 

Americans and their right-wing ideas about Canadians aside, this got me thinking about whether I am truly an idealist or not. I have certainly copped to the Pollyanna label but rose-colored glasses might not be true idealism.

 

The googled definition of an idealist reads like this:

 

“One of the seven attitudes. Its positive pole is coalescence; its negative pole is abstraction. Idealists view the world in terms of how it could be changed for the better.”

 

Rob thinks that I fit that definition but that I haven’t really had much of an opportunity to action simply because I haven’t had a solid foundation from which to work for a very long time now. I would agree that on my good days I generally am trying to rally the troops (interesting analogy – would an idealist use a military analogy?) to a common cause and that at my least focused I tend towards the unrealistic in terms of ideas and implementation. But to just give in to the general malaise and admit defeat in the face of odds small or overwhelming is not something I can do. I don’t deny my own dark moments when it seemed to me that I would never feel anything but misery again. It’s disingenuous to tell someone that tragedy won’t affect us and change who we are, but Anne Frank wasn’t wrong when she stated her belief that deep down people are good. And I am not wrong when I add that the world is a good place too.

 

I think that grief makes it too easy for us to quit. We say to ourselves that since life will never be the same then it will never be as good either. This allows us to not even try because if we try and fail then that is a reflection on us, but if we give ourselves permission to not try at all then we can hide in our widow weeds, safe from self-loathing and worldly expectations. There is a reason that society both close and far puts pressure on us to “get over” our spouse’s deaths and it is not just to ease their discomfort. It’s not good for us to bog down. Get stuck. There is nothing emotionally healthy in viewing life as having been spent and seeing the time ahead of us as something to merely be marked. In encouraging us to look to a brighter tomorrow and to lay aside our negative feelings and outlooks, we are being urged to embrace life. And is life perfect? No, and it wasn’t before, but it is and always has been a product of hope, imagination, and some effort.

 

From time to time I need to step back from the idea that I can make a difference on my own. Teaching is an example of that. After 20 years I have resigned from my current position and will not be teaching when the fall finds me in Canada. Teaching is a profession that demands a lot of “give” on the part of the instructor and very little “give back” from the students, but if you are doing it correctly you should burn out periodically and need to change venues by way of changing schools, grade levels or subject areas. If you are passionate about what you do, it should show. I am probably a little past my prime when it comes to letting my love of a job consume me. I have other more important things in my life, but I still think that what you choose to do for a living should matter and make a difference in your little acre of life. You can’t make anything or anyone be perfect but you shouldn’t settle either.

 

Could it be that my unwillingness to settle is what others call idealism? Even when faced with ample evidence to the contrary, I have still found it hard to accept that people can’t change, the world might never be a better place and that tomorrow isn’t another day. My Scarlett side, I guess. Because if we all just gave up, decided nothing we could do or say would make any difference or improvement, wouldn’t our world just spiral – negatively – into a self-fulfilling prophecy of doom and gloom?

I think I am Falling in Love


Love for Arts

Image via Wikipedia

I sent an email to my gentleman this morning. He told me last night that he had “fallen” for me and this morning I told him I felt that same way.

Why do I just want to cry now?

It’s nearly noon and I am still in my pajamas. I still love Will but I love R too. And it isn’t as if they conflict or even overlap. They don’t even run parallel. But, they do exist in the same space. I don’t even know what to compare this too. It is so outside of any reference frame I have.

People on the board have compared it to the love you have for your children. Different for each one but just as intense and special. But isn’t quite the same. You expect to have enough love for all your kids, you never expect to meet someone so amazingly wonderful that you would risk losing them forever….again. I have said that I don’t know if I could sit by a man’s side and watch him die, but I wouldn’t want R to be with anyone but me when that day comes. And between now and that far away day, I want to spend every minute I am allowed just being with him.

When Harry met Sally


Someone at YWBB went and dug up an old post of mine from my online dating days and it has clung to the social forum with tenacity for a couple of days now. I was not at all pleased to see it. I really don’t like to be reminded of the games I played with people’s feelings as I ventured back out into the world a few months ago.

Gosh, and it WAS only a few months ago. It seems much longer.

And I was playing. Callously too.

It is as easy to detach from the faces we can’t see on the other side of the computer screen as it is to become attached to them.

Can men and women just be friends? I have had male friends at different moments in time going back nearly as far as I can remember. I can’t remember not having at least a tiny crush on nearly all of them. Though I can’t recall one single time I ever acted on the feeling, I remember a few instances where friendships ended or changed drastically when I was on the receiving end, but those were times when I didn’t return the feelings at all.

So, I suppose my own experiences confirm what most of the respondents thought. That there is almost always sexual tension underlying male/female friendships for one of them, and that when both have feelings, sooner or later action will be taken. Still, sometimes friendships are more important or should be.

All the times that I never acted on impulses even when opportunities presented count for something too.

I think of my friend and wonder if I am better off keeping things at the stage they are at instead of moving into more risky territory. Then I wonder if that is just widow fear talking.

In the movie When Harry Met Sally the title characters were friends for years. Wasted time some might think. But, it was the slow build of friendship that allowed them to learn and grow together and be able to recognize similarities under all the differences. Maybe the question is not whether or not men and women can be friends but whether or not we were meant to be friends first.