dressed or naked

What was better? The first try or the finished product?  Does the working sketches tell us more about a work of art? about the artist? Can they be better? In many cases, yes, but who knows.  That wasn’t really the main things I was considering when reading Juliet, Naked but it’s what came to mind when I started writing.

So what really came up for me while reading this over the last couple of days?  Well, a lot.  For some bizarre reason I have been thinking about my ex a lot (D, the one I had to finally extricate myself from by moving across the continent and finally becoming an “unmarried woman” again about a year ago).  But anyway, it wasn’t the book that made me think about him so I’ll try not to digress.

I identified in some ways with Annie but mostly because I could have easily done that what she did, stay too long in a relationship, and also because I can feel insecure and obsessive and clumsy and most of all, lonely.  The difference is that having boring sex once a week and fully knowing that you and your partner are not in love (and in this case, have never really been in love) would have driven me crazy much sooner than 15 years in.  I will never get over the fact that by the time I got married the first time, I pretty much knew that I wasn’t in love with him any more.  I had sort of been earlier on but it was misguided wishful lust and romanticism that may or may have not really been love that was fed by distance and imagination. But it doesn’t matter if it was there to begin with or not.  The point is that by the time we married, it wasn’t there anymore.  I have never been good at perfunctory sex and I wasn’t attracted to him anymore so I couldn’t even get in to the weekly service call.  Every once in a while hormones would pretty much take over me and we’d had relatively descent sex that had nothing to do with him, and we’d be back to me trying hard to enjoy his boring advances but not being able to.  I actually thought my libido was very low (and he probably still tells himself that it is, sure, whatever gets you through the day) but now, 20 years later I know that it was him, well, to be fair, my lack of attraction to him. There is a respectable list of sex partners that can attest to my healthy libido (actually, according to Mr. NY, it’s higher than average… interesting but again, I digress).

So where was I? Oh, yeah. It took me 5 years and I felt as if I had wasted the best 5 years of my life but I left and it was hard but never, for even a full second, did I regret or question my decision to leave.  Like Annie, I thought that I should have done it earlier but I didn’t and soon I realized that the circumstances that brought me to that relationship had given enough fuel for probably half of its duration and that I spent the second half trying to find ways to make it work, to convince myself that I could be happy, that we could behappy but we weren’t and I was scared of being alone but then I was more scared of turning 30 and 40 and 50 and hating the guy laying in bed right next to me.

It was my late twenties and, although, at that point I felt I had wasted my prime years, I realized that that was crap and there was no point in regretting and letting more precious time pass me by.  I marched on and had a few difficult years of insecurities and crappy attempts at relationships.

Then came D. And I had never felt so fucking deeply in love. Crazy. It was sheer craziness from the beginning.  Amazingly enough, we managed, at least for a while to turn it in to a boring dreary routine.  And I did not want that.  Of course, interspersed with the boring routine were debauched episodes and much drama and that, combined with the fizzling moments of non-sex-related passion (no big dreams being pursued, just life passing us by) made me want out of that.  It was painful, it was like ripping myself apart and yes, again, I was so afraid of being alone but I knew day by day I was more and more alone because love wasn’t enough, good sex was not enough either.  I was tired of carrying with the two of us.

I know it was also hard for D to let me go (if he finally has) because I looked after him, after everything, but I know he really did love me.  And the first one did too.  And in his own way, I guess Gris does love me or, at least, he has at some point.

And really that is what I remembered.  That I can put myself down and go in to crises and feel alone and unworthy or what ever I feel but that I have actually been loved, that I have always been the one to end my long term relationships, that I probably would have married and would still be married to my first serious boyfriend if I had chosen to endure it.  We might even have a fairly descent existence.  But I didn’t.  I chose to not live that way because occasionally I do remember that is not worth it, that I can feel deep desire and passion and connection and that is what I want in a relationship and I wont take less than that.