Don’t Ask. Don’t Tell.

It has been an odd couple of days. I’ve sort of been writing and procrastinating in equal measures. All my video plans for JohnOfJordan have been stalled by a renewed reticence to step in front of a camera. And sadly that reticence is not limited to the camera, but also the microphone as I discovered when I fumbled my way through a one minute podcast which basically said, “This podcast is not dead, but we need guests!”

Some thing is making me crazy. I want to blame all kinds of external factors but the truth is I’ve seen the proverbial writing on the wall and I cannot really keep going the way I have been. It occurred to me that I have no real ties with this particular town I find myself in. At first this seemed unnerving to me. But it seems exciting to me now. I could pack up and go practically anywhere. Start again, somewhere else – somewhere new.

In the middle of a weekend that was drenched in personal revelations, though, one caught me particularly off guard.

I think at one point I just started listing my grievances with the world and many of them were well-worn tales that in my own mind at least somehow “explained” who I am today. But there was this other story, one I hadn’t mentioned in the longest time. Probably a tried and tested narrative in the life of many an unfortunate character, the humble unrequited love dynamic. It surprised me because it was a very long time ago and I made a very conscious decision to let it go. And I think, for the most part, I had. But there was a part of me that was still angry, and another that was still hurting. But more than anything, there was just this lingering confusion. How could I have gotten this so wrong? And instead of running through a mental shopping list of what I thought were the reasons I was basically unlovable, I started running through my memories of our interactions. All the little things that made me think we were on the same page – or at least, similarly themed books.

Now my memory is quite fallible. It doesn’t recall so much as recreate. But I still have all these little artifacts of our time together, physical and digital ‘objects’ that are unchanging. And all I can think now is… wasn’t there a moment?

I realise this is a very different question to the one I asked myself at the time. At that time the question was essentially, “Why doesn’t [person x] love me?” And I would ask it constantly. And my personal inner-critic supplied a litany of answers. It was disappointing to not have my feelings reciprocated, but dealing with this constant personal mental interrogation was soul destroying. It left my self-esteem in tatters.

And eventually I just stopped asking that question. There was never going to be a useful answer to that question. It was all hopelessly subjective and speculative. I wasn’t sure if I wanted actual genuine feedback so I could somehow ‘improve’ or if i was just punishing myself or if I was just grieving. I figured I could probably survive this situation, but I probably wouldn’t survive the repetition of this masochistic practice.

And in a lot of ways it was the same process that has lead to shelving my interest in religion. Not because I had ‘all the answers’ but simply because I didn’t think the questions were worth asking any longer. In this instance it wasn’t because the questions were causing me duress, but simply a feeling that they didn’t lead anywhere.

I just feel that I need to go back and revise all the things I thought I knew about my life. I need to challenge all the assumptions I’ve had about myself and what is possible for me. I found myself saying to someone, “I couldn’t do that; it goes against all my values and beliefs.” And the more I thought about that, the more I had to wonder if they weren’t ‘values’ so much as hang ups. And perhaps even more disconcerting the thought that they were perhaps not even mine, that rather they were psychological imprints of various authority figures in my life.

It seems a little late to be giving into feelings of teenage rebellion at my age. Though I guess if I don’t learn it in my twenties, I’ll have to learn it in my thirties or later.