sacred & terrible air
don’t recall where i heard it.
something something a couple goes to see the priest at their church. say they’ve been arguing a lot, thinking about divorce. they’re catholic so this is an especially huge deal. catholics just don’t do divorce, it’s not recognized or allowed. priest laughs, pats their hands reassuringly. says, couples argue, that’s normal, that’s to be expected. when a couple stops arguing however, that’s when they’re in trouble.
i didn’t understand it at the time, but something in me understood it to be true. inherently.
arguing is communication, it’s passion, it’s an admittance that you still care what the other party says or does, that it still affects you. to fight with someone is to acknowledge that you’re on the same level; the same plane of existence. an ant cannot argue with a fly unless the fly descends and sits still to listen.
more than anyone should normally think about the actor Ben Affleck, he pops into my mind very frequently. something an ex partner of his once said haunts me. she said something like “when his sun shines on you, you really feel it. and when it doesn’t, you really feel it.”
this has been said of me and to me by several people i’ve been close or intimate with. like almost everything else about me, i can see when it’s happening, and im helpless to stop it. i can see and feel the freeze emanating. it’s not intentional, but i also just can’t force myself to radiate the same warmth when it comes to this. when i stop arguing.
one of the last things my wife said to me was about this exact behavior.
once during a particularly heated fight with a different ex, she asked “be honest! do you think i’m stupid? actually?”
she thought i was one of the most intelligent people she’d ever met, which is very ironic.
i said, “yknow what? yes! i do! you genuinely are incapable of learning! i don’t know how many times i can explain the same problematic thing to you over and over, and even instruct you on how to stop doing it cus it’s causing such a big problem for us, but you just keep doing it! you just can’t learn or change!”
the punchline, which is making me laugh as i type this, is here i am, several years later, fully aware of a behavior i know to be an issue however correct or justified i may be, and still! and yet! no real substantial change. it’s freezing in here.
post script
my phone bill is up every 3 months. it was due a few days ago but i chose to spend whatever little money i had and that came my way on transportation and food. my first paycheck should arrive tomorrow, but the more i think about it, the more im sure i won’t be renewing it. i won’t be switching to another carrier either. my phone is falling apart. i need to start thinking about getting a new one but i don’t think ill do that either. yesterday a friend asked for my help in recording a segment for the newspaper she works for. 40 or so minutes out of the city, no service, no internet. just me, her, the camera and the highly inconvenient background noise in her town’s community center. on the drives back and forth, we talked, sometimes sat in silence, sometimes hummed along to her tunes. i frequently would impulsively pull out my phone to mindlessly stare at something and realize oh, no data or service. i’d put the phone away and look out the windows, or close my eyes and think or just exist for a while. everything was okay. no one could reach me, i couldn’t see what was going on across the ocean, i couldn’t feel distressed about something completely out of my control and yet to come later down the line. i was just there, it was quiet, alone in my head, the way i needed it to be.
“what of your friends?”
i’m not so important, no one needs to speak to me that badly, i have nothing worthwhile to contribute to their lives anyway, and i hate small talk. they’ll all be completely fine without me. i am not arguing with myself,or them, or life in general.
“no more arguing”
no more fighting.
“나는 더 이상 열정이 없습니다”
that sounds familiar.
