Slip Away Fades and Goodbyes

Committed but not obligated

I enter the room, committed but not obligated. I am there because I made a contract with myself in an attempt to live a commandment. Honouring a person in relationship when there is history, minus affinity, is toilsome. I have been here before, here being that feeling, of barely tolerating, wanting to escape; to fade out of a room and leave enough space between them and me, to hear silence. 

My ears hum while words rattle in my mind until I sense an urgency that they must come out onto a page or a screen because if they don't, they will make yet another useless track of soot in my memory, and that, simply, does not serve me. 

I have become a phantom of sorts. In the relationship world, there is that haunting term known as ghosting. I have been ghosted, and I have done some ghosting too, meaning when it is time to say goodbye to someone, rather than saying, We are done here, I have drifted away, like a boat untethered, floating from a dock with no rope to grab at to draw me back in. A friend of mine, in agitation, stated, There is a beginning, a middle, and an end, to each conversation. She had been ghosted, right in the middle of an exchange, and this was irksome: as an elegant communicator that relies on what appears to now be outdated etiquette, she could not fathom why anyone would be so rude as to not finish what a person has started, with another. 

I was reading about goodbyes this morning, and how so few of them are done correctly. I suppose we can make excuses for why we do what we do, but I think it better that we ask ourselves, How come? What makes me behave a certain way when relating becomes a painful chore, I want a way out, and rather than addressing a difficulty, I leave, just ... leave. 

Alone with his sorrow

I see my father now, sitting silently on the couch. Wordless days have gone by and the silence is deafening. He is a phantom in my memories, a big man in my mind, full of strength, drive, ambition. He had many a terrible time, fighting for his life at a very young age. The communists had invaded his country and he killed, but never shared what that was like. He was shot, stung by a scorpion, had nothing to eat and lost his teeth and hair ... he was seperated from his momma at the age of twelve, and never saw her again. I remember him closing himself in my parent's bedroom, alone with his sorrow when he learned, six years after her death, that she was gone. No chance of a goodbye momma, I love you and missed you all these years ... 

The etiquette of the beginning, the middle, and the end, hasn't been taught and so, we haven't learned this marvellous art of relating. We connect and disconnect from one another, and leave unfinished business. Do you have unfinished business, dear reader? I must consider my own ... have I left things undone?

Merry go round relationships

Some relationships are circular and do not edify, and yet we cannot leave them: the circumstances do not permit our departure. Yesterday, a pal said: Why don't we jump on a merry-go round and spin round and round and pretend we are having fun. I laughed at the imagery, the pretending. Spinning things make me nauseous; repetitive unproductive communication that is circular in nature makes me want to jump off and speed wobble away from whomever it is that wants me to travel in their stuck thought grooves. When we stay, when we cannot leave, sometimes we become phantoms of ourselves, no longer relating, just co-existing. The meaty middle part of communication disappears, and all that is left is a weak hello, and slip away goodbyes. 

Silent treatment

I learned the silent treatment from my father. There was unspoken disapproval in his ghosting me, my sisters, and my mom. I had to guess at what I had done wrong, always assuming it was me. Perhaps each of us were doing this, believing we had deeply offended without knowing how, except the one person it was really about ... him. He lived slip away fades and goodbyes. He was with us one moment, laughing and joking, whistling and singing, and the next, he was there and gone, body present but unavailable for interaction. Have you had this before, dear one, this experience of someone being close enough to touch, but the world between you keeps you forever apart?

I understand my father from a distance, as an adult. I understand myself better now too. Relationship requires effort, and conversation, once initiated, must follow a formula of beginning, middle, and end. When to stop talking and or listening, is a whole other skill set, and that, is a topic worth exploring, but not for me this day. I just want to float in my boat, look up at the blue sky, and drift, untethered.