An acquaintance and I were talking about unrequited love recently (in very vague terms) and she told me she doesn't believe it's real love.
I told her it might not be right and it's certainly not returned, but that doesn't make it any less real, no matter how one-sided. The feelings are certainly real and caring for someone, no matter whether they do or do not think of you in any kind of way, is real too.
But it's absolutely pointless, she argued.
Yes, and it's painful, too. But that doesn't take away that it happens, that it lodges itself inside your heart, whether you want it there or not.
Gay or straight, no one in her right mind would want that. But even worse than that it is to be denied your own feelings, when that is the one thing you have in all of the horrible mess that is unrequited love.
I'm sure anyone who really likes someone and is in it alone would tell you they don't want to be. They want a reciprocal relationship, want what two people in love usually have. Sometimes, they even want a family.
When I was in my thirties and first started thinking it might not be so "out there" to start a family as a lesbian, with another lesbian, it almost seemed too late. The few women I did meet either didn't like me or were turned off by my old-fashioned ideas.
By my late 30s, I had long stopped trying, between heartbreak and realizing I just could not live with myself knowing how my parents feel about not just gay marriage, but gay people in general.
So I started living vicariously through other people...either through reading, or by knowing the few gay friends I had who were happy in committed relationships (as were my straight friends.) I became happy that they were happy and I loved seeing elderly customers at work who appeared to have been happy and together for decades.
That was enough for me and I was happy, until I met someone that made me think of ballads like Heart's "Alone" and Paramore's "The Only Exception." Then, I became a cliché that even I had to agree was just plain silly.
You could say unrequited love is a vicarious experience, but if it is, I don't want it; I don't. I mean, really, what kind of rational person would want that?
Besides the "unreturned" part of it all, there's the conviction that you don't really have the right to worry about them. The person I like has a lot on her plate right now and I am concerned about her, but I wish I had my own someone, with whom I had an actual relationship, who not only wouldn't mind I care, but would welcome the concern.
For me, that is the hardest part of unrequited love...having all those feelings of love and concern in your heart and having nowhere for them to go.
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Sunday, March 8, 2015
Sunday solace...
I had dinner with a close friend last night and we had a good time. She is one of the nicest, sweetest people I know and I always feel better after I'm around her. We also work together and over the past few years I've come to think of her as my sister. I honestly do not know what I would do without her.
Today I'm just listening to classical music and reading newspapers. I found this album through a review in last week's Sunday Times. When I'm a bit down or restless I listen to classical music more than any other genre. It helps a lot.
http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/w/1190/Franz-Peter-Schubert-Piano-Sonata-No-18-in-G-major-D894 :
David Fray returns to Schubert with his much-anticipated second recording of the composer’s piano music, a collection of passionate late works. Along with the Sonata in G D894 ‘Fantasie’ and the Hungarian Melody D817, Fray presents two duets for piano four-hands, both composed in the last year of Schubert’s life: the Fantasia in F minor D940 and the towering Allegro in A minor D947, ‘Lebensstürme’ (‘Storms of Life’). Fray invited Jacques Rouvier, his mentor and renowned teacher from the Paris Conservatoire, to join him in the studio, making this album a true labour of love.
“Few pianists have been more acutely sensitive to Schubert's complex inner world” Gramophone
The young French pianist’s Schubert interpretations are universally admired, both on disc and in recital. In its review of Fray’s 2009 album of the Moments musicaux and Impromptus D899, The Guardian praised his “discerning musicality… the sheer lucidity and polish of Fray’s playing, its exceptional command of colour and touch and the way he invariably uses that range of sound to point up musical structures in a meaningful way.” Gramophone declared it “a Schubert disc of the rarest distinction”, while BBC Music Magazine joined the fray with: “What’s immediately striking about his Schubert playing is its refinement, and variety of colour.”
Although Schubert composed over 20 sonatas, only three were published during his lifetime, of which the ‘Fantasie’ G Major Sonata D894, published in 1826, was the last. After Schubert’s death, Robert Schumann described this masterpiece as the "most perfect in form and conception" of all Schubert's sonatas.
Schubert spent the summers of 1818 and 1824 at the chateau of Count Johann Karl Esterházy (of the same Hungarian noble family that had been patron to Haydn), where he taught the Count’s two daughters. There he was exposed to the lively Magyar rhythms and tunes that infuse the Ungarische Melodie D817, a gem he composed in 1824 on his return to Vienna, but which went unpublished until a century after his death.
One of Schubert’s favourite forms of chamber music was the piano duet – he composed some 60 works in the genre. The Fantasia in F minor of 1828 is his last and most poetic contribution to the form as well as one of the most important works in his oeuvre.
In addition to David Fray, Jacques Rouvier – Professor of Piano at the Paris Conservatoire since 1979 – counts some of today’s most illustrious international virtuosos among his former students, including Arcadi Volodos and Hélène Grimaud.--from Presto Classical
Today I'm just listening to classical music and reading newspapers. I found this album through a review in last week's Sunday Times. When I'm a bit down or restless I listen to classical music more than any other genre. It helps a lot.
http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/w/1190/Franz-Peter-Schubert-Piano-Sonata-No-18-in-G-major-D894 :
David Fray returns to Schubert with his much-anticipated second recording of the composer’s piano music, a collection of passionate late works. Along with the Sonata in G D894 ‘Fantasie’ and the Hungarian Melody D817, Fray presents two duets for piano four-hands, both composed in the last year of Schubert’s life: the Fantasia in F minor D940 and the towering Allegro in A minor D947, ‘Lebensstürme’ (‘Storms of Life’). Fray invited Jacques Rouvier, his mentor and renowned teacher from the Paris Conservatoire, to join him in the studio, making this album a true labour of love.
“Few pianists have been more acutely sensitive to Schubert's complex inner world” Gramophone
The young French pianist’s Schubert interpretations are universally admired, both on disc and in recital. In its review of Fray’s 2009 album of the Moments musicaux and Impromptus D899, The Guardian praised his “discerning musicality… the sheer lucidity and polish of Fray’s playing, its exceptional command of colour and touch and the way he invariably uses that range of sound to point up musical structures in a meaningful way.” Gramophone declared it “a Schubert disc of the rarest distinction”, while BBC Music Magazine joined the fray with: “What’s immediately striking about his Schubert playing is its refinement, and variety of colour.”
Although Schubert composed over 20 sonatas, only three were published during his lifetime, of which the ‘Fantasie’ G Major Sonata D894, published in 1826, was the last. After Schubert’s death, Robert Schumann described this masterpiece as the "most perfect in form and conception" of all Schubert's sonatas.
Schubert spent the summers of 1818 and 1824 at the chateau of Count Johann Karl Esterházy (of the same Hungarian noble family that had been patron to Haydn), where he taught the Count’s two daughters. There he was exposed to the lively Magyar rhythms and tunes that infuse the Ungarische Melodie D817, a gem he composed in 1824 on his return to Vienna, but which went unpublished until a century after his death.
One of Schubert’s favourite forms of chamber music was the piano duet – he composed some 60 works in the genre. The Fantasia in F minor of 1828 is his last and most poetic contribution to the form as well as one of the most important works in his oeuvre.
In addition to David Fray, Jacques Rouvier – Professor of Piano at the Paris Conservatoire since 1979 – counts some of today’s most illustrious international virtuosos among his former students, including Arcadi Volodos and Hélène Grimaud.--from Presto Classical
"All deep things are song. It seems somehow the very central essence of us, song; as if all the rest were but wrappages and hulls!" ~Thomas Carlyle
Saturday, March 7, 2015
I have this
intense need to be punished. Not in a 50 Shades of Grey kind of way (not
that at all!) but in an honest, old-fashioned, punishment for punishment's sake kind of way. I can never quite shake the feeling that I am a bad person...and even when my mind is somewhat at rest the feeling that I'm bad is still there.
It never really leaves me, even when I feel I'm being as normal and as good as possible. I don't know if it has to do with me being gay or the fact that I feel like I wouldn't still be single if I were a better person. I don't know if being alone a lot feeds it, but I imagine it does.
It goes without saying that a person can make herself completely sick over worrying about things like this (or any thing, really) and it's even worse when you can't shake yourself...because you are always with you and you can't run away from yourself, not even mentally.
There's this quote from the novel Happy Now? that speaks to that:
It never really leaves me, even when I feel I'm being as normal and as good as possible. I don't know if it has to do with me being gay or the fact that I feel like I wouldn't still be single if I were a better person. I don't know if being alone a lot feeds it, but I imagine it does.
It goes without saying that a person can make herself completely sick over worrying about things like this (or any thing, really) and it's even worse when you can't shake yourself...because you are always with you and you can't run away from yourself, not even mentally.
There's this quote from the novel Happy Now? that speaks to that:
"I
mean, don't you ever get sick of yourself?" he asked Claire. "Doesn't
it sometimes seem ridiculous that we have to live our entire lives in
one consciousness, and there's no escape? Even when we dream, we dream
about ourselves. Doesn't that just seem outrageous?"
Though the Bible is more spiritual for most people, and I certainly understand why, I read St. Augustine more often.
Many nights, I find I really need him. There is something about his writing that helps soothe me to the point that I don't feel ready to scream inside my own skin. I find the idea of living with the bare minimum, almost like a monk or nun, truly appealing.
The following won't necessarily help me get rid of the conviction that I am not a good person, but I do think it will help me live better and in St. Augustine's Confessions I find serenity I can't find elsewhere.
http://zenhabits.net/12-essential-rules-to-live-more-like-a-zen-monk/
Many nights, I find I really need him. There is something about his writing that helps soothe me to the point that I don't feel ready to scream inside my own skin. I find the idea of living with the bare minimum, almost like a monk or nun, truly appealing.
The following won't necessarily help me get rid of the conviction that I am not a good person, but I do think it will help me live better and in St. Augustine's Confessions I find serenity I can't find elsewhere.
http://zenhabits.net/12-essential-rules-to-live-more-like-a-zen-monk/
St. Augustine's Confessions (or The Confessions of St. Augustine) is also worth looking at:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/augconf.htm
http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/augconf.htm
Friday, March 6, 2015
I can't explain exactly why I feel guilty when I wake up from them...I've tried everything I can think of (including lucid dreaming) to not have them...so (I don't think) it's not like I can control them. Perhaps the guilt comes from actually believing (within the dream itself and only during the dreaming) that the things that are happening are true.
I'm still searching for more information on guilt and dreams, but I haven't found what I'm looking for...though this (mostly unrelated) article helped in another way. I love the thought catalog website; they often have amazing articles.
After surviving that kind of ache, you’ll be so much stronger, so much more certain of yourself. You’ll see that all pain (physical, emotional, and metal) is a temporary state of being, not a permanent one. There is always a reason to go on, always a reason to fight for yourself.
Read the rest here:
http://thoughtcatalog.com/wes-janisen/2013/08/you-should-fall-for-someone-who-doesnt-love-you/
Until I can figure out how to stop having those dreams I will try and enjoy the other good dreams I occasionally have and take pleasure in the relief I get when I wake from bad dreams and realize they are not true anymore.
Thursday, March 5, 2015
Some helpful quotes about feelings...
I have been kind of beating myself up about feelings and how most everyone else I know seems to handle theirs so much better. I put my brownies away (because I refuse to eat when I'm like this and only want to eat when I'm genuinely hungry) and then found some great quotes that help somewhat.
“All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling. To be natural is to be obvious, and to be obvious is to be inartistic.”
― Oscar Wilde
Well ^^this^^ makes me feel a little bit better about not being able to write good poetry.
And this goes a little way to realizing you can't always extinguish them:
“...no one can do a thing about feelings, they exist and there's no way to censor them. We can reproach ourselves for some action, for a remark, but not for a feeling, quite simply because we have no control at all over it.”
― Milan Kundera, Identity
Absolutely to this:
One can never ask anyone to change a feeling.”
― Susan Sontag, As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980
And definitely this:
“There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music.”
― George Eliot
“All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling. To be natural is to be obvious, and to be obvious is to be inartistic.”
― Oscar Wilde
Well ^^this^^ makes me feel a little bit better about not being able to write good poetry.
And this goes a little way to realizing you can't always extinguish them:
“...no one can do a thing about feelings, they exist and there's no way to censor them. We can reproach ourselves for some action, for a remark, but not for a feeling, quite simply because we have no control at all over it.”
― Milan Kundera, Identity
Absolutely to this:
One can never ask anyone to change a feeling.”
― Susan Sontag, As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980
And definitely this:
“There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music.”
― George Eliot
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