The Werewolf and the Heart

I'm taking a Sex & Relationships course this semester, not completely of my own choice but to fulfill a "Relationships of Knowledge" segment required to graduate. This partially forced class is a welcome guest to my schedule (even if it is at 8am), not only for its low difficulty and juicy subject matter, but for the opportunity it gives me to examine a lot of issues I've had with the topic. This course follows the life-cycle of a relationship, among many other aspects, and I can already tell looking through the syllabus that it's going to be a real heart-jerker for me: sexual attraction & beauty, falling in love with whom & why, lovers from friends, friends with benefits, being single, non-monogamy, sources of conflict between the sexes, ex-sex, jealousy, infidelity, abuse, deterioration of a relationship, etc. And that's just a small slice of the pie.

For a long time I have felt myself too plagued to ever be able to enter another romantic relationship, and I've almost too comfortably come to terms with it. Some people pine away at the idea of finding an unearthly partner, helplessly drawn into the raptures of love, and spending the rest of their lives with that person, but I am not one of them. I would be content to be single for the rest of my life, but certain things, like human emotion, seem to get in the way. I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised to find that I'm not alone in this mindset, especially among females. Upon talking to a few of my neighbors, though their philosophies not quite as drastic mine, the concept of being in love was supported as being an undesirable thing, at least for the time being, and they were performing careful balancing acts in their lives to ensure what they did have going on did not turn into something too extreme.

What surprises me more is how few people actually know what a healthy relationship is. I, myself have never seen the light of one, though I like to think that I have a good grasp of my own emotions and understanding my interactions with other people. However, I may have to eat my words, for what scares me more than what a potential partner could do to me, is what I could, and have, done to myself. For as F.D.R so kindly admonished:

"Beware the werewolf and your own heart's desire."

I have a feeling there will be many more posts regarding what I'll be getting from this class.

Another Successful Orbit Around the Sun

It's been a hell of a year, and while 2008 turned out to be immensely different from what I'd hoped for, the ride forced me to grow and set things in perspective. There were a number of undesirable (internal as well as external) occurrences, but I can't say my first year of living in San Francisco was a bad one. I'm truly grateful to be able to reside in such an exciting and culturally rich city. And the few good friends I've made here, as well as the ones I've kept from back home have made the occasional urban blues so much more bearable.

I could fix up pretty much everything in my life right now, but my only real new year's resolution is this: to shed away the unnecessary and detrimental emotions that have burdened and hindered my development for too long. Life is overwhelming. We all know this. But does it always have to be? I put ridiculous amounts of energy into adhering to a stubborn pattern of adversity for myself, and I am tired of it.

I might as well list a few things I accomplished this past year, just to wrap up the last Earth-Sun revolution on a positive note:

1) Lived on my own (with amazing friend-roommates, and with other pretty terrible ones).
2) Set specific and high academic goals (for the first time in my life).
3) Worked my first full-time job (then drank away my stress with the coworkers).
4) Remained celibate for 11 months (though this crosses over into half of 2007, and I never intend on going back).
5) Got back into reading for my own interest (Crichton rules).
6) Increased muscle mass (not quite what it was at 19, but always room for improvement).
7) Allowed myself to develop deep feelings for someone of the opposite sex again (i.e. letting go of the axiom "I hate ALL straight men").


And of course, a poem, written a few months ago:

Time has been bent
into the shape of memory
to produce this peculiar feeling, I get
as a stranger, no longer
to your absence
for in your departure, I was thrown off balance
but never truly expected
your return to the planet
and to find you in my orbit again
gives rise to subliminal emotions
hidden there, all along
hinting at remnants of friendship, now gone
and thickening the atmosphere between us.
I hesitate to contact you
whereas once, in retrospect, I never would
but old habits have no basis
in the present
and cannot support what hasn't
existed, for so long
where you've been and where you are now
is much too far,
though is not a matter of distance, for me,
but one of holding on
or forgetting.