More Molchat Doma from the great state of Belarus… It wasn’t really my intent to start this way but the artwork drew me in and the music came on and stuck. Funny how that works.

It looks like the heat has settle in to the city for a bit more, at least another week, much to my chagrin. It adds to the feeling of being trapped. Maybe trapped is a strong word but what else? Limited is lesser but not fitting either. Let’s just say I’m just sitting here sweating.

Pondering romantic relationships this morning. Not too much. It’s more musing really but the thoughts there. It never really occurred to me that I would be approaching sixty and single and unattached. I’ve always believed in storybook love, real love, true love etc. All that mushy stuff. There have been a few times over the decades I seemed to be in it for real and for good, but there’s probably a reason that there are more sad love songs than happy love songs. What’s real and what’s not real. Maybe it was real every time I felt it but it was just a case that real and forever aren’t synonymous. I always kind of believed in forever love. Silly me.

Don’t get it twisted. This isn’t a mopey lament. It’s just thoughts. The irony is that for all my romantic notions, all my happiest moments came in times of solitude. It could be that it’s impossible, at least for me, to just be in a happy moment with romance. There always seems to be a low-key buzz of anxiety and thoughts of how to ensure it lasts, rather than just letting it last for as long as it may. You can’t be too happy when you’re always thinking of the future… or the past.

A friend saw a photo of me and an ex (whom I remain close to) hanging out last year and keeps telling me that she thinks said ex and I look like we belong together. It is a lovely photo. It’s of two people entirely at ease with each other but my suspicion is that the ease and comfort are born of having zero expectations. Sad but true. I made the mistake of telling the ex that this other person keeps telling me that the two of us look like the perfect couple and that we should be together. Ex replied, “We do, but you would have to…” and went on to mention some fairly random change that it would be necessary for me to make.

…

And had I been harboring even a remote thought that just perhaps it could be true, the thought vaporized then and there. That’s really why after five years of making a go of it, and another 6 years with every opportunity to rekindle things for even random sex, that nothing ever happened. It always came down to some concession that had to be made from one side. Nothing changes if nothing changes, and the man who sits here writing this is not the man that for most of his life would make any concession for love. That’s the sad truth of it. And the happy truth as well. I’m not the same man. I’ve inventoried all the compromises that I’m willing and not willing to make. Bad trade deals, and relationships are a system of trades and exchanges, aren’t something that would ever happen in my life anymore. Now this one change that ex mentioned isn’t even all that significant but the mention of it… the throwing it out there before any discussion could be had… that’s more than significant. That is, to my mind, why things never worked in the past. It always came down to some concession on my part, which is ironic because I’m pretty open and flexible. And all I know about love is that a person needs to be of two minds. We all tend to focus on what we want from a person in a relationship, and not nearly enough on what kind of person we want to be in the relationship.

Shaking my head, and laughing…

Not everyone will see the change in you, MacGregor. Not even the people who know you and love you the most. Everyone will always see what they want to see, and will usually respond to you the way they would respond to the person you used to be. That’s why so many relationships never heal, family, friends, lovers, etc. Broken things will follow you right up to the grave if you allow them that latitude. You don’t have to allow them to. Let me repeat that.

You don’t have to allow them.

So do I tell her why we’re not making another stab at it despite that there is no person I’ve ever loved more? Or do I just file it until the conversation comes up again? It’s not like filing it would create a new resentment. I’ve already harbored and let go of every type of resentment possible as they might relate to her and our past. All that and I still love her, though I love her from this distance and not that other distance. Ain’t that all grown up of me? And I’m laughing again. These things are silly. We (humans) are probably genetically hardwired for this sort of bonding but we’ve spent eons dressing it up as romance and each of us giving it more faith and devotion than religion.

I just don’t know about all this.

What do I know? I know I’m happy. I know that I find beauty and wonder and joy in the world in ways that never happened before in my life. What more could a man ask for at any age? It’s crazy that it takes so long to find out what to let go of and what to look for.

It’s time to start that other part of the day.

It’s time.