I haven’t been writing a lot lately. Sometimes, when I don’t write, it’s because I’m working hard. Sometimes, when I don’t write, it’s because I’m depressed. Sometimes, when I don’t write, it’s because I have nothing to say. In this particular instance, I haven’t been writing, or rather, I haven’t been writing here, because I’ve been a little bit depressed, yes, but mostly, what I’ve had to say hasn’t felt “ready for prime time.” I haven’t been ready to expose it to the air and light. It’s been even more raw and vulnerable than most of what I write here, which, generally speaking, is characterized by rawness and vulnerability.
What’s been going on is that my affair with Serena has been flickering out slowly, and the pain I’ve been feeling and the sadness has been pretty overwhelming. I just haven’t been able to express it in ways that felt ready, even for the relatively unpolished, unvarnished, unedited space that exists here. Maybe a little bit of that has to do with a desire to protect Serena, but mostly, this has had to do with my own un-clarity about my feelings. Or maybe “un-clarity” is the wrong word. I’ve seen what my feelings are, but they’ve felt, somehow, too infantile, too primal, too solipsistic. Almost shamefully so.
It boils down to this: The bulk of the feelings I’ve experienced consciously over the last several weeks have been feelings of terror and rage. There’s nothing wrong with terror or rage. There’s nothing wrong with feeling terror or rage. On some level, I welcome those feelings. What’s been hard, though, is the pretty radical disconnect between, on the one hand, my thoughts and rational understanding, and on the other hand, my bodily, emotional experience.
Somehow, I’m finding it hard to communicate about all of this, so maybe a little concrete bit of history will help. Just over the last couple of days, Serena and I made plans twice to meet. On each occasion, she became unreachable in the hours before our appointed meeting times. And just as the actual times arrived, she informed me, coldly, without even apology, that she would be unable to meet. These communications were punctuated with additional communications, which, in their simplicity, declined even to acknowledge the presence of irresponsibility, failure to communicate. And an awareness of the emotions that I know Serena well enough to know, that she knows me well enough to know, I was feeling.
Hence the rage. I had thoughts like, “this is cruel,” “you are being cruel,” “you are sadistic,” “unkind,” “uncharitable,” “disrespectful.” Again, I know Serena well enough to know that if the impact of her decisions was my pain, their motivation was anything but cruel. Her motivation was self-care, in a way that I understand intuitively to be somehow primal and existentially necessary. To say it differently, I’m empathetically aware that the cost to Serena of sending me the text, which to me seems so simple, “I’m sorry, N., I’m not going to be able to meet today.” Or, “I’m sorry, N., I’m not going to be able to meet this week.” Or, “I’m sorry, N., I’d love to connect with you, but for a variety of reasons I can’t, could we find 20 minutes to talk on the phone?” Somehow, what I know about Serena is that typing out those words, pressing send on them, was terrifying for her. In a way analogous to the way my not receiving anything from her is terrifying to me.
I know intuitively that Serena was thinking magically. That somehow, if she were not to send the text, the world might somehow configure itself in a way different than she could imagine at the moment, such that we both could avoid pain. This was wrong, not just wrong, insane, impossible, magical, as I said.
But we all think magically sometimes, especially when we are under threat. I don’t understand the details of Serena’s emotional landscape. I don’t understand where it comes from. I don’t understand exactly how it works, or why it works the way it does. But, as I said, I have an intuitive, empathetic grasp of certain aspects of her experience.
Serena is a professional dissociator. She is a little bit like an ostrich with its head in the sand, practiced at the art of putting distance between the world and her. At imagining that if she doesn’t see something, it doesn’t exist. If she doesn’t do something, it doesn’t happen. Somehow this relates to responsibility, and guilt, and shame. A desperate need not to cause pain. Or maybe a desperate need to remain oblivious to the pain she causes. And I guess this is the rub.
Serena’s fantasy was that if she didn’t confront herself with the pain she was causing, that would mean that she was not causing pain. Of course that’s not true. But it was her fantasy. And not just her fantasy, her desperate need. She needed it to be true, that she wasn’t hurting me. She needed it to be true, that I didn’t exist. That I don’t exist.
Here are a couple of facts. She didn’t use the word “love.” Maybe she’s not in love with someone else. Maybe she is. But she is dating someone else. And she wants that relationship to have a chance. And Serena knows the relationship she has with me is a threat to the relationship she wants to build with this other person.
So I have to go.