I don’t know how I feel. Not because I am numb or that I don’t have the ability to express the depth of the emotions that are churning in me. But it is more that I have become so super-sensitive to every digression from the mean, from the point where what I had hoped for diverged from my reality and I find myself as far from my goals as I was when I began my journey. Had I known that I would be cleaning up dog poop that has been lying on the carpet while I slept and others, just as capable of dealing with the mess as I am, walked by and over the mess, when I would mop up urine from a stoop while other conscious and ambulatory human beings stepped over said mess to go outside…
Reading some of the articles from Thought Catalog it seems like only women can be victims of selfishness and lack of character. That isn’t true, but it depends on the metric that one uses to gauge things, because both selfishness and questionable character, while recognizable, is not something that is universally defined. Many of the relationship dilemmas in the Catalog have seemed to me, like many things has now that I am entering my 50’s, to be generational. Rather than putting a blanket over the younger generations and putting their problems off to being “snowflake related”, I will say that things have changed because of a difference of what is emphasized and where priority is placed. In my mind, where the past generations were fixed on issues of substance, i.e., being a good provider and homemaker, currently, I find that relationships measured by just that-- how things actually relate between people. Goals, hopes, and just as importantly, how WE are going to achieve things, all the while keeping an emotional balance of shared interest.
The dilemma that I face is that there is NO WAY for me to believe that Kitty and I have enough “shared interest” to maintain a relationship. At least, not at first glance. Now that we are edging closer to selling her home, I am trying to envision a future where we remain friends. As I understand things, she is “bought in” on us being a couple.
I don’t believe that her character is one that I can envision spending any of my “golden years” with. This Admiral McRaven commencement speech, pretty much clears up any potential misunderstandings that one would have in personal relations with me. If nothing else, measuring yourself against the ideals encoded in the speech, why to the fail of the relationship between us likely existed. All the debate would be in retrospect and between you and those in your life that gave a f*ck, as I certainly would not!
