Could You Be Loved?

I love Bob Marley's "Could You Be Loved?" Not just because of my misspent youth. I love the message. It's basically a simple jam without any great verses. But there's a ribbon of hope threaded throughout. The question is pretty straightforward "Could you be loved?" I'd like to think yes, but I wonder...

"You ain't gonna miss your water until your well runs dry."

True dat. How many ways can you say you don't know what you've got until it's gone?

Best Friend Brian said something that hit me between the eyes like a two by four. He said "Your wife viewed your marriage as a contract." I think he was right. And when the market soured, she liquidated her interest. I don't know that my wife ever truly loved me, at least not in the way I loved her.

I think I was just in the right place at the right time. When we met, she was broke and living at home with her parents. She hated it. I had a job and offered her a way out. I don't think I was Mr. Right, I think I was Mr. Convenient. I was comfortable and safe. So no, I don't think she ever loved me in the way I grew to love her.

Back to the question at hand "Could you be loved?"

"Say something! Say something!"

I think most people are worthy of love. We all have something to offer. So what is love? My definition is that love is when you affect another person in a way that makes them better for having known you. And when knowing them makes you a better person. My love for my wife made her a better person. I saw this almost every day. I saw things in her that even she didn't.

Curiously, since my wife left I seem to have become a better person without her. I am happier with myself than I have been in years. Sure, life is tough right now, but it seems to have brought out the best in me.

But that's not what I want to talk about.

"Could you be loved?"

For most of my life I have been emotionally unavailable. I preferred to "keep my distance" and held others at arms length to protect myself from being let down or disappointed. Consequently, I have always had a lot more 'acquaintances' than I had 'true friends' and making friends has always been a chore.

I think I developed this as a coping mechanism when I was much, much younger. Growing up, my mother was emotionally distant and I may have learned the behavior from her. I generally didn't let people get close to me and I rarely shared my true feelings with anyone. In college I could count my true friends on one hand, and three of them lived out of town. Prior to my divorce there were many people in my life who I loved very, very much and yet never told them how important they were to me.

"Say something! Say something!"

This may help to explain why I have only been "in love" twice in my life. I'm not sure if two times is normal or about right. I don't know how many times a man is expected to be in love. Truth be told, I haven't had to think about it for a very long time.

The first time I fell in love, it didn't go well. I fell in love with a friend who also wasn't emotionally available. It wasn't intentional and I certainly didn't mean to fall in love with her. It just 'happened'. My friend was damaged by a previous relationship. When I met her she was in a different place than me. Intellectually I think I understood that men and women cannot be friends. Romantic entanglements are almost unavoidable - it's genetics, or chemistry. I had never successfully been 'just friends' with a woman.

Against the odds (and my better judgement) we hit it off.

We hung out on and off for more than a year. I grew to depend on her and looked forward to her frequent visits. We spent countless hours doing absolutely nothing. We grew closer and for a while she became my best friend and confidant. It took months before she let me see her for who she really was. She tried so hard to come across as hard and unflappable - an irresponsible party girl. That was just the armor she wore to keep from appearing vulnerable or being hurt again. But it wasn't who she really was underneath. Underneath she was thoughtful, loyal, sensitive and kind.

And worthy of my love.

"Could you be loved and be loved?"

I remember sitting in the dark on the world's ugliest couch looking out onto Jefferson Avenue after some stupid party. She was wearing the crimson plaid dress that by all rights should have looked silly but was somehow fantastic on her petite frame. Her straight brown hair was pinned back off her ear by a small red clip or beret. We spent what seemed like hours talking about life in our private little corner of the universe. I was sitting behind her and caught the unmistakable strawberry scent from her hair. She turned her head in such a way that her face was silhouetted in the lights from the passing cars. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. If this was a movie, it was the moment I should have kissed her. But I couldn't. I was so confused and afraid. That was the Princess of Darkness. She was my friend and my first love.

I knew she was broken from her previous relationship and I didn't know how to fix her. I was so concerned about ruining our friendship that I couldn't or wouldn't take advantage of the moment. I was sabotaged by my own insecurities and self doubt.

I didn't believe that I was worthy of being loved. I'm still not convinced.

That is my one regret.

"Could you be loved and be loved?"

Fast forward several months. My unrequited and unresolved feelings poisoned our friendship. My friend sensed this, but didn't know how to react. She blocked it out and wouldn't discuss it. Eventually she moved away and I was left with the stench of my cowardice and failure. Our friendship ended because I refused to end our friendship. I refused to make the leap of faith required to shock her system. To get her out of her protective cocoon. To let her know "She could be loved."

"Say something! Say something!"

Since my wife left me I am emotionally broken - almost crippled. I've lost control of my feelings and I am unable to keep anything inside. Now that I am the one who is irreparably broken, I'm left with only the question, "Could I be loved?"

I just don't know...

Owning Our Choices

My wife didn't leave me because of anything that I did or did not do. There, I said it.

My wife left me because she realized that her life was not living up to her expectations. This was really hard for me to understand or believe. During my 'bargaining' moments, I reasoned that if I could just figure out what it was that I was not providing or where I was failing I could make the change that would bring her back.

You may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
You may find yourself in another part of the world
You may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
You may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
You may ask yourself: well... how did I get here?

Now, keep in mind that I am the same person who was blissfully unaware of my wife's growing dissatisfaction and unhappiness right up to the day she left me. Why would my wife be so dissatisfied? We had the nice house in a nice neighborhood. We had a little money and two great kids. We were living the middle class American dream, right?

Well, not exactly.

I believe my wife woke up one morning and realized that she had achieved everything she thought she wanted in life and found it wasn't nearly as good as she expected. This all occurred shortly after her brother died.

The death of my father was a stressful experience. I can't imagine how it would feel to lose a sibling. When confronted with her own mortality and forced to examine her life I don't believe my ex-wife was satisfied with the person staring back at her. She found a middle aged housewife and mother of two school age kids who was still waiting tables for pocket money. She wasn't successful, she didn't have many friends and she wasn't happy with her appearance. Basically, she found herself in the middle of a classic mid-life crisis.

But enough about my wife's psychology. That could fill an entire post. Back to my favorite topic - me.

I had my own mid-life crisis a few years back. I had similar questions and similar doubts. The difference was that I didn't act on them. It took some time to process, but what I found in the end was that I was pretty darn happy with my life. I loved my wife and kids. I was reasonably satisfied with my job. I was content. In a way, working through my doubts made me value what I had even more.

About two years before most of it disappeared.

You may ask yourself

How do I work this?

You may ask yourself

Where is that large automobile?

You may tell yourself

This is not my beautiful house!

You may tell yourself

This is not my beautiful wife!

Life is like a giant game of Plinko.

Do any of you remember that game from "The Price Is Right"?  The 'contestant' would drop a puck from the top of a peg board. The puck would hit the pegs on the way down, chaotically bouncing left and right and back again as it found its way to the bottom. Depending on where it landed the player could get a big payoff or fifty bucks. It was effectively a random bell curve distribution, but the players would obsess about just where to drop the puck - as if they weren't subject to the laws of Chaos Theory and Brownian Motion like the rest of us.

Humans have a hardwired tendency to believe outside influence overrules random behavior. We think if we do a special dance it will rain. Or if I rub my lucky rabbits foot I'll win at roulette. Or if I wear the same pair of undershorts all season the Browns will win the Superbowl. Or if you pray...


I'll stop there.

We make numerous choices in life that seem random and inconsequential. Each choice takes us down one of two paths. Do I eat that the banana or the donut for breakfast? Do I take Mound Road or Van Dyke to work? Every choice takes us farther down the path. Every day is a potential opportunity. If I don't pick up the phone 17 years ago I never meet or marry my wife. If my Dad doesn't get cancer my wife and I probably never decide to have children.

And on and on and on.

It's the Plinko board theory of life.

You may ask yourself
What is that beautiful house?
You may ask yourself
Where does that highway lead to?
You may ask yourself
Am I right?... Am I wrong?
You may say to yourself
My God!... what have I done?

So what did I learn?

First, I learned that I am the only person responsible for the choices I made. Would I wish that I could go back 17 years like Marty McFly and tell the young me not to pick up the phone? I don't know. If I did that I would have avoided the pain I'm currently dealing with, but I would have missed out on a lot of great stuff too. Maybe my life would have been better. Maybe my life would have been harder. Who can say? But one thing that would be true - it wouldn't be my life because my life is a result of my choices.

Okay, technically it would still be my life, since it was current me that went back and told young me to not pick up the phone creating a paradox where I never become so unhappy that I want to go back in the first place to tell young me not to pick up the phone.


And this blog has officially jumped the shark.

The Princess of Darkness told me that life is best lived in the present. And I think she's right. Regret doesn't do anyone any favors. I have maybe two regrets in my life and picking up that phone isn't one of them.

No, I made the choices that seemed right at the time. I wish I had won the Showcase instead of the year supply of Rice-A-Roni, but I'm leaving with some great memories, two great kids and a quarter lifetime of experience and growth.

Here's a little secret about the Plinko board of life. In the end, our pucks all fall into the same slot. Whether you are rich as Bill Gates, as smart as Nils Bohr or as dumb as the guy who didn't realize how unhappy his wife was you end up equally dead.

Unless you are Walt Disney or Ted Williams, in which case they freeze your head and reanimate you in the FUTURE!

I can rattle off the platitudes all day - No one gets out alive. You can't take it with you. Life is about the journey, not the destination. Pro infinitio. For better or worse, they were my decisions and I had a hell of a lot of fun making them and came out with some great friends. If I could go back I'd do it all again.

Except for 8th grade - that sucked.

As long as I keep breathing I get to keep making choices. Soon this crappy divorce will be a distant memory and it'll be time for me to get back to living. I say play on!

Lyrics by The Talking Heads