music, books, love and kindness

If there is one thing it has taken me a long time to realize, it's that you don't owe anyone an explanation for how you feel (or don't feel). What you do owe someone is to not express how you feel if your feelings concern them, no matter if it is negatively or positively, and these feelings are out of perspective to what your relationship is in fact, not fancy.

Recently I have been trying to take a more assertive role in managing my own well being and happiness. I realize, as I have always known, but never been very good at, that I alone am responsible for what happens in my life and that it is up to me to do better and not give in to my emotions. 

Oddly enough, it is science fiction (of all the genres I read and watch) that has most often helped me in this regard.

Last night I decided to start streaming the original "Star Trek" series. I know lots about it, from popular culture and friends, but have never actually seen it. 

I am four episodes in and marveling at how ahead of its time it was and how it is about so much more than space travel and other worlds.

Having had two glasses of wine by the time I got to the episode entitled "Charlie X," I was already a bit emotional to begin with, internally and quietly. 

Charlie is a character you almost sympathize with at first. He finds himself out of sorts when he is suddenly taken on board the Enterprise to be handed off for transport to Earth (I hope I have the plot right, I was both tired and not thinking very clearly at this point). He had already felt ostracized and targeted for teasing, from his previous travels, though we will quickly come to see this is through not fault but his own.

As the story unravels, the viewer realizes that Charlie is terribly, terribly troubled and self-absorbed and in the throws of a teenage angst that seems to go way beyond normal. Our sympathy soon vanishes as we realize just how destructive and selfish Charlie is and that he will do the most horrible things to get what he wants.

I have to say before I go on that I know exactly how it feels to have feelings for someone who does not feel the same way. If that alone were what is going on with Charlie in this story line he'd have my empathy, 100 percent. 

But Charlie, just as happens in real life with real people, just doesn't stop there. He insists that everyone comply with him, that he should get his way, no matter what. Unlike those of us who know to remain quiet and do our very best not to let on how we feel, he moves like a demonic bulldozer with the woman he likes and anyone else he sees as someone who should agree with him. Captain Kirk's patience, his wanting to show Charlie the right ways versus the wrong, fall unheeded.

This part of the dialogue is my favorite and speaks to me, even though Charlie is pretty much nothing more than a seventeen year old child who never learns his lesson and is most likely mistaking hormones for love:

CHARLIE: Everything I do or say is wrong. I'm in the way, I don't know the rules, and when I learn something and try to do it, suddenly I'm wrong! 
KIRK: Now wait, wait. 
CHARLIE: I don't know what I am or what I'm supposed to be, or even who. I don't know why I hurt so much inside all the time. 
KIRK: You'll live, believe me. There's nothing wrong with you that hasn't gone wrong with every other human male since the model first came up. 
CHARLIE: What if you care for someone? What do you do? 
KIRK: You go slow. You be gentle. I mean, it's not a one-way street, you know, how you feel and that's all. It's how the girl feels, too. Don't press, Charlie. If the girl feels anything for you at all, you'll know it. Do you understand? 
CHARLIE: You don't think Janice. You. She could love me! 
KIRK: She's not the girl, Charlie. The years are wrong, for one thing, and there are other things. 
CHARLIE: She can.
KIRK: No, Charlie. 
CHARLIE: She is. 
KIRK: No.
CHARLIE: But if I did what you said! If I was gentle! 
KIRK: Charlie, there are a million things in this universe you can have and there are a million things you can't have. It's no fun facing that, but that's the way things are. 
CHARLIE: Then what am I going to do? 
KIRK: Hang on tight and survive. Everybody does. 
CHARLIE: You don't. 
KIRK: Everybody, Charlie. Me, too.      * (see below)



I am pretty sure I have never given myself away when it comes to unrequited feelings for someone, but watching "Charlie X" has made me even more determined to never, ever, ever be anything but the most professional and distantly polite I can be. Because Kirk has it so spot on I could cry: 

There are a million things in this universe you can have and there are a million things you can't have. It's no fun facing that, but that's the way things are. 











*
You would think that having felt something similar in such a strong way that you would have sympathy for someone in (pretty much) the same boat. Until recently, I had never had the opposite version of this happen to me (someone feeling something unrequited for me). At first I had lots of patience and wanted to be as nice as possible when the person confided her feelings. I tried very hard and for very long to be as empathetic as I could.

But there comes a point where if that person continues to say things, despite your firmly but (hopefully) kindly explaining that you don't feel the same that things would improve and she would understand some things can't be made to happen...that visibly expressing sadness and even a subtle kind of anger that you know is harmless, but still somehow alarming, are certainly not helping. I so dislike saying this, but I have to question if it really is possible to remain friends with someone when there are very complicated one-sided feelings involved.

I cannot find the words to say that being the object of unrequited feelings is almost as heartbreaking as having unrequited feelings for someone else. I'm not sure any of this makes sense...I just know that I have to put it down somehow and that I cannot. I do know, however, that this has taught me something vital and that I will remain forever careful in managing my own feelings.