he said, she said

-----Original Message-----Sent: Sunday, February 04, 2007 11:05 PM

To: Ishmael

Subject: the story of jeff and me

hi ishmael,i am just writing to you because i am happy. really, really happy.
i live with a wonderful man who is extraordinary and who is going to bethe father of my child. we've had one miscarriage but we've dusted ourselves off and are trying again.

how are you? how is lennon? i bet that he's tall and handsome like you.how does he like high school? could you please send me a photo of him?

wishing you all the best,jenny


Original Message:-----------------

From: IshmaelDate: Mon, 05 Feb 2007 01:21:53 -0500
To: jenny
Subject: RE: the story of jeff and me

Jenny,
Against my better judgment, I'm answering this email, but only because of it's very interesting timing (explained below).

I am glad that you are happy. I wish you a wonderful life full of intimacy and trust and connectedness and self-knowledge. I hope thatyou get everything that your heart longs for and that you feel fulfilled in your life.

Lennon is doing well. Yes, he is tall and handsome...6'3", if you can believe it. He surpassed my 6' a year ago and keeps growing. Our relationship is far better than ever. My truthfulness with him and my recovery have done wonders for how we relate to each other. He has claimed a sensitive side that he neglected for a long time. I have claimed my fatherhood and connected to him in a way I'd never been ableto before. He plays chess and bass guitar and loves coffee shops. I just took him to NYC last month and we had a great time. We enjoy each other...he doesn't push against me like he used to...he's starting to feel more relaxed, like kids often do as sophomores. He likes school ok...not the student I was, but thankfully is planning to attend college now, in part because of his relationship with John (his godfather...you remember him). I will forward you a short photoshow of our NYC trip separately so you can see what he looks like.

I guess I could end it here on a nice, friendly tone, but that wouldn'texplain why I'm responding. Your timing is very intriguing to me, as I just sent a friend an email and used my experience of our former relationship to illustrate something for her. This is more thought than I've given to that since we talked on the phone doing my amends to you. I'm including the email below, as perhaps it'll explain for you why I do not pursue a friendship with you. I'm sure you'll disagree with details and how I portrayed your emotional state...I don't pretend it to be current, though you confessed to its accuracy at one time. The important thing is that it explains where I am...my process...or at least where I've been. I don't trust you...you pursued me for a longtime when I offered you so little...crumbs, really. I felt smothered by your affection and I lost respect for you that you would accept so little when you deserved much more (I had lost my own self-respect aswell). My judgment is that you are emotionally needy and I recoil from that. Why do you persist in seeking a friendship with me?

I hope I don't regret my asking and opening this line of communication...it's just that I'm excited about this new theory of mine and open to your half of the experience. I've discovered that my psyche craves both sides of an experience...the positive and perceived negative...I consistently manifest both...especially this past year...and this makes sense for my journey towards understanding of myown psyche...the light and the dark...and both sides of the same coin...my psyche drawing towards me what is mine to explore at this time so it can become more conscious, can make that which was unknown known. Often this has been unconscious (and reluctant) wants that have been manifested. I suspect that ultimately it will continue to be the things that my soul needs to grow that will show up. And I am pleased with this, even as it takes shape differently than I would have chosen for it to do. So the timing of you reaching out again just as I was exploringthe dynamics underlying our relationship prompts me to ask for your side of it (I've already experienced it...I became Rachel's "Jenny" bypursuing her up until the divorce, until there remained no hope of reconciliation, of my "redemption".) But I'm still interested in hearing your take on my theory and of the underlying dynamics of that long ago relationship. Just remember that I acknowledge that the specifics below weren't the only dynamics at play...there were many positive ones as well...these are just the deal breakers that I'm discussing here, in relation to what attracts or repels us to certain relationships.

Ishmael

From:To: Subject:RE: the mirror, fresh theory, and the Ishmael plan
Date:Sunday, February 04, 2007 7:53:15 PM
The mirror...Try this on, see if any pieces of it fit...The reason that your "witness" idea was so engaging to me is that I'm doing compatible work around this idea...I have a new theory regardingour feelings surrounding particular relationships. I suspect that it's less who the other person is for us than who we are for them and how we show up for the relationship that determines our feelings about them. For example, I've been softly stalked by an old girlfriend for 11 years now...Jenny just never gave up on the idea that I was her soul mate or that she'd never find anyone else like me...she's hung on through the breakup, and me dating other women and not her (she had to move away todeal with that), then through my 7 year marriage, and still she looks up my contact info on the internet and calls and writes me periodically, although I've explicitly asked her not to call again and I've ignored her calls and letters for years at a time. She went 5 years with no reply from me, then only an amends 4th step with a request to let the closure remain, and for the friendship to end on a good note, and to not contact me again, to no avail. So I've been studying my aversion to her. Of course, her emotional neediness is the biggest part, and her Tom-like sticky-sweet machinations.
But not all of it... Jenny wasn't supposed to fall in love...she knew that, knew where I was(rebounding from a heartbreak, Sarah). but she did. She gave me everything my ego wanted...talked art and philosophy with me (she was anart student turned philosophy major), supplied all the excitement andespresso and pot that I wanted (I don't smoke now), she was a total nympho...and in the end I lost all interest. What I've realized is thatit's who I was in the relationship that was the biggest deal breaker,the biggest aversion for me. I didn't like that I knew I should have left earlier and didn't. I didn't like that it became comfortable to not place her needs first while she placed mine first. I didn't like my own self-centeredness. I didn't like the dynamic that I let myself fall into...her enablement for me to not give my best. I had a sour taste in my mouth mostly because of who I was in the relationship. Regardless of how Jenny could show up now, I don't want her as my friend...thus the intriguing witness idea, that we don't want witnesses around who know about our fuck-ups.

Perhaps you dislike how you are able to show up as a friend to Tom, andyou project your dislike of this dynamic onto him. This projection keeps you bonded to him further and unable to easily release him until you see it and gain the wisdom that your psyche craves. I suspect that we are bound to a cycle until we outgrow it or at least discern it and begin working to release it. Maybe some of your frustrations with others' not learning their lessons has to do with a cycle that you haven't released. Maybe you'll discover what it is and you'll find beneath it a wellspring of patience for the circuitous slow routes of others, even as you refuse still (and rightly so) to accept it affecting you adversely. Explore this a bit and see what you think...this is fresh theory, still under development, and open to comment.

"Nothing is right in her life, and she will not do anything about it. I can't relate." This is interesting comment, given that it's followed by "I spent the better part of my life trying to figure out how he felt,why he did things, how I was supposed to please him, how he was going to react. And in the end, he never ever changes." You try to control that which you have no control over. She refuses to control that which she can. You seem to be frustrated by those who do not employ your own winning formula...control. Another option is to say to yourself "she'll eventually tire of being a victim" and letting her be free, guilt-free, to hit bottom so that she can discern it for herself at a deep enough level to begin to outgrow it and release the cycle. Because the truth is that your winning formula doesn't work either...nor does mine...no one's does, really...at somepoint hopefully we'll learn that there is nothing to control, nothing to forgive, nothing to be redeemed for, that we are already enough, already loved, already worthy, already connected, and that all our strategies are ill-founded in that they are trying to correct a problem in us that doesn't really exist. Of course, if I truly believed that in my heart and not just toying with the idea intellectually, my life would look much different than it does.

"Probably yelling and hitting people with a stick will be anunacceptable practice" These are perfectly acceptable practices for Zenmasters and Catholic school teachers...last century...you've just been born into the wrong era, I'm afraid... "...and rolling my eyes, I know that is really, really bad." How did eye-rolling get elevated above physical violence on the badness scale? You may need a little training, after all.

Ishmael

A good friend will help you move.
A really good friend will help you move a body.
Let me know if I ever need to bring a shovel. -author unknown