Potential

I saw a Twitter post recently, listing the things women get hooked on that lead them to hang on to unsuccessful relationships, and one really struck me. Potential. We see potential in a guy, and we cling to the dream of what he could be. What he could accomplish. If he has enough time, if he has enough money, if he has enough support... If, if, if.

And, quite frankly, I don't know what to do with that. I see potential in everyone. It's one of my probably misguided, but unshakable core beliefs. Everyone has something to contribute to the world in a way only they can do it.

So when you believe such a fanciful thing, how do you stop yourself from seeing the potential in everyone? And if clinging to that hint of potential is what brings relationships to their downfall, how do you avoid that? I will never be with a partner I do not believe is capable of great things. I also think most everyone is capable of great things. And thus, I am in a conundrum.  How do I weed out the guys who will end up complacent and unsatisfied in all things, when I can see that they are capable of more?

I don't have an answer. Because Einstein, in all his brilliance, had a wife who suffered through his inability to hold down a job. Who raised the children and helped with his theories. Who sacrificed herself on the throne of history so that her husband may one day be deemed a good man. Though I doubt that was less her motive than a socially instilled duty to stand by her husband at all costs. And where has that led her? Into the oblivion.

But some men become truly great, and perhaps it is sometimes because they have truly great women behind, or even better, beside them. But how the heck do you know who is destined for greatness, and who will end up destitute in a stranger's basement until their next "big idea" takes off?

History is littered with women who "stand by [their] man". Some end up reflecting the brilliance of stars, and some die an ignoble death in the infidelity of public opinion. And, on occasion, some are seen bathing in the imaculacy (I've now made that a word) of their own light. Without another to validate or magnify or in any way alter their greatness.

Anyways, I'm going to bed for now. This has been yet another stream of consciousness by yours truly, destined to forever be lost in the void.

Journal Entry

Despite my best efforts, this has become a journal, of sort. No one cares enough to read this. A broken collection of incomplete works by an unknown author. Though my positive affirmations say I will one day be the author of a bestselling book.

But as it stands, I am still myself. Anonymous at best, nonexistent in reality.

According to my therapist (and what decent writer doesn't need a therapist?), I am supposed to write about how I have been abandoned. Stream of consciousness. No filters. No grammatical policing. Just a free flow of thought. Well, she's got the advanced degree and I don't...yet.

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How I Have Been Abandoned: A Rant

I cannot help but feel that, in some way, everyone has been abandoned by their family at some point in their lives. It is how we develop ourselves as individual beings. So let's start elsewhere.

Is it possible to be abandoned by friend you never truly had? For those who had never pledged any sort of loyalty to desert you? I don't think so, but perhaps it still happened. I didn't really trust my friends in high school. And I completely distrusted my friends in middle school. But who among us can honestly be trusted for anything in middle school?

I always seemed keenly aware that I served a purpose for others, should they choose to subject themselves to my company. A homework helper, a shoulder to cry on, a fatter friend, a black acquaintance. My purpose was to fill a need and never to go beyond that.

I think I always felt that way, but its truth became starkly apparent upon the divorce of my parents. It was sharply clear who I could talk to and who I could not. And the number of people I could trust to care about my feelings and struggles was an absolute zero.

I remember thinking I could trust someone because he had told me how he was hurting too. Being older now, I cannot truly fault him for it, but at the time, when I told him about my parents' divorce and the ensuing craziness, his simple "oh" burned. It didn't matter that I knew he had placed seventh in a skating competition, or that I worried and cared that he had trouble eating because he simply didn't care. It does now, in the light of hindsight, but at the time, when I so badly wanted a lifeline, it was as though I had created a Brutus that never wanted to be such.

Perhaps we should talk about my "abusive" boyfriend. I use quotes because emotional/mental abuse does not count for so many people. It counts for me when I think of others, but it is meaningless when I consider myself.

I sat on the other side of a table while my father said it was my fault that I was here, and that he couldn't help me out of it because it wasn't a problem he made. Sure, he used different words, and my interpretation may be skewed, but that's what I heard. A problem in your life does not constitute a problem in mine. Which is fine. But it's also not fair to be hurt when you were not informed of the problem with which you would not help. It's not fair to make your claim to righteousness while your daughter cries in front of you at a fancy restaurant while the waiter awkwardly tries to ask if you want dessert.

I have been abandoned by boyfriends who wanted sex, physical pleasure, emotional satiation from someone not healthy enough to give it. I have been abandoned by a therapist who freaking FELL ASLEEP while I was talking to her about my problems.

I have been abandoned by friends who don't understand my inability to maintain contact because I can hardly get out of bed.

And I could go on and on and on. But what good does it do? I understand the abandonment in most cases. It has been well deserved, and to pretend otherwise is to play the victim and complain endlessly.

Maybe I have been abandoned, and that's why it's such a hook for me. I hear someone's been unjustly abandoned, and I am willing to sacrifice even my well-being to try to be there, to be something good for someone. It's like a trigger. And I hate it. And I hate myself.

But...what else is new?
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Update: More stream of consciousness

I've been abandoned by every guy I ever liked.

The first was a sweet and kind-hearted person who felt the need to pretend for those around him.

Then, SEVERAL years later, I liked a guy who wanted me to want sex more than I could at the  moment. And in his need to be validated by having sex, he left me in the dusty cold of virginity. Not only alone, but thoroughly unwanted. Because who wants to wait for someone who a) suffers from trauma and can't accommodate you anyway and b) is interested in waiting until marriage for that final, sexual satisfaction?

In the mix have been several boys I have only liked because someone told me I was supposed to like someone at all times. 1) That one guy in high school who married the girl you'd always wanted to punch in the neck. (Not really, but maybe a little.) 2. That one guy who was partially faithful to several girls at once. And that's actually about it.

UNTIL, I fell in love with a lovely Australian boy. But I won't tell you about him because no one cares.


And now, now?

Now what? Therein lies the problem.