compromise – Lost in Txtlation

So there is the definition, yet somehow I feel as though most people use this word in a completely broken way when it comes to relationships.

“Acceptable to Both”

“Each side making concessions”

“Mutual concession”

But, what do I hear more often than the above?

YOU need to…

YOU have to….

YOU are going to have to compromise so they are comfortable/happy/ready.

This doesn’t sound like compromise. It could be, if the other person was also getting the above and each of you decide to come to a decision together so you both are comfortable. But we most often hear “You need to compromise” from friends and family, because that is who we turn to to ask when we feel the need for help and we can’t understand what is going on with our significant other. The problem is, our family and friends are not seeing the entire picture. This knee jerk reaction to say “well compromise” comes from a place of good intent, but can often be ill informed and cause an instant feeling of guilt or insecurity in your own relationship. The minute you ask your friends and family what to do in a half baked picture, the minute you muddy the water with socially acceptable “make you feel better” chatter. It is the SIGNIFICANT other that needs to be having this conversation with you, due to compromise being such a personal and intimate need for two people who share life together.. If you are ever in a situation where there is a balance of power shift where you feel as though you have to compromise on who YOU are, it is no longer a compromise at all but you submitting to a bad situation or one that needs work. When you compromise with a loved one obviously you have to be humble and give a bit, but it is mutual. You don’t leave it feeling as though it isn’t better for the whole. You don’t feel as though it is hindering you from being you because it is allowing you to love stronger, harder, and with more understanding.

There is negative compromise and positive. At the end of the day you need to be ready to accept when it is negative and either stand your ground to keep who YOU are intact, or you must be able to come to the hard conclusion that the “MUTUAL” compromises needed to make the relationship work are not actually mutual from your end of the spectrum. I am saying “you” a lot because it is a selfish side of being that needs to be kept intact. That sense of self can often be lost for many people in and through other people’s needs and wants. So you feel like you are “compromising” so they are happy, but slowly you are breaking down all your own joy, creating a shell of who you could, can, and want to be. And eventually you get beaten puppy syndrome, brought on by your own inability to know when it was no longer a compromise but a, for lack of a better term, deal breaker.

Dating is scary, I get it. Especially in the beginning and even scarier as time goes on and more is invested. But we as a specifies need to get over our shit when it comes to the idea that a relationship may or may not be working. I know I have been stuck in many in the past because I was too prideful, comfortable, naive, to just tell the other person I was no longer happy and why. So me thinking I am giving it my all is actually bringing down two people, my significant other and myself.

Dating gets tiring, I get it. Loud and clear. The fatigue that sets in from telling your “intro story” over and over, getting excited because they said something in return that made you think it would be beautiful together, or just dealing with the many incompatible people. Dating sucks, so why are we wasting time trying to “negatively compromise” instead of just moving on and trying the next person. Instead of juggling 50 at a time, shoot like an arrow, 1 at a time, your all, until you find it. No complication, confusion, and your intro story can be much different. Why? Because what if we all approached dating like talking, telling our day, including ups and downs, day by day to person by person. Living in that moment and not worrying about living vicariously through their Facebook history.

So don’t compromise on yourself, on who you are, and on how you date. But when you do meet that person who is right for you, remember this…

Compromise is a beautiful thing we done by the actual definition, but do it by the socially accepted viewpoint and it has a tendency to break you down. Compromise should not be a synonym for settling.

“Say something, I’m giving up on you. Anywhere, I, would have followed you.”

(Link to song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2U0Ivkn2Ds )

This song really resonated with me earlier this year, err last year? I realized that I am incredibly susceptible to silence. Not the silence that makes sense because you have established a relationship, a knowledge of one another, or something that resembles a long term relationship understanding. I am not talking about silence needed to give space and room to your significant others or friends. I am talking about knowing enough about someone to know there is a whirlwind of emotion and trouble going on where you just wish you were “just a friend”, because of the idea that a title such as boyfriend or significant other or dating has literally hindered any further ability to communicate freely, cry openly, bitch and moan without worry. The idea of making the other person happy, is fulfilled by actually including them into your darkest moments. Feeling that even if they need space that you are someone who can help to achieve it. Feeling as though there wasn’t enough groundwork laid for a complete shut out of words to be a way that we could, together, work through the world ahead of us. Being able to give space and time I can do, and I am so willing to, but how can that happen when there isn’t a baseline of… well.. reciprocated love?

I often speak of European culture and the difference between American culture of “How are you”. The difference between a response of “NM, You?” and an actual representation of how they are regardless of good or bad. We shared that together. You comforted me with your life, your experience, your acceptance. But it all turned to shit and sorrys became more prevalent than actions to show you actually believed what you lived, experienced, and shared with me.

In this case I felt as though if it wasn’t good, I wasn’t privy. I read into astrological signs a bit and find them interesting to say the least and I find myself a Leo in the sense that I need positive reinforcement for the little things. I need the other person to be open to letting it all hang out with me or I tend to think they are not interested or have anything interesting to offer. I think this also has to do with how I was brought up, I looked to avoid clashes, yelling, and all sorts of unnecessary drama by reading the signs prior to the explosion, trying to cut off the head of the dragon before it blew fire. So I feel cheated when I am stuck in a dark room without any idea of what to expect next, when the other person isn’t an enemy, a righteous boss, a confused parent, but my lover. The person I want to share myself with beyond love.

LOVE IS NOT ENOUGH…

Every one of my last relationships has ended because “love” was enough for them. “Love” is the beginning of opening up the rest of your life. It lifts the weight of trying to find the unattainable life goal so you can do other things magical with the love, the person you have found, and your life in general. So why stay in a relationship defined by hopelessness, I am not a hopeless romantic, I am hopeful. Should you be “waiting” for the perfect moment? Is it like where you love your job but don’t know if it is where you want to be till the end, so you stick it out waiting to see what will happen in a few years time that may push you closer, further, or to a similar path? So should you be waiting or should you be fixing, actively, or is the waiting, part of the fixing. There is no black and white to any of this shit. It is what works for you or what pushes your brain to the edge of insanity allowing you to evolve to the place you need to be.

I see so much about a person I am intimate with through body language, eye contact, and voice inflection, it shows me love, it shows me concern, it shows me their own pain, and in the case where these moments are far and few inbetween, that helps me to sleep better at night. So I sit here trying my best to predict the move before it happens, not knowing if we are even playing chess or checkers. I forget, what it looks like, if they remember how to show me it, if they want to give it or if they are on a completely different timeline than me and just don’t care enough to share it with me anymore. Everything in every bone tells me otherwise when I do get the moment to see those eyes, darkened by pixelated screens and closed down exposures. It gives me hope. But hope for what? I know what I hope for, but can someone hope if there is no one else out there hoping back? Am I sitting in the window singing a song from Fievel only to be met with stars and space. Space which should make the heart grow fonder, but seems to be breaking it apart. Am I singing to nothing? Somewhere, out there, beneath the pale moon light…

Is your life moving on the same timeline as mine?

I swear depending on where you are in life your life moves at different speeds. Ever have a dream and wake up instantly? Ever have a dream that lasted days?But in reality it was still the same time period in terms of a clock time. Now apply that same idea to a job or a year of life. How fast did your week feel? How long did the last few years feel? If I felt like my week sped by and you felt it crawl by does our perception of time actually change how we would see each other? If I said I will talk to you in a week and my week flew by but yours was drawn out, would you feel like I was ignoring you or as if you needed to find someone else to talk to when it felt as though all I thought about was you?

Not knowing is the worst part of it all. Not having closure one way or another. I have written about love and how I have always gone into relationships with my heart of my sleeve and figured hey, if they punch it, oh well, I will bleed a bit and get back out there. So I will not do it any differently here, but this also clashes with what I wrote about love being extremely scary.

Love is scary.

So it is a strange thing to feel this way about another person.

There is so much of the equation you will never know because in the end you are both two different people with different thoughts and minds.

But when it feels right there is something to it that makes you think you can read their mind and them you.

But I think the scariest thing is something that happened recently, watching her put away my laundry, feeling sick, and completely out of it, yet I sat in the bed and watched her. And with everything playing against the situation and an increasingly upset stomach on my end as well, I couldn’t look away. I didn’t want to ever have to.

And I think that is where it becomes scary to feel this strongly for someone. When you realize, wow, if they leave, die, or just turn into jerk faces, it is going to hurt.

But I have always gone into relationships with my heart of my sleeve and figured hey, if they punch it, oh well, I will bleed a bit and get back out there. So I will not do it any differently here, but it just feels soo much more intense.

Plus you wonder, does it just happen like this? Have I found that person? It is something we all want but when faced with the reality of it, it is freakin scary.

Instead of thinking a year into the future with random thoughts of “If it works” my brain has already played out 30 years from now. At least I haven’t considered dying next to her yet, although I have considered where I would retire and how that would be. Lol. Dammit so probably like 50 years in the future! BY THE WAY YOU ALL DO IT so don’t deny it lol. It isn’t me sitting in my room contemplating it for hours it is fleeting quick thoughts that flash by as quickly as you blink.

We are still in the moments where we spend a better half of a day in bed just staring at each other and making witty banter. Then we realize our day is gone and we rush to do normal everyday things. But somehow, and I am yet to figure this one out yet, we fit in a WHOLE lot of substance to our conversations and days even if it feels rushed at the end after we sat in bed all day.

Nothing prepares you though for the day you are literally boiling over from the insides to tell someone you love them, it spilling out in a messy tear filled, jerky sounds, and not flattering at all, but being so real that it was nothing short of perfect. But then only able to feel as though those words have changed everything for the worse. Not because of the words, but because of what chain reaction they caused in a very unstable scenario. Turning your love from a gentle amazing moment, perfect in everyway, to the reason the pain and the hurt now exists. Resentment. How do you heal that?

Giving yourself, putting yourself out, and thinking… shit, now I have to wait more or perhaps it is never coming again. You see her in everyone, you hear here in everything, you picture you both doing the littlest of things. You realize life was better as a whole.

But perhaps, even that was just an early facade. Perhaps this is a very clear reflection of that small bit of “crazy” we were not compatible with and ultimately a “deal breaker”. You were told they believed in your words, you were told they agreed with your thoughts, you saw they experienced the culture, you saw they experienced what it was to love, so why was your love and everything you did after not seem to move them to accept it. Why has love become the wall? Why for an immediately open communication, beautiful exchange, and wonderful chemistry has a block formed so thick that you stay awake nights tossing and turning because you just feel as if they can’t let go of something they most likely are over; you. Why do you feel like the only reason you even get a text or call anymore is out of pity and confusion on how to truly end this. Why does it have to be with this person who everyday became more beautiful to you. Why does it have to be with someone who made you feel so much happier. Why does this have to be with someone who you feel could have inspired you to reach new heights of your own ambition and you to them. Why has this turned into the feeling of “fixing” and not “embracing, acknowledging, sharing, and being open”. If I link one more Image or motivational quote that I live by such as “Happiness is not circumstance-dependent.” I will forget who I am trying to convince. I trusted you, it wasn’t just a feeling but an educated expression of what could be, was and might be.

I will always love her. I don’t think that changes. I just think this time, love was not enough for one main reason, time. Time, that ugly mean mother fucker, revealed the truth. But I see her in everyones eyes, I smell her in every breeze, and I sense her personality in every characterized movie. But there is nothing more I can do. I have given my all. I have worn my heart on my sleeve and never thought twice. I have accepted our differences and loved her harder as things became harder. But you can’t love alone. You can’t fight alone. You can’t share to no one. “Maybe if I leave and come back another time” I say to myself. “Maybe if I give the ultimate space”. But I know, I KNOW, if I did that it would be over. There would be no later. It doesn’t work that way. Our lives would no longer have any strings to tie us together. She would eventually become whole and someone else would fill in her new found happiness. The thing that really makes me boil is that I accept her even if it is tears. But I will not try to fix anything, I will just be me. I have tried to “fix” too many times and I am left empty by the time it is “fixed”. Or should I say patched. No matter what a person’s core is what it is, and even if you patch it up, you leave and it doesn’t get any better, they have to choose that themselves. So you feel double the hurt because you feel as though you let them down and you lost someone.

Relationships don’t work they way they do on television and in the movies. Will they? Won’t they? And then they finally do, and they’re happy forever. Gimme a break. Nine out of ten of them end because they weren’t right for each other to begin with, and half of the ones who get married get divorced anyway, and I’m telling you right now, through all this stuff I have not become a cynic. I haven’t. Yes, I do happen to believe that love is mainly about pushing chocolate covered candies and, y’know, in some cultures, a chicken. You can call me a sucker, I don’t care, because I do believe in it. Bottom line: it’s couples who are truly right for each other wade through the same crap as everybody else, but the big difference is they don’t let it take them down. One of those two people will stand up and fight for that relationship every time. If it’s right, and they’re real lucky, one of them will say something.

How long does it take for love to turn toxic? I think the most impactful part of that song is the “I’m giving up on you”. Because I am. I really would have climbed mountains with you. I would have made it work because each and everyday your flaws and beauty became better and better. But you didn’t seem to want the same. There is so much hypocrisy in the words you once told me and the person you currently are. There is a difference between families being different and not making room for me, almost embarrassed to let me in, blaming a situation rather than admitting it is personal. There is a difference between needing space and ignoring. There is a difference between saying you like a culture that is open and sharing and then closing off completely. There is a difference between me finding that balance of my own needs for open book and your extroverted introvert versus not working together at all. I feel alone, yet all I can think about is you. I may have anxiety and social restrictions in my life, but I am willing to work so damn hard on them and break out of the comfort zone to figure this out, but not even a breadcrumb makes me feel very alone in the woods.

“I’m sorry that I couldn’t get to you. Anywhere, I, would have followed you. Say something, I’m giving up on you. I will swallow my pride, you’re the one that I love and I’m saying goodbye.” Because we don’t have enough of a foundation to survive without the “Say Something” literally, figuratively, abstractly.