Crab-walk?

While most people my age are buying their own house, moving in with their one-and-only (or main) partner, educating their children or waiting for the right moment to have their own kids — if they haven’t already done all or some of this —, I’m doing none of this and I’m actually making sort of opposite plans. Pushing 40, I feel closer than ever to the way I was in my twenties, to my authentic youthful self who had my own dreams. 

I did try some of those things, mainly the living with exclusive partner thing for several years in my late twenties-early thirties. And then finally walked out on that — to everyone’s benefit! 

I’ve never wanted kids of my own, although I enjoy being around my friends’ children and even helping them out and/or being a sort of “aunt/uncle/buddy” figure to their kids. 

When I walked out of that relationship, over five years ago, I walked away from a whole lot, and rebuilt myself a life almost from scratch here in California. And now, in a seemingly comfortable situation living on my own as “young professional”, what I truly want is to live with buddies, to have fun or pleasant roommates with whom to live and also socialize — as if I were in my twenties! I feel like I’m moving backwards, doing a sort of “crab-walk” compared to most of the people my age, to most of my friends and acquaintances (except for some friends who are much younger). 

I tend to be on the introvert side of the spectrum but I’ve realized than I’m actually much more sociable than I imagined. I miss the group friendships and communities I had in college & grad school. I realize I’ve needed several years of solitude to get myself back on my feet or to “get my life going” as I had always wanted it to and was struggling to do in Europe; but now, I feel open to life & more interaction & connections again. Now my solitude feels like it’s turning into loneliness. And yet the type of connections I’m seeking and wishing for seem to be “out of sync” with my current official age…

So am I doing the crab-walk?

“Something just like this”

“Something just like this” by The Chainsmokers & Coldplay:

“I’ve been reading books of old

The legends and the myths

Achilles and his gold

Hercules and his gifts

Spider-Man’s control

And Batman with his fists

And clearly I don’t see myself upon that list

But I said, where’d you wanna go?

How much you wanna risk?

I’m not lookin’ for somebody

With some superhuman gifts

Some superhero

Some fairy-tale bliss

Just something I can turn to

Somebody I can kiss

I want something just like this 

I want something just like this

I’ve been reading books of old

The legends and the myths

The testaments they told

The moon and its eclipse

And Superman unrolls

A suit before he lifts

But I’m not the kind of person that it fits

I said, where’d you wanna go?

How much you wanna risk?

I’m not lookin’ for somebody

With some superhuman gifts

Some superhero

Some fairy-tale bliss

Just something I can turn to

Somebody I can miss

I want something just like this

I want something just like this”

… but it feels like the more clearly I know what I want, the harder it is to find… why?

“Beautiful boy”

I recently saw the movie “Beautiful boy” which touched me and resonated with me in various ways. 

There’s a boy in me. “Biologically” I am a female but I have always felt androgynous, sometimes wishing that I & the world were “neutral”. I’ve always felt a boy in me. And now, as my eyes and mind are getting rid of the veils from social/cultural conditioning, I see that boy when I look at myself in the mirror: a “beautiful boy”. 

I also see and feel the pain of that boy, like a hole in the soul sometimes — like Nic Sheff’s. And I realize that my intense exercising and my long summer solo trips on the road and/or out in nature often serve the same purpose as all the drugs Nic Sheff would shoot into his body: to try and anesthetize the pain, to fill that hole in his soul. To a certain extent, my hitting the road is as much of an escape as Nic’s shoving drugs into his body: I guess I’ve just been more fortunate in my choice of “drugs” — less damaging for my neurological system… 

But my road trips and adventures also serve the purpose of letting that “beautiful boy” in me come out fully — and now I see that’s always been the case for me. 

Alone

I’m feeling lonely. Today, it’s the “I am alone” aspect of the refrain “I walk alone” from Green Day’s song “Boulevard of broken dreams” that resonates with me. 

Last night, my loneliness was so intense that my chest felt tight. 

The causes of this extremely intense loneliness have deep, ancient roots for me; but last night it was triggered by something very specific: by a few different friends telling me about their fun plans for this summer with other people — with their partners and/or other friends but not with me. That’s when it struck me. And it hurt awfully, it hurt so much that the pain was even physical. Friends don’t invite me to do fun activities with them, they don’t plan fun things (like summer vacations) with me. Friends seek me out for a chat, maybe for advice, for a walk or dinner, maybe sometimes for a short half-day hike — and often, anyway, it’s me seeking them out first. But when it comes to bigger plans, plans that require more thought and that entail more connection, I am not included. This hurts. 

I must admit, it wasn’t always this way. There have been times, even many years, when I had individual friends or partners or groups of friends with whom I made plans and went on trips together and did fun, bonding activities together, even until quite recently (pre-COVID). So I realize that it’s partly been the pandemic that has exacerbated this situation or pattern for me. But it hurts awfully nonetheless, and maybe even more so because I know the beauty and joy and sweetness of planning and going on a trip or a weekend adventure with friends or partners. I know how fun as well as meaningful those experiences are for me, how bonding and important and joyful. I have missed these things terribly during the pandemic, as many of us probably have. But last night, all of a sudden, I saw that now, as the U.S. gets a “break” from the pandemic, many people are going back to joyful group plans and activities while I am not. For some reason that is not totally clear to me, my friends aren’t including me in this aspect of “coming back to life”. Why?

So then last night I called one of my closest friends here to share my feelings with her and possibly even find the causes or a solution to this situation. This friend is a wonderful person, both very empathetic and a practical problem-solver — and one of the few people who often tries to include me in the activities with her daughters and husband. She listened to me and tried to comfort me and offered some practical ideas to try and improve or change my situation. She also suggested some reasons why other friends or people in general might not be so keen on including me in fun free-time activities. She said: (1) “You are intense (I am intense, too)”; (2) “You don’t do dating and leaving those boundaries unclear is confusing for many people”. 

I understand both comments. I have been told before that I am “intense”; and my loose boundaries between “friendship” and “romantic partnership” (based mainly on consent and feelings rather than established patterns or rules) has been a source of confusion in some of my relationships before. So I know there’s a good deal of truth in both of my friend’s comments from last night — and I know they were meant to help me. But they hurt as well, because the result is that I feel there’s something “wrong with me”. It feels awful that I’m “intense”, like it’s a defect or a problem, something I should change or fix in myself in order to be likable or lovable or accepted by others. I also feel bad or weird or “wrong” about not dating officially or not always having strict general rules about friendship/romantic relationship boundaries. 

Does my being “intense” (whatever that may mean!) make me unpleasant to be around or someone impossible to have fun with? 

Does every relationship have to start out with a banner stating whether we want to “date each other” or not? 

I know that I am a joyful, playful and sometimes even quite funny person: I know it because I can see & hear myself but also because I have been told so multiple times. So why can’t I be considered just as a person who would like to share some fun & carefree time, like everyone else, when plans are made involving something fun together, like going on a trip or camping or backpacking? 

And please don’t give me the answer, “because you’re so independent”! Yes, “I walk alone”, I enjoy my freedom, I enjoy my solo adventures and road trips on my own, and always have made some time to travel/explore on my own; but I also like and need and at this point almost crave sharing adventures and fun, carefree activities with friends.

Adventure buddies

Throughout most of my life one of my strongest desires has been to have “adventure buddies”, usually with male friends. And indeed, most of my deepest relationships — some of them still lasting now after decades, others lasting only for brief but nonetheless fun and intense moments — have been with “adventure buddies”: situations in which the male/female and friend/romantic partner binaries got blurred and I could be (& be fully accepted) as my “whole, fluid self”.

I walk alone

This morning, I woke up with the refrain (both the lyrics and the tune) “I walk alone” from Green Day’s song “Boulevard of broken dreams” ringing in my head. 

I’ve noticed this happening quite often: I wake up with a particular song or refrain playing in my head, even when maybe I haven’t heard that song in years. Then as I let my emotions come out over breakfast, usually the reason for that “musical connection” becomes very clear: the lyrics and music are pointing to how I actually feel deep down inside. 

Yes, this morning (and very often in general) I feel that “I walk alone”. And this morning particularly (and recently), I also feel in a “Green Day mood”, as that rebel, boyish self that is a huge part of me yearns to come out. 

I feel (and write) all this with no sadness, no regrets, no anger. It’s actually a peaceful state I feel: acknowledgement, awareness, consciousness, acceptance and affirmation of my life choices that have brought me to “walk alone”. “I walk alone” but I am not alone, i.e. I don’t feel lonely today, and that’s a huge difference for me. My “walking alone” does not contradict the fact that I feel “accompanied along my path”, sometimes more, sometimes less, sometimes only for a brief wink of the eye, sometimes for years. I know I have made many lovely connections throughout the years, and for all of them I am grateful. 

Of course, I feel very lonely sometimes. But not today. Today “I walk alone” on this path I have chosen, serenely and joyfully.

And maybe this “aloneness” is something that actually brings many of us together, as profound “aloneness” is possibly part of the human condition — as the poet Salvatore Quasimodo beautifully put it: 

“Ognuno sta solo sul cuor della terra 

Trafitto da un raggio di sole: 

Ed e’ subito sera.” 

Molting

Where I grew up there’s a dialect word to indicate a crab when it’s molting: “moeca”. This could be translated into English as “softy”: indeed, crabs in this state are soft and vulnerable (and often illegally fished since they seem to be quite a delicacy). 

Well, I feel like a “moeca” in this moment: soft and vulnerable as I shed some old skin and slowly turn more wholly into what I am or what I want to be. Which is still partly unknown even to me — and the reason I feel this vulnerability. Shaky like a fawn on its long, lanky, uncoordinated, wobbly legs; shaky in this uncertainty but also somehow already feeling the knowledge (or hope?) of the antelope that will come out. 

This vulnerability is scary but it’s also wonderfully beautiful: and maybe it’s partly the uncertainty that gives this moment its beauty, that uncertainty that still leaves all paths open.

Loving from afar

My sister just texted me to let me know that she got her first Pfizer shot today. I felt the same sense of joy and relief as a couple weeks ago when my mother told me that she & my father had just got their first Moderna vaccine. 

My nuclear family of origin lives in Europe and I haven’t seen them in five and a half years, since my move to California. 

We don’t communicate very often; I hardly ever feel the urge to see them or even talk to them much. We’re just so different, maybe too different. Or maybe there’s still too much residual scarring for me from the years of interacting with them without feeling accepted, recognized, seen, loved for who I really was. 

But I do love them. I love them dearly and care about their well-being. I just love them from afar. There’s no anger or resentment or even pain left on my part: but (for now) I need this distance to be able to love them serenely. 

Loving from afar.