Not trying, just being

In my existence I've gone through a couple stages of life. As a youngster I was shy and quiet and generally kept to myself. As a teen I was focused on wearing the acceptable thing and being with the acceptable people and all that silly uptight stuff. In my mid twenties I was trying to be a better person and aspiring to things that seem a little silly. Finally, after all these ebbs and flows I'm in my 30's and I'm me. I don't worry so much about what others think, I say my opinion, and I have the mentality that just being who you are is the way to filter the gunk out of social relationships.

I used to play things PC, be consoling of people I disagreed with, and generally put my thoughts second. But, that part of me is gone. I don't really care so much about impressing, or trying to get in with certain people. Honestly, all I care about is relating on a common level. People are very different and don't always see eye to eye. I'm ok with that. I also think its perfectly acceptable for me to be a friend to someone I don't always see eye to eye with. I often fall into this trap, I'm a pretty laid-back, polite, do the right thing kind of guy. Naturally, that means that when I meet new people many happen to be Religious.

I don't have a problem with Religion on a personal level, but I do have a lot of opinions that most likely rub Religious people the wrong way, and I'm not going to just pretend like I don't disagree. But this also means that I don't poke fun at them for their beliefs. I always have a test of sorts. I think that being Religious is great if you realize that dogma is bad. I've been friends with Muslims, Christians, Jews, and Buddhists, and it all boils down to the realization that spirituality is not static and absolute.

In terms of people relations, I just feel freer now. In my workplace I feel free to joke around and make a fool of myself, because that is part of me. I sometimes worry that by being goofy or funny others will take me as unprofessional, but in reality I'm super hard on myself and know that I always do my best. If anything its a form of bonding and morale boosting, and I also do not take myself too seriously. I realize that I'm just a man and am fallible.

Its also really funny being "free." Its now finally dawning on me that I'm divorced, have a whole damn home to myself, no kids, and am relatively young. I have friends tell me to get out and fuck everyone. Yah, that is not gonna happen. No matter how free I may be, that's just not me. I learned a lot from the failure of my past relationship and that is: don't play games, be genuine, and make sure you are in a relationship for the right reasons. In the past, I stayed in a crappy relationship for too long. I thought that through work things could change. Unfortunately, when you are in a relationship with someone who has dramatic mood swings every six months things don't change, they come full circle.

All this just brings me to now. I see all these engaging, lovely women and yet its like I don't care. This is a growth spurt for me. In the past, any lovely woman who I got along with I would think romance. But now there is just more nuance. I think about different things: will you be able to handle my terrible jokes, will you be able to handle my tight-knit family, do you realize that I'm lazy, do you get that when I fall in love I'm undyingly loyal, can you handle the fact that I will question your beliefs, or that you must realize I'm stubborn as hell and nagging doesn't work. And most of all, does she understand that I want a partnership, I don't expect her to be my mom and I am not going to be her daddy. She must realize that I'll always find her beautiful, even with bags under her eyes, wrinkles setting in, and stretch marks in places that have changed over the years. I have a whole lot of acceptance and now the difference is that I don't want to give it away so easily. 

Pictures

Humans have forever attempted to hold on to images. Hell, the major point at which we distinguish modern man from earlier iterations is art. So, on the one hand, we struggle with the fact that we misplace and can't completely replicate our memories. While, on the other hand, we slowly creep towards having the ability to never lose memories. I've done enough living to know that for many people the healthiest thing you can do is to step away from stress and take a moment. Sometimes we really do have to forget, actively, in order to forgive.

I love the flexibility and amazing technology that we have. I also wonder what it is doing to my brain. In the past, I could just put some pictures in a box and shove it away. Now I have to live with them in my face. In some ways this forces you to really get over things, but in others its just tortuous. I guess at the end of the day the lesson learned is to only take great pictures, otherwise what's the point?

I've read articles about how individuals decided to get drunk and meticulously delete photos of themselves and their Ex like a digital cleaner. This is not what I wanted. So I've just set the stuff aside. I'm not going to start dating soon, so I don't care that my profile is filled with pictures of some unnamed woman. I don't look at them, so they are just relics. The thing I struggle with is the choosing. There were some great pictures, and actually some pretty great times. I don't want to carpet bomb an era of my life because the result wasn't magical. I've always been a journey versus destination kind of guy.

Pictures and videos of the past are peculiar ghosts. As a human you have your memory and your feelings. Once you no longer have a moment in your re-callable memory and you eyeball a picture, the deep innards of your brain somehow rekindle the memory. I've looked at pictures and been able to remember moments that otherwise were locked away. Pictures also recall emotions. I've looked at pictures of Exes, and the way I remembered them versus the way that I see them in the present staring at their picture is very different. If I were to think of past relationships and people, I usually think in glowing terms. But, when I see some pictures I just see a person, just like anyone else. I see their flaws, I see my flaws, images in a frame no longer so inspired.

Pictures have this great power about them to jump-start memories. So what about when you are done with the memories? What about when you want to move on? Is it disingenuous to click a button and have the hard-drive demagnetize and lose the MB forever? Your life is lived and ultimately resides in your brain. The modern world adds new features, such as the ability to communicate over invisible radio waves, and keep snapshots and audio of moments perfectly as a third unemotional party. I personally struggle with the creep of technology and genuine human nature.

Mostly the hard part is seeing moments where my smile was forced or where there was no smile on my Ex's face. These are like the cookie crumbs dropped on the trail that you can follow to the eventual demise of the relationship. Life is hard, and you get hurt, and you hurt others. However, without all that mess we really wouldn't learn. I was a silly person. I believed that the story and the origins of my relationship made it sooo special that the obvious day-to-day communication breakdowns and incompatibilities over what the future should look like were ignored.

So the ethic of the tale is that the past is a trainer. There were miserable moments and gorgeous ones, communication that never made sense, and moods that never seemed to align. We walked bravely and tried our best. This is why I still have pictures of my Ex.

Lessons learned

O the things you learn when given time away from relationships. Learning about myself really puts things in perspective.

1) i can put up with a lot, but that doesn't mean i have to.
2) sometimes it just isn't right.
3) people are not bad because you break up.
4) don't put yourself on the back-burner for someone else for too long.
5) if asked to change drastically the person really doesn't love you.
6) sure sharing moments is great, but the silence and arguments in between don't make up for it.
7) things should be easy day to day.
8) when crisis happens you come together rather than pull apart.
9) trust that what i say is what i mean, there are no ulterior motives.
10) you do you, i do me, we come together. if that doesn't work than we wont work.
11) i know how to make myself happy, and am fine alone, and there are always other fish in the sea if i want. A reminder that life goes on.
12) a bad experience wont dim me from pursuing a connection with another love and i will not let bitterness or anger win.
13) there is no timeline, and there is no end game, things and people come and go and you live in the moment.
14) things are not always 50-50 but if after years one has supported the other's drama w/o equivalent support in return then that is a problem.
15) don't let your partner control your social life
16) there is no need for nagging, i can take care of myself just fine w/o you, the world will still spin
17) controlling behavior just is worthless, and it repels
18) strong and independent dont always mean emotionally available or good partners
19) craft a strong bond with your partner
20) share similar dreams

What was, and what was before: Part 1

It's been awhile... That is the short version of many stories to come. The last time I updated I was in the Midwest, and had been previously gallivanting round the Ilha Formosa. Now I'm back in my native land, the often gloomy Pacific Northwest. All I can say is that this blog will be taking an expanded role. It is no longer limited, but instead is the platform for Purk's ongoing perceptions.

In the intervening years between my journeys to Asia and meandering to the Midwest, I had many events and ups and downs. For the majority of the existence of this blog I was in a relationship with my soon to be ex-wife. I would consider these early years of our relationship some of the highs, but also previews of what would become the lows.

This is the first part of the story of my recent relationship. This is not meant to be a critique or an overtly positive recounting. This is just how my mind remembers things. Mostly, this is my experience and view, things that are beautiful and things that are not. I'm not going to write about the nitty or the gritty, but more about the mood and the feeling. I also think that some of these things that have happened to me are just life and know that others have similar experiences. I just hope by putting them to paper it creates an opportunity to relate.

And so it begins:

We originally set out to bridge the distance, I lived in Portland, she in Chicago. Ironically, bridging the distance involved both of us moving across the Pacific to a small-ish, diplomatically isolated, "renegade" province of China. Known as the Republic of China - officially, and Taiwan - unofficially; the country is a mountainous isle in a semi-tropical location in Asia. The majority of the population can generally be called Chinese. Yet, this does a disservice to the actual realities of the island. The island and is people and history are complex and important but are not essential to this entry.

My ex and I had met previously, back in college. She arrived for a conference and was the friend of my best friend's now wife. We got along, were attracted, and shared a moment. Fast forward a couple years later, and our friends are now getting married. I'd done the Facebook friend thing, keeping in contact occasionally but dismissing the possibility of anything serious due to the distance. She was someone alluring but not available.

Enter the wedding. I've known my best friend nearly my whole life. We went to grade, middle, and high school, and even a bit of college together. We've been co-workers and also best men. My friend's wedding was to be in the Chicago area, which meant I would see the one that had previously been an impossibility. I traveled with my friends, and for the most part we treated the time like a field trip, exploring the city of Chicago, going to the sites and various bars, walking next to the frozen Lake Michigan.

When I saw her again, I was confused. I was in her territory, a large city about which I knew nothing about in the dead of winter. We broke away from our friends and had time to reconnect. It was during this time that I decided to give the improbable a chance; I dove in and tried to seize love. The trip became a blur, the time flew. The experience of fresh love enlivened everything. We became paired up during the short stay. We went to parties in mixed crowds of my friends and hers. It all seemed so memorable and unique.

After having these fun times, something started to take over. It was a feeling of curiosity. I had always written off any possibility of a relationship due to numerous factors, distance and relative unfamiliarity being the predominant ones. Yet, I was feeling risky. All my brain said was "Take a Chance." I tried to ignore this as much as possible, but it remained.

The wedding came, it was amazing, the night was spent dancing and in sweet joy. We got together once again. At first, awkwardly putting on a front of disinterest. On my part, knowing that the clock was ticking and my time was running out before I would return home on the West coast. She knowing the same. But the energy was too much. We spent the rest of the night together and inseparable.

Later, in the wee hours of the morning, surrounded by the entire wedding and in the dark, we made a promise to one another. We would teach English in Taiwan together, that way we wouldn't have to move to the other's city. In this way we didn't have to compromise, we both got to do something we wanted, and do it together. It seemed to be the perfect solution to the unfamiliarity and the distance problem. I felt like there was something between us and wanted to see it through, even if that meant trying in a distant land.

Later days:

Hell, I even did the counseling thing, but oddly enough it was directed the wrong way. The counselor was asking why I didn't want to proceed with a wedding after my fiancee peaced out and came back a week later begging for me back. I was the issue to be dissected, but what really strikes me is that he never asked a single question why she had broken things off. It was like a tag team and me under a lamp being asked why I didn't want to get married after a very public and embarrassing break up that was 6 months before the wedding. Even worse, the things that had broken us apart: future of kids, location to live, and how you want to live your lives, were all easily swept aside with a simple, "I thought long and hard for one week and now I want to have all of those things with you because you are the best." Needless to say, the counseling was more directed at my doubts that we should be married.

So we got back together, lived in like 7 months of bliss, and then everything went right back to the original things that had pulled us apart. This all made me feel like she had been more interested in the production and saving of face rather than me. She has her thoughts, and they will never be clear to me, but that is that. We are divorced and my life is on a new track.