The Knowledgemonger Kronicles

Revisited because I see how it has driven a lot of us (people as an inclusive) crazy in the past. I should also add, because one person made a statement that brought me to rethinking about my need for intimacy, perhaps there is a reason for you being 1st Brain.

The statement, greatly paraphrased not because of lack of memory but more for purpose was this: Why do you need intimacy, if you have everything else that you need without it? And after wrapping my brain around that for a bit, I have realized I do have intimacy. Intimacy to the level of description from our good friends at Wikipedia, the first two paragraphs are as follows:

The meaning of intimacy varies from relationship to relationship, and within a given relationship. Intimacy has more to do with rituals of connection. It is possible to compete over intimacy but that is likely to be self-defeating. Intimacy requires empathy - the ability to stand in another's shoes.

Intimacy is both the ability and the choice to be close, loving, and vulnerable. Intimacy requires identity development. You have to know yourself and your inner self in order to share your self with another. Knowing yourself makes it possible to stand for yourself in an intimate relationship without taking over the other or losing yourself to the other. This ability to be separate and together in an intimate relationship and being okay with that is called self-differentiation. Lacking the ability to differentiate one self from the other is a form of symbiosis. This too is different from intimacy though to some that kind of dependent closeness may feel the same.

I have these familiar relationships with my closest friends. What I found was that I was not lacking intimacy but that I was lacking something that I may not need in a relationship: symbiosis. I have in the past in my relationships become rather absorbed in the other person. I lost some of my own personality and it takes me a bit to recover each time.

I do know what it is that I am lacking that I do want however now with a little soul-searching (Still looking for that, huh?)... I want to feel "wanted." (Please define.) I have some amazing friends, but I don't know how much I can contribute to our relationships. (Why?) Not because I run sub-dialogue in parenthetical blips, (You do.) but because I have an obsessive need to know that what I am doing is beneficial to somebody else.

I feel badly about staying with friends' places over the weekend, not because I wouldn't do the same thing for any of them, but because I don't see what they can ever get out of the situation. It makes me feel invasive, which going back to the last statement of the last paragraph is not helping that need.

Also, there is a bit of a longing for a singular person with which I will have both a sexual and intimate connection and I think this is what I was thinking about before. I just didn't know exactly what I was missing, nor was I coping with it well.

I am not going to let my "longing" interfere with my relationships with anyone else any longer. (Yeah right.) No, really, I need you to call me out on it when it does. Further, I need you all to ask me "what's going on inside of that head of yours?" And not to accept the response of "nothing" indefinitely. Make me talk, make me ramble, make me cry... I like it. (Apparently)

Until next time, kids. I know you want more witty tales and the general tomfoolery of my days, but remember half of that is dependent on you.

I stopped thinking. Somewhere, somehow, I just kind of hit the "auto-pilot" button and started cruising along at a "safe" altitude. The problem with safe altitudes and cruising along is that nothing changes and nothing is learned.

For about 2 month, I stopped meaning "how are you?" when I asked someone. I became like everyone else in meaning that as a simple greeting and almost as if it is a rhetorical question with the implied answer of "fine." I became someone less. Someone...not ME. Earlier, I cried, which usually signifies a breaking point, but it could just be a need for release.

I miss feeling intimately desired. Yes, a very selfish feeling. But, it is true and not to be confused with sexually desired. I miss that series of connections, that "I will always have your back" feeling. The inside jokes. The touch, the feel. (of cotton).

So many people bring so much to me and I thank the gods for you every day. Ironically, somehow that has had both a positive and a negative effect on me as well. The positives far outweigh the negatives, which is why I made the first statement of this paragraph. It has made me desire more and I am not saying particularly from any of you, just that I know I can and have a good man and should not accept anything less. But the longing...GRRRR.

I stopped thinking long enough to ramble on in this posting. Imagine that. I don't understand myself sometimes and yet not knowing someone else drives me nuts. Absolutely bonkers. I guess that is the other edge of the knowledgemongering sword.

And there is trust. Yes, still not fully okay with it. I am always tip-toeing across the rug jsut in case someone is going to slide it out from under me. In my life thuse, far most people have faded in and out, including my mother. It makes knowing what and when to share hard sometimes.

Words of advice to future me: Everyone has their own agenda, don't assume that you know what it is, but don't be surprised when it is exactly what you thought it might be. Also, continue your patience when dealing with other people's agendas, some lessons have to be learned first hand and can not be taught, even when it is painful to watch. Continue to love as a default.

I need more solid two way conversations. More dialogue, less monologue. Internal demons can only be exercised but setting them loose.

Okay, enough of that for now. :-)