to live with me, as you might have gathered from the previous entry (and goodness, this is almost getting to be a blog of revealing the deep underbelly of the author as much as this or that or the other thing, yeah yeah yeah yeah, but that's a horse from a different feather so so let's tickle elmo later and focus on this introduction to what was a letter to a roommate who was, like so many other roommates, adopted as family and taken care of as if she was my child which has really made life a wonderfully oowey goowey emo experience and i wouldn't change much if i could (hey, a perfectionist would try to make fewer mistakes, ya know?)... so anyway, without further ado, this was written as i was preparing myself for another little chickidy to leave the nest (and head off the woe-is-me pity party that can come from the life of giving... it worked, in case it isn't clear in the babbling)... anybody who cares is welcome... anybody who understands is encouraged... anybvody who wants to share this sort of life is wanted... and who are you? :)
If I lose you with all these words, please at least find the few questions.
Time is not my friend. I am running out of it. I don't have enough of it. And when I do have time to think, it depresses me. But I make time for what is important to me.
Today I have time. I slept and feel relaxed with nothing to do for the first time in a long time. The trouble is, I realize things that are under the surface every day. Things that disturb me. Things that hurt me. I know you care. I know you ignore me well. Because I care, I continue to try to earn your respect and share reality with you. I hope you read this. I hope we talk about it.
We've returned to not discussing money again. You've returned to not giving me half the rent again the last few months. Even though months ago you said you paid off all your bills.
You've never actually given me half the living expenses in the many years we lived together. For some months you give me about half the rent. For a little while you gave me a little extra. The last few months, less. All along, I pay electric. I pay internet. I pay cable tv. I pay insurance, though you waste money duplicating that instead of giving me a little toward the one policy we should have.
And now I see a good possibility of you moving out soon. Sure, not until next year, but it's bound to come and I have a voice in my head reminding me this is how it's always been for me. I give, I support, I hear promises and well-intended assurances that I'll never be forgotten and somehow it will be fair and there will be some pay-back, but then I am mostly forgotten and there is never any memory of the giving.That's life before.
Looking at my life is not always fun, but nobody cares to so I seldom do it anymore. Accepting that nobody really wants to know me is sad, so I don't think about that much anymore. Usually I don't allow myself the time. But enough about me for the moment (this will be a reflective writing for both of us), I want to find peace with you.
I don't expect you to pay back the tens of thousands of dollars I spent to give you a place to live and more over the years. What disturbs me is we have returned to ignoring the fact that you don't even give half the rent anymore and you never really respected me by sitting down each month and telling me why.
A roommate would feel obligated. A friend would feel it's only right to tell a friend why you need their money or can't pay them. A parent just gives without discussion. I accepted the role of parent. Parents only ask about money now and then when the concern comes to the surface that their child might not be able to pay all their bills on their on if they were gone. When a parent has time to pause and reflect and think about life and time.
Parents seldom focus the cold hard light of reality on themselves.
You've accepted the role of child. The child does not want to face the aging parent, the fact that the parent might not make it if they stop working. The parent provides and always will. The parent gives all and rarely asks for anything.
Because I chose to accept the role of parent in every living situation I've ever been in, I will likely have to work until the day I die or at least the day I can no longer work. No retirement. This is my simple reality.
The odds are I will be alone living on canned spaghetti on the street because I will not spent social security money to live in a ratty old room in a poor part of town. Hopefully I will buy a small trailer before the money runs out. I don't know anybody who cares about me enough to talk to about this reality.
That last line is the part of this thinking that brings tears to my eyes.
Only once in this life did I actually share a space where I could actually save money and have a nest egg for retirement and I blew that in the 90s to care for a family of five. I inherited over $30,000 while living with you but that was spent on rent and food and life when I was not working and you could not give anything to rent.
So all this (and I am cutting myself off because I probably already lost you to your guilt and anger and I don't want to waste my time thinking about myself because my intent is not to push you away, though it might be too late for that) to ask...
What is disturbing me today?...
I am concerned that even after paying off your bills, you are not prepared to live on your own or even pay for half of living expenses. Maybe you are and are saving the money you make. Maybe you are spending it on other things. Maybe you will live with Tina and she will pay the bills, for a while. I don't want her to take the parent role - that is not a true partnership and is not a relationship that lasts.
Roughly, it costs about $2200 a month to live here including food and apartment stuff. Take away food and it costs about $1500. That doesn't include phone. Living without cable, internet, and insurance (if someone else pays for it) and it's about $1100-$1200 a month. I recall a couple of times you did give $600, but that was rare. This year, you averaged about $400 (if that much... I try not to keep track because it leads me to think as I am doing right now and that disturbs me and triggers you to run or fight... hopefully you are not gone already).
So maybe you found a girlfriend you can move in with who has a mortgage and bills that only will ask for $400 a month from you and then you can rent space and hope the financial imbalance does not affect the emotional partnership you want to maintain. The fact is that money is a part of a real life-partnership and it is the primary reason most partnerships do not last.
I do not want that to happen to you.
I also don't want you to be in the position I am in when you reach my age.
I hear you, in my head, saying "Don't worry about me." I even hear "You're not my father." and harsher push-away words. I've heard them many times. Those words hurt because they deny the reality that I've cared and acted like a father for years.Push-away words make all I've given meaningless.
Maybe you are not there in that defensive angry place that you usually go to when I bring up money and the reality of life. I can only hope.
I have watched you grow a lot in the decade I've known you. I have watched you grow on many levels, including your journey toward financial independence. Maybe you are managing your money well enough to live on your own and I just don't know it. That is my hope for you.
Unconditional love is a precarious cliff. I have fallen or been pushed off it many times. It is the only way I know how to love.
In my experience, it is misunderstood and sometimes abused by those who receive it, especially when it is coming from someone who is not biological family. Even in families, there is usury and denial and a lot of taking advantage but it is seldom acknowledged. But that is a whole other sociological discussion....
I hope you understand.
I am not asking you for money. I am not asking you to balance the books. I am not asking you to take care of me or even to get real and discuss my life-reality. I accept the roles we have shared - though it would be nice and respectful if you didn't get mad and deny (and hope you can find a smile in the first attempt to tease you in this rather serious message because it shows I believe in you enough to believe you are still there and have not run away).
I am expressing my concern that you do not appear to have the means to pay your half of a shared space living arrangement.
You seem to be starting out with Tina better than you have in any previous relationship since I've known you. Part of that is the shared interests, but that's the surface of the foundation. A very important aspect of the foundation, yet your mistake in the past has been to not give time or thought (or conversation) to the other layers of a relationship (money just being one you avoid). I hope that you learned that it is not enough to coast on the similarities easy stuff.
I want you to be happy. I want you to succeed in attaining your goals in this life. While you have not shared too deeply with me, I believe one of your primary goals to be part of a real romantic life partnership. I believe part of that comes from your need to be loved, your hunger for validation of your worth from someone else. That is a potential weakness that has lead to emotional dependency that has been part of ending past relationships.
Stay out of it? Stay out of your relationship? Stay out of your head? Your heart?
I am not your therapist. I am not your father or mother. I am not even your brother or family. I have no right to care or attempt to get as close to you as I do.
I know that.
I don't know how to care less. I can deny and avoid for only so long, but I am what I am.
That is why I remain alone.
When I see someone hurting, I can't just turn away. When I see someone falling, I throw myself under them. I often get slapped, punched, or even accused of ulterior motives, but usually they get less hurt than I do and that is my intent.
When I see someone repeating the same patterns, making the same choices that undermine them, I do whatever I can to point it out even if it drives them away.
This is why I remain alone.
I am happier alone knowing that I did everything I could to make life better than I have been in relationships where I held back and compromised just to keep someone around.
Too many words?
Everybody I've ever known would likely say yes. Most would not even answer. Most would not even be reading.
This is how I process and resolve my own inner conflicts. Like when the selfishness asks why I give so much. I need a good answer because the giving has hurt and does prevent a comfortable retirement. So the extra words here, maybe 90% could just be me processing my own questions to myself. The kernal question, however, is for you and we will get to it. Perhaps all the words are a test of how much you care about me. Is anyone willing to spend a half hour reading my babble to get to the point? Not so far, alas, but there's always hope.
I have tens of thousands of pages of words on the web, a small fraction of the writing I've done in this lifetime. No one has read more than a few hundred pages as far as I know.
The heart in you may want to care this much. The heart in you may understand wanting to actualize unconditional love in this life. You may be crazy enough to do it one day (it's a good crazy).
Or maybe it is just your insecurity and need for validation that leads you to put yourself in such vulnerable positions. Maybe it is wanting someone to love you as much as it is an altruistic desire to love someone else and even (the good crazy part) save the world with your love.
I choose to believe in you. I think you get mad when I get too close because it scares you. Maybe because you feel inadequate or undeserving of pure unconditional love. I don't think you get mad because you don't care. I think you get mad because you want to care, but you are afraid to or simply convince yourself that don't have the time to. Or that your caring doesn't matter.
I choose to believe you do not just take advantage of me because I let you. I choose to believe there is something else that keeps you from replacing me in your life. I choose to believe BFF is more than just the popular phrase of the day.
Just because you do not make the time to really define and actualize what the word friend means to you, I believe it is not superficial or transient. If you want to know why I believe that, it is what I observe, your reactions to potentially losing a friend. There is more than selfishness or ego or insecurity within your reactions. There is an idealistic altruistic unconditional belief in love.
The more right I believe I am, the more wrong I can be. That is one of the foundation truths in life for me. I can only believe in what I choose to believe in based on what I feel and think and see. That is my illusion, delusion, or reality.
Who are you?
Oh sure, there is the best push-away question I could ever ask, aye?
If I ever really reached you, you are laughing right now.
Even if you are mad or scared because you don't want to be asked because you don't want to share the reality of not knowing the answer. Not knowing does not have to be as scary as is seems.
I am writing this for myself first. I am writing this because I do not want to throw a pity-party when you are gone. I do not want to focus on feeling abandoned or used or how imbalanced relationships have been in my experience. I do not want to whine and drone on about how unfair that seems.
I am writing this to remind me that I make my own choices. I am responsible for the life I live and the experiences I have known. Writing this helps me realize I cheer myself, I am proud of myself, I would not want to be any other way.
Then I can realize why I want to share this with you. Why I hope you read this and get past the limits you place on your mind to actually process this.
It's too much? Your mind does not think this much? Your process is to float the surface and let feelings settle and move on hoping for the best?
How's that worked out for you so far? (smiling even a little?)...
I believe you are so much deeper than you ever let on, you've even got yourself fooled sometimes.
Shhhh, I won't tell.
That part of you so afraid that you prefer being fooled hates me.
I won't tell that either.
I don't know everything, I am not a know-it-all (I just play one sometimes, but I seldom mean to, really). I just firmly believe what I believe and challenge the truth to be revealed. I challenge you to tell me - to show me what is right or wrong.
Of course you do not have to. You do not have to trust me or anyone that much. You do not have to figure yourself out or share yourself with anyone that much.
You don't have to define what a BFF is (please don't hate me if I smile).
I will continue believing in your heart even if I never know.
For me, not knowing is not as scary as it is to accept a belief that people are less than they can be. I will not accept that.
Accepting not knowing is the first step toward knowing.
I hope you are enjoying your weekend. I am thinking about not sending this because it fulfilled the need for me to get real and not allow selfishness to bring me down. I will not send it until tomorrow, even though you may have more time today and it will be easier to forget next weekend when you have a moment to think.
The bottom line is I want you to be free of your fears and the fear of financial dependency is one of your big ones and I do not help you face and overcome that fear by accepting the role of parent as much as I do.
I believe that is why so many people fail financially, because parents do not force the discussion and prepare their children for the reality of paying all their bills independently before they part their ways and then, the fear of the discussion leads to a debt spiral.
So I believe I know why you have not paid half of living expenses in the past. Even if nothing about me in all these words means anything (I benefited from the self-reflection) and we do not define and acknowledge what BFF means (though I think it would benefit you too if we did), I pause this conversation (one sided as it has been so far) hoping it becomes a little more two sided with this question.
Why do we not share equal halves of the living expenses?
And this request (you know I'm not too proud to beg)
Please don't run away.
honest love,
Ric
