The Bank
I’m constantly trying to keep myself in any given moment, instead of jumping ahead or dwelling in the past, and I find it a lot more challenging than it sounds. Supposedly, by keeping yourself IN the moment, you’re not swallowed by the emotions of your past, which allows you to move forward into new, healthy relationships without projecting your baggage onto the next unsuspecting person. It also supposedly keeps you from wasting energy on the “what if’s;” those pesky scenarios that creep into your psyche and taint all your future actions. Because tomorrow, you might get hit by a bus.
Sometimes, I find that it works. Earlier last week, I was angry about something (I don’t even remember what it was, it was so insignificant), and I carried it with me the majority of the day. At some point, I realized I was still riled up from the earlier events, and it was ruining the very rewarding accomplishment I was in the middle of… so I chose to let it go. Right that moment, I was doing something I should be happy about, and I was still thinking about the inconsiderate ass who had tried to ruin my day earlier. HE wasn’t thinking about ME at that moment… so why was I letting him ruin my day?
So, like I said, sometimes it works. But where I’m having trouble with this concept is applying it to future events. One particular case in point: dating.
How can you NOT think ahead when you’re dating someone? Especially if you really like them? Don’t get me wrong here, I most definitely am NOT planning the next wedding… but when you date someone, and decide to be “exclusive,” certain things are now set into motion that have only one of two endings.
Good. Or Bad. (Bad could be either marriage or a break-up. It’s all relative to your own perception of what’s bad.)
But once you go “exclusive,” you’re implying that you’re going to make an emotional investment in someone. This is where things get really tricky for me. You would think that I wouldn’t make an investment in someone who may not be there later. To me, that contradicts the whole purpose of being in a relationship with someone; I’m looking for a full commitment, not something to pass the time until the next guy comes along. But obviously, I have no idea how to tell who that person is because I’ve failed miserably TWICE. In both cases, I wasted so much energy trying to figure out what would happen next that I completely missed what was going on in the moment.
It didn’t help that both of those relationships were with people who were emotionally retarded.
I guess this just means I need to re-evaluate who I choose to make an emotional investment with. Because it would be really nice if the guy will be there when I’m ready to make a withdrawal…