Restless

I started this blog post a couple of days ago and tonight I figured it was finally time I get these thoughts out into the world, fully fledged or not. I recently had the slightly random urge to write here again because I'm finally starting to feel like life is picking up again which in turn urged me to spend some time examining things, especially as I still have so many thoughts/worries/insecurities that are buzzing around my head, and at the same time I remembered how much it used to help me to write them all down somewhere like this. Also when you've got nothing to lose anyway, why not?

As such, recently as I have sat at my computer eating the chocolates that I got from a free overnight stay with boyfriend and thinking blissfully about my best friend/girlfriend/lover, travelling across the beautifully treacherous lands of the internet I have come across yet another mention of NRE or 'New Relationship Energy'. For those who haven't come across this concept, as I understand it it refers to the elation often felt at the start of a new relationship or more specifically the influx of hormones that cause us to be excited about a new romantic interest and perhaps impede our judgements about them*. Whenever I read about this concept, as much as I can recognize this idea as something that matches my general experience of romance, I often feel a bit threatened by it simply because of the way it seems to challenge the validity of feelings that I had once considered the be-all-end-all of relationship satisfaction while also inflaming my insecurities about understanding what it means to love someone. These insecurities have been part of an internal conflict that stills plays out in my thoughts today as much as it dates back to my very first relationship, I remember at age 14 after a couple of months of being with my first boyfriend I had already started to feel that though I still needed him around (at this time I was going through some pretty unpleasant mental stuff focused around self-hatred and he was one of the people who were pretty instrumental in getting me through it) most of the initial Disney-esque elation that I had thought amounted to 'love' had more or less disappeared. This realisation- especially after having convinced myself that I'd never warrant romantic love from anyone and was therefore lucky to have it currently- had really scared me, and though after the relationship ended I had dismissed these fears by equating the crushing sadness I felt with a 'broken heart', throughout the last four years this doubt about not experiencing feelings of 'love' outside of the initial spurt of hormone-driven romance has still caused me to doubt my own commitments. Long story short, because of my insecurities about how my emotions connect with the common discourses around love, when I read about NRE I tend to worry that my current relationships may be unfortunately hollow to some extent on my part causing me to lie to and hurt those that care for me, while on the other hand fear being easily lead astray by Big Shiny NRE feelings if anyone else comes along considering that is what I had often thought 'love' to be while letting down my current partner/s in the process.

So, I guess after all that back-story the question is how do I get through this mental block? In practise I do use the word 'love' pretty frequently when I feel comfortable doing it/think it will best communicate what I want to be heard: that I want to reciprocate someone else's feelings at the time, that I want to be around them, that they are 'special to me' etc., but in theoretical terms despite four years of thinking about it I am still a bit confused. Maybe this is just a matter of me not noticing some things about my attachments, for instance I have often used imagined thoughts of loss to gauge how emotionally attached I am to the people around me, but I've always found it a bit disingenuous to use that as a measure for determining what is supposed to be a fairly unique emotion by most general accounts (but then again, when do I ever listen to those?). One of the other practical differences I feel between friendships and romantic relationships is that I tend to put more responsibility on my partners in being sympathetic/knowing how to make me feel better, and though this can make me feel unnecessarily hurt by my partner's actions sometimes maybe it shows a higher level of trust and hope in them than I usually give to people (although it's just as likely to be an occasionally harsh residual behaviour from my first relationship where that was something I really treasured about my partner).

When it comes down to it as well as not wanting to delude myself I don't want to hurt the people who care for me by being callous or cynical to the point of chronic insensitivity, even if it is in a way that I don't really understand; I guess in a paradoxical way that's sort of the point: there are people that I do really care about and want to be close to despite my own tangled feelings. When I think about it carefully of course I realise there are differences in how I act and think about friendships versus romantic relationships, especially because lately this has been brought to the front of my mind in the changing of a friendship into something more romantic/sexual in nature, and yet I still feel like I hit a brick wall when I try to understand my own feelings towards those I attempt romance with. It is scary, to put it bluntly, and I can't stop myself worrying that I'm going to wreck my better relationships because of it. But in the end maybe this is something I have to just not over-think and keep using my old 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' approach; this is harder in a polyamorous relationship I think because it is so easy to get distracted by the new and shiny, which aren't in themselves bad things to experience as long as you keep perspective, and that maybe is what I think I'm finding a bit difficult about the arrangement at the moment (though this is overshadowed by the benefits and other important issues that arise).

Having gone through all these words now, I'm beginning to think that at this point in my life this maybe isn't something I can just punch my way through with a Socratic dialogue, and though I loathe to leave this unfinished maybe I just need to do more talking and thinking and living before I find where I really sit on this. Realistically, from experience I've realised that embracing my fears about not understanding or feeling love only hurts the people around me by pushing them away, and though this is something that still worries me at times I think the best way forward might be to keep it frustratingly open-ended.

To end on a nicer (if not more clear) note, something that does give me solace are the little things I feel a compulsion to do for those that I think I love, often for seemingly no other reason than I know it would make them happy or show that I care about them. Finding and buying a replica of The One Ring, not killing ants, those little meaningful things somehow seem the most important to me sometimes in a strange way, and even if these things are just some entrenched societal reaction to romance, it's those things that give me hope that maybe things are more ok than I make them out to be, and for that I'm glad.

xx
s-a

P.S: I found this answer I'd given to a question about love in late 2010, in some ways I think it's more coherent than this rambling stroll through my current thoughts on the subject, it might be interesting to read them together.

*Sources:
http://www.adrienneparker.com/2010/07/nre-in-polyamorous-relationships.html

Note: This post isn't as well thought out or insightful as I'd like it to be, but I thought it was high time to post it regardless. If I keep going with these posts (which I would like to) hopefully they'll become more eloquently written and in the meantime I hope the few remaining friends/followers I have will enjoy the little looks into my brain.

I know I rarely post serious stuff here these days, but I'm feeling at the current moment that if what I'm increasingly wanting to do is write about what is happening in the world in regards to politics, media, and social justice (not in that order), maybe I should start paying more attention to what is happening and attempt to start writing about them now. It's also helpful that the only people who read this blog are me and boyfriend, (hi there) so I can sound like a complete tool to begin with and no one will really care, after all practise makes perfect right? I might even move all of my inspiration stuff to me and Xin's old fashion blog just to make everything seem more coherent, but will see how this whim goes.

So to start of with on this adventure, I just wanted to say how happy I am this lovely afternoon that we finally have this Carbon Tax. Although I admit I'm pretty vague around the details of the plan as are probably a lot of other Australians amidst the haze of media and political conjecture on this issue, sometimes to the point of farce, I still think this is a brilliant step forward for a country that has one of the highest per capita emissions in the world and hopefully one that will mean substantive changes in our future. Despite all the people crying the end is nigh on this one (starting with The Federal Opposition) I also think there is genuine happiness among many people about this baby step which was fought so hard for by activists, politicians, and concerned citizens.

Hopefully what we see from now on is a gradual acceptance of these reforms and an orderly progression into being a more 'green' country, but time will tell eh? As a comment on the ABC news website reads: 'the sun will come up tomorrow'.

s-a

Article from the ABC: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-08/carbon-tax-passes-senate/3652438