I think this is important so I publishing it both as an edited post to illustrate it was mainly written Friday, Feb. 8 with the new portions added today and thus made into a new post also. I want YOU all to see it. It may not make it better-but it makes me feel better, and in the end that is what this space is for anyway.
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picture this...imagine you are me. It is a Friday afternoon, you have been working with screaming children all day. It is finally nap time and everyone (well almost everyone) is sleeping. The children are tucked in on their mats and in their cribs. Their blankets cover their little faces as they snore, an occasional cough, but mostly just a rhythmic breathing sound. You have just gotten the internet at said workplace. You decide to catch up on (not
with mind you) some of your friends. You turn to their blog and begin to read. You are signed in on-line but none of your friends are talking to you-in fact it seems as if they are actually avoiding you. Your mother seems to be acting strangely the same. it is as if everyone is avoiding meeting your gaze, looking in your eyes, answering your chats. You start to go through the profiles of the people who write-you generally like and respect all of the people who post. You think they are interesting-with good things to say. Something randomly catches your eye and you click on it. Immediately you are infiltrated with images, words, texts that rack your brain. Confuse you. Hurt you deeply. Imagine that. Imagine your anger, your hurt, your frustration. Imagine it is you who has just been infiltrated-that in fact everyone has known something you have not including your own mother an no one has told you. Maybe they don't think it is their business to share, maybe they don't want to hurt you, or maybe it doesn't cross their mind, or maybe it is a variety of other things that I cannot even fathom right now.
For those of you "mutual friends" I do not blame you for passing along information-but I want you to think very long and hard about your own stake in my life and the lives of others. i want you to consider my place in having felt duped by EVERYONE. Would you not hurt? Would you not cry? Would you not question the very fiber supposedly holding your being together.Would you not write? That is unfortunately what I do. I accept responsibility for the fact that a specific previous post may have seemed slandarous and inconsiderate-but I also stand by what I wrote. Which is, that it was written in a heat of rage. Hands shaking, tears falling. This is my space-to write and process. Should I possibly not have published said post-perhaps-but I stick by the fact that those were my emotions and feelings and that time. I removed them later as I felt they revealed more my lack of self control and anger than anything else. I ask that you think of multiple factors when deciding who to blame, who to degrade, and who's information to pass along and why. In turn I promise I will be more ethical in my decisions of what to post-when and why. I realize that this is a public space and in it I am a public figure. I also think this is one space that directly speaks to both the personal and the political and as a scholar and human everything is up for interpretation and that includes my blog, your website, my body, and my heart.
After processing that day I later wrote this post and I am posting it here as a clarification. You may think whatever you may, you may be flabbergasted that I am being so honest and direct in this post-you may not care one way or the other-you may be hurt that I am indeed speaking directly to you, but I am displaying it here as my attempt to show the difference in tone and emotion that went through my body that day and if nothing else I continue to use this space to explore pedagogical moments and mostly what not to do in one's personally public space. I use it to be reflexive and to hold myself accountable for my actions.
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not like anyone really reads it anyway...
I should iterate that the last post was in response to some illicit tactlessness I just discovered. but I choose not to linger and dwell on things that don't matter and instead write and perform things that do. I am also not going to erase the post because that would erase the validity of the feelings that created it and those feeling are more than justified and valid.
I start with my initial point-it is easy to move on in long distance relationships (at least for me and the select few I have spoken too about it) because the relationship is often warped into something illogical and insane-it has to in order to survive. Instead of spending time with the person of desire you spend time on some mediated device (phone, internet, etc) having conversations that tend to not matter because in the end you both have to continue living your completely separately contstructed lives anyway. When you end those relationships its kind of like "I have had this life the whole time I- have been doing it (living said life)"-you just have more free time to say blog, or write, or whatever because you don't have to invest the time you once did maintaining a warped version of reality through a telephone." It's like oh I don't have spend countless hours with something held up to my ear or my fingers tapping away on keys. It is a relief when that is over, it is a burden rescinded, it is a weight lifted off my shoulders. Not the relationship itself-but the medium through which it was performed.
So my relationship existed it just sucked-I shouldn't have said it didn't exist that totally demeans it which I don't want to do, but I do want to be honest about it and about myself-reflexively. Not that the actual "it" sucked, I mean it kind of sucked, but the way it was maintained and negotiated on a daily basis without daily being in each other's physically embodied lives-that sucked. As someone discovering performance and embodying others and self as other it just makes little sense to me to have a relationship with a phone-a morphed version of the physicality of the body. Where is the interaction, the dialogue, the co-presence of bodies co-mingling in a space, where is the beauty in that. Oh right there isn't a whole lot. Yes this is bitter, yes I am sure this is not everyone's experience, all I know is that it is mine. and feel free to tell me I am way off, that I am wrong, that I am evil. I believe my experience is up for all the criticism it can handle-but be careful with the fact that I do have a heart and it does beat and get sad and hurt sometimes.
When the conversation came up last night (specifically that it is real easy to move on when the relationship was long distance-something somebody else brought up-) I was sitting with two lovely friends listening to some tunes and having some beverages. It did cause me to think reflexively about my own break-up space and not that it is the first time-but it put it into an interesting context for me. A context that is ever so true and present in my life.
I often think to myself-Did I move on too soon. Yes probably-do you hear that world? Was my break-up clean and lovely-no. Are they ever? Am I responsible-of course? Do I realize that I am stepping out on a limb being with someone else-even in a "dating" relationship-yes? Do I see the danger to myself and others that I have the potential of creating-yes I see that too. Do I think it is ok to be dangerous, and spontaneous, and to do what I want to do because it feels right and makes me happy? Yes I think that as a physically embodied space right now it is a really really good place to be. Negotiating a relationship on a daily basis is something new to me and something I haven't experienced for almost two years, so does it feel completely different-yes it really does. So for all you naysayers and skeptics I offer this, when a relationship has been morphed (my own doing nonetheless) into something way beyond whatever I thought it could be it is somewhat of a relief to have it be over. From what I have seen and witnessed this seems to ring true for many people involved in long distance relationships.
I do not want to demean or degrade the relationship. But I want to be honest about it and my feelings about it, which I was not in my earlier post. it was unfair and although I am pretty sure no one reads it was posted in hurt and immense anger and pain and those things happen to all of us. Allow me my human-ness and I will allow you yours. we all make mistakes.
