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“you’re making assumptions about what you think i mean,” he noted.
they’d been talking for almost an hour before bed. he was discussing the trouble with finding somewhere to fit in.
“i know i’m a broad-minded person,” he said. “but i’m also doing something that’s so unique that no one understands.” when she heard him talk this way, it sounded to her like he was always trying to make his circumstances exceptional, trying to marginalize himself, trying to be beyond the reach of others. “things are much harder for me,” was a constant refrain that left his lips.
“even if the writing goes well, people still won’t know how to relate to it. it’s just what i do, it’s not who i am,” he argued. “i dislike the social construction where this is how people define themselves.”
“ben learner talks about this in his ‘hatred of poetry’ book, that whenever he’s on planes sitting next to strangers and they ask him what his occupation is and he answers ‘poet,’ they get uncomfortable—‘oh, i don’t know anything about poetry,’ but then they ask the name of his books and where he’s been published as if they’d heard of him when they haven’t. it’s so awkward. i think it’s a common thing for writers,” she said.
he said that she was uncomfortable living with ambiguities, it was linked to her being a j-type and very ordered and structured. it didn’t matter that she dispensed advice like “the people you’re seeking are out there,” and “you may have to put yourself out there first before you find them,” trying to be as encouraging and hopeful as she could. her assurances ran contrary to *his* experience.
she tried to find delicate ways of asking whether he was making generalizations about past experiences, transposing them on the future to predict how situations would realize. “i’ve tried doing creative things with other people,” he said. “it’s never lasted.”
“or maybe it lasted for as long as it was meant to last,” she offered.
“which isn’t very long at all,” he grumbled.
she didn’t know what he wanted from her in these situations. if she tried to listen and nod, he looked into her face probing her for her perspective. if she offered what had worked for her, he dismissed it as being unviable for him because of their differing approaches. she was an extrovert, of course she fit in everywhere, of course it was easier for her.
“i can’t be part of a someone else’s group like you can,” he said. “then i’m being led by someone else’s values and i know that doesn’t work for me.”
“whereas for me, i am drawn to groups for the social aspect, they help me figure out what i want and how i define myself.” and as she said this, she was realizing the symbiotic value social interaction held for her. “when the costs outweigh the benefits, that’s when i leave the group, because i’ve found enough confidence in myself to strike out on my own. you’re the opposite; you’re already aware of who you are and what you want and you’re trying to find a group that meets you there.”
in the morning, she pulled a tarot card for the full moon phase and selected “justice.” the blood drummed loudly in her ears. the card suggested she was acting unfairly, either toward someone else or herself, not working toward everyone’s highest good. the card said a reckoning would be coming. at first blush, she worried the card was calling out the dishonesty she brought to her marriage. probing further she found that her husband’s certainty of who he was and what he wanted aggravated her.
she journaled, “it always comes down to him saying, ‘i know what’s right for me,’ and i’m just realizing how much i live in the same headspace with everything i’m going through now, this i-know attitude—maybe that’s why it bothers me to see. the assumptions he makes about other people i am making about him.” she asked herself why she chose to see him in such a negative light lately, and wondered if he was acting as a mirror she didn’t want to meet her eyes in.
maybe she did blame him for what was happening in their marriage, maybe she had been painting him unfairly in what she’d written about their problems.
she didn’t know. she was trying to live in the ambiguity.
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