Talking with Steve, my therapist, yesterday, I mentioned the museum metaphor that I wrote about yesterday. We talked a bit about it, and about the dream I had last week, and he basically blew my mind open about it all.
With regards to the dream, he asked me how the “me” character in the dream felt. I told him I felt hurt, scared, a little angry at times etc. Then he asked me to put myself in the shoes of the “you” character in the dream. Then he asked for me to tell him what that character felt. That was a lot harder. I closed my eyes and thought and ultimately started talking. I said, “I feel pity for this man in front of me, I am so tired of this, I am so tired of having to deal with this, I wish he didn’t hurt like this, but I cannot do anything more to stop it, I love him, but I cannot love him like he wants me to, and possibly how I really would like to.” At the end of that Steve said, “So that’s what the Grier character in the dream felt?” I said, “Yes.” Then he explained to me that the character was not really you, that the thoughts that the character had were really my thoughts, a way in which my subconscious thinks of myself, projected onto a female character that looked a lot like you in the dream. It has nothing to do with the way you necessarily feel about me, but more about how I feel about myself. Everything started to click then.
I realized that though I still love you dearly, much of what I love is the memory of what you were (and maybe still are, I don’t know) combined with a somewhat idealized image of you in my head. I know so little of who you are now that it would be impossible to be in love with you in the way that I think I am. I still think you are an incredible person, one of the best I have ever met, and I believe that stands outside of that idealized image, but recent e-mails have proven to me just how much different you are than the memory or image in my head. None of this is a bad thing, you are struggling with lots of things and, I know, trying to make positive change in your life. At least that is my hope.
Realizing that makes me realize that I need to keep the memory as just that, but try to do away with the idealized image. I think I secretly knew this anyway. When Liz asked the other night what it would take for me and you to get back together again. I at first said, “Grier would have to fall back in love with me.” Then I went on to say, “I think we would have to take things slowly and get to know each other as the people we are now, forgiving some of the past stuff, and having faith that our attempts at self-improvement are steadfast (probably didn’t really use these words;)), and that we would have to talk clearly of our expectations of each other, identifying deal-breakers and desires.” I didn’t really ponder what I had said too much. During the session with Steve though, I realized and talked to him about my belief that that may be the most mature feeling I have had about “me and you” in a long time. There was a storybook beginning to our story, but there really will be no storybook ending. Either we will lose contact altogether, we will try to become friends, or somewhere down the line, we might try to pick up the pieces and try again. I don’t think either one of us knows what will happen. I know I don’t despite the fact that I try relentlessly to see the future. I need to be more patient with so may things. Let things unfold. Despite the fact that a few of the emails we have exchanged over the past few weeks have hurt me at times, at least we are getting to know each other as who we are now a little more. Any friendship or new relationship between us will require that. I guess it gives me a little hope, because of the three potential endings I mention above, the least desired by me is for us to lose contact altogether.
I need to get the image of you, good and bad, that is in my head out, and only think of you as who you are now with the information I have now. I need to stop having the image as an artifact in that museum, like a picture hung on the wall. No one is a picture, not even a moving one. You can only be who you are, and the same for me, and hopefully we are both making progress toward being better people with happier lives. I hope there will be space in each of our lives for the other.
About the museum thing, Steve said, “Sometimes you have to look around the museum and get your fix of artifacts and placards before you are ready to leave it, maybe you are still looking around?” I said, “I think I am about ready to leave it.”
Sorry that I rambled so much. If you made it through all of this, thank you. What I know of you right now, who you are now, is something and someone I have deep love and admiration for too, even after I throw the image away.
Take care.