Unconditionally Reciprocal Self-Love

I was at the Tea Bar in Burnside today with a friend and her mother. Got hold of the latest issue of Vogue Australia and bang, there was an article on unrequited love. (Yes, I’m over it, recently deleted the only two men who have ever humiliated me from my Facebook page). The above story ended with the author advocating self-love before romantic love of the tormenting kind has a chance to take hold of one’s self-esteem. Why? Because self-love is never unreciprocated.

Does that mean when you love your self unconditionally, your self will love you back? You and your self will be one. Me and my self, of late, may be becoming one. For a few nights ago, while sharing pizza and risotto with old friends in a city cafe, and expecting nothing beyond laugther and conversation, I had two profound realisations. One, that I must be a good person to have such lovely friends. Two, I had completely taken my friend V for granted in the romance department.

We have been friends for a while, but he moved to a different city before I got over my hang-ups. Over the holidays, I made a brief list of what I am seeking in a man, and he seems to tick every single box. This in turn has left me wondering why I didn’t see him in the light of potential love before. Perhaps I wasn’t ready for it – not in unconditional love with my self.

Now comes the more confronting question of whether I should wait, or let this new-found self-love take a leap of faith. Should I let this latest realisation simmer for a while, or take my friend into confidence? Any suggestions?

Nourishing my Inner Aphrodite

There are multiple emotions during this break from work. Not to mention it is a period of transition, one where my hyperactive mind is desperately seeking for its next big project. What will it be? A job or a hobby? An overseas trip or a love story?

I am finally reading the well-known mind doctor Deepak Chopra, and enjoying his concept of ‘Synchrodestiny’. One of my favourite sections so far has been the selection of three archetypes for oneself, with a list of sorts provided. I choose Aphrodite for love and sensuality, the Hindu goddess Saraswati for knowledge and refinement, and Buddha/Jesus for worldly compassion. It then struck me how my self-image is so caught up in the Saraswati model, with most of my friends and ex-boyfriends recognizing the erudite version of my mind (and often only that). I take the Buddha/Jesus attributes for granted, while the Aphrodite in me often hides herself due to fear of compromising Saraswati’s ostensibly higher social stature. 

Aphrodite is clamouring not just a better showing now, but also greater nourishment. It wants love, and that too in vintage packaging. I am being drawn to lovey-dovey songs and films like never before, albeit of the offbeat kind. Even in the midst of drafting academic CVs and cover letters this week, I managed to make time to watch (500) Days of Summer. It isn’t the best film I’ve seen in the romance genre, but a non-linear narrative, a soundtrack boasting Regina Spektor and The Smiths, and a refreshingly realistic take on love make it worth one’s time. It also co-incidentally coincides with Chopra’s aforementioned views on synchronicity and destiny. How wonderful!

As always, there is a real-life twist. A new man who took me out for a lunch that he paid for apparently has a girlfriend he doesn’t wish to talk about. Until mutual friends find out. Another one bites the dust. So I come home and listen to La Roux’s ‘Bulletproof’ to steady Aphrodite and impart her some of Saraswati’s resolve and resilience. Hence, these two archetypes, contrary to popular opinion, are not in conflict. They can not only co-exist but also, I believe, help water each other’s sprouting seedlings (with a benevolent Buddha overlooking of course). 

Another Day, Another Cibo

I’m tempted to turn this into another love post, but have to concede that the L-word remains an exploration rather than an anchor (at least of the romantic kind). There are regular encounters – at cafes, restaurants, cinemas, parks. Yet, when evaluating these encounters, it is still my voice that I hear, or the words of caution of my best friend, my mother, an old flame. 

While I await the arrival of the voice that feels, I occupy myself with voices and words at coffee shops in and around my city. These are sanctuaries where I retreat when tired of the often confined, habitual, still ambience of home and work. I sip coffee, read a story or two, browse through a magazine, edit my writing, prepare for teaching, text a friend, and play with the odd toddler. 

Bohemia has often been associated with cafe culture, but I’m not sure if academia approves of this relationship. I may not have the luxury of such a fluid time-space, one that mingles work and leisure, in the near future. Hence, my only option is to revel in the now – the latte won’t stay warm for long. While the caffeine cruising through my bloodstream was once the primary goal, the aroma and the froth, the brew and the grain, are now more significant. I am enjoying this story, this setting of the Sun on another day at Cibo. 

Love Advice from a Rabbi

She doesn’t know what to say about the happenings of last weekend. No regrets – but they usually set in much later, if at all. At least she acted, instead of wondering what it would feel like. IT.

Speaking of which, she also received a book called ‘Why I can’t fall in love? And what to do about it’ by Rabbi Shmuley from a friend that weekend. She was touched and began reading in earnest – learning that good enough is indeed good enough and that there are differences between river, kettle and bird relationships. Yet, the central question remains unanswered. The heart is still enclosed in an armour of protest against the establishment of settling down. Engagement and baby photos on Facebook notwithstanding, a compromise on love is an unappealing as it was in younger, more carefree days. What is wrong with waiting?  

Yes, waiting can enhance loneliness and the accompanying gnawing pain. But does that justify a lie of a relationship, or passionless companionship? She does not know if she is reacting merely because she hasn’t met her ’soulmate’, or whether she is destined to be a lifelong explorer. She does know that the armour, the doubt, the reactionary behaviour will disappear with love and its reciprocation. Sometime.

An Old Feeling

She was at a conference this time. In a postgrad workshop group comprising four women, one man and two bigwig academics. She got a seat next to her male colleague and waited for him to present. Hearing the term ‘political documentary’, her thoughts began to race. I can talk to him. A tilt of the head in his direction and the heart is pacing too. What a rare combination it has become.

For she remembers her teenaged self travelling around the country for debates and getting the same fluttery feeling towards one particular boy. A similar self-consciousness was returning now. A familiar waiting game. She was angry at herself for not walking up to him anytime she saw him vacant. Instead, she avoided eye contact at the most opportune moments. What kind of self-sabotage was this?

They spoke nonetheless. Over lunch and dinner. Alone and in company. In passing too. But there was no goodbye. She had a flight to catch. She was also scared of finding out if the attraction was mutual. Now she regrets her passivity. Time to act, not imagine. Time to duck from self-pity and renew old feelings. Time to make them feel new.

Living and Reminiscing

More photos on a hard drive. Old houses and bygone dressers. New configurations. Directions that orient and disorient. Unfamiliar sights and sounds that will gradually become habitual. She will switch off sooner or later. From a feeling so gnawing it has created a wall in congenial, compact space. For now, there is politeness. There are superficial XOs and LOLs. Detachment is taking the place of confrontation. Exhaustion has no care.

More positively though, there are alternatives. Pathways and cafes yet to be discovered. Sleepovers and lunches with friends. Honest conversations with family. Writing that is acquiring shape and texture. Image that is telling a story. Life that is becoming, brimming. A steamed dumpling of joy. She will not scald her tongue this time.

And then there is the magic pill, a potion she has not taken in a while. It has led to five teary sessions in a month, where her average was one in five months. Spilling truths. Manifesting volatility and strength at the same time. Not fighting emotion. Not resisting the inevitable. Just learning to live with the past, the present, and the future.

25 is THE age to be

The last few weeks of not writing here have been eventful, but not in an overt way. For that matter, my life so far has become an issue rather an event. I went out on the weekend, on two successive evenings, and was left wondering about the question of age. This was unexpected considering I hadn’t been out dancing since I started speaking to M2. Instead of elation, there was contemplation. Are my best days behind me? Is the reckless abandon of youth not meant to last beyond 25 years of age? Should one persist in being youthful?

While flicking through the latest edition of Harper’s Bazaar yesterday, I came across a fashion advice feature suggesting that one cannot be victim to fads once on the wrong side of the quarter-life threshold. Then there was a Facebook note by a school friend titled ‘Things every woman should know and do before she turns 30′. While most of the list doled out instructions on pragmatic matters like relationships, careers, kids, bank balances, and even black lace bras, there was a point made about not mourning bygone times that stayed with me.

So it seems as though adulthood, maturity, responsibility and the accompanying lexicon of grown-up life is here to stay. However, I recall another story in the aformentioned magazine. This one concluded that whether one is 16 or 60, the aim is to look 25. Wow! Should I consider this year the peak of my youth then and celebrate it while it lasts? If so,what does this celebration entail? Or should I be preparing for the not-so-distant 30 by embarking on a serious mission of husband-hunting and career-solidification?

My parents seems to think that I am too innocent to find a man for myself. I’m sure B would convince them otherwise if he ever met them. Speaking of which, I think what I do need to do this year is shed my childhood ideas of what my adult self would/should be like. Once I stop judging me, a spirit of youthful freedom will finally set in and remain.

Engagement with/in Writing

I have been reading a number of Aquarius horoscopes before starting this piece. It just struck me that as a child, I loved going through Linda Goodman’s sun signs, especially the section on the Aquarian that began with a passage from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures:

“In spring, when the woods are getting green

I’ll try and tell you what I mean

In summer, when the days are long,
Perhaps you’ll understand the song.

For this must ever be  a secret

Kept from all the rest

Between yourself and me”.

I read the description of the Aquarian over and over, perhaps as a way to understand why I perceived the world slightly differently and more intensely than my siblings and peers. It was exciting to see a large number of creative people shared my zodiac sign. More importantly, I was heartened that the archetypal Aquarian detachment was described as disguising a deep love of humanity coupled with a great interest in communication.

Horoscope reading remains a part of my daily morning rituals, but it doen’t guide my life. What does influence my everyday thoughts and actions, and makes the happiness barometer fluctuate is my level of enagement with family, friends, work, and the randomness of life. Writing has been a medium for me to reflect on and comprehend this engagement for as long as I can recall. I have a lifelong engagement with writing, whether or not it turns into a career.

As H pointed out in an email, ‘being enagaging’ is also what one often seeks in a romantic partner. This comment was probably brought about my complaint regarding M2’s nice-with-a-smiley-face response to a piece of my writing. I have several well-meaning relatives and friends who would have something similar to say, but I dare say I want more depth from a person I have been considering in a relationship context. This does not imply that creative people should only go out with other creative types. I would like to think one does not have to be academically or artistically inclined to engage with writing, or with those who write. A number of writers are content with supportive partners, but ’support’ is a rather loose term in a writerly universe. Do they mean moral, emotional, intellectual, or all-encompassing support? Even if it is all of the above and freely-given, it must ‘get’ the writer on a spiritual level.

In bell hooks’ books on love, the spiritual growth of both partners is integral to any definition of love. hooks herself was in a long-term relationship with a fellow writer who she describes as outwardly supportive, but the light of retrospection revealed a different picture. This man was her intellectual equal as well as emotional and sexual companion, but he did not understand her interest in poetry for the self. It appears that this writing-for-the-self was integral to hooks’ sense of purpose, and regardless of her partner’s intellectual abilities, he did not concur with her writerly spirit. He wrote in a poem about her that when she spoke, she sang, but it seems he did not understand her song.

Bad Boys and Good Girls

I am tired of hearing that ‘good’ guys don’t get any girls, and that ‘nice’ girls always fall for ‘bad’ boys. There is the obvious argument that moral relativism means it is not always possible to tell good from bad. Then there are situations and relationships that bring out the bad side of normally good people. However, I refuse to accept that it is impossible to get adventure with reliability, or solidity with enthusiasm.

P tells me that S thinks of himself as a good guy and uses that as a way of understanding his lack of success in the dating arena. I wouldn’t be surprised if M2 has similar views. Why is it that the last couple of romantic interests in my life have been reliable yet uninspiring? In both cases, I enjoyed the consistency of affection to start with (especially considering it contrasted M1’s behavioural patterns). However, the sweetness turned saccharine as soon as I got whiff of its origins. I guess it could be best described as the difference between a floral scent whose pleasantness I usually find overwhelming (like Sarah Jessica Parker’s ‘Lovely’), and a fresh citrusy perfume that I am more inclined to like (say ‘Clinique Happy’). These guys are perefctly likeable to me in a friendly context, like a rose spray smelled from afar, but I could not have them under my skin.

And then there is the self-proclaimed bad boy, my friend of six years, B. He has been unreliable at times in the past, and his current company includes gym junkies I would have nothing in common with. However, I’m sure these are deliberate forays into building up a masculine profile that his innate nerdiness cannot attain. Hence the emotional women-bashing, the occasional use of crass language to provoke me, and the pseud0-scientific analysis of the dating scene. But I also remember him initiating me into Australia’s indigenous history with a massive Oxford encyclopaedia on a cold August afternoon after a Politics tutorial. And I recall the long coversations on the University lawns, the sunset-apparaisal at Beaumont, the vego lunch on Rundle Street, the discussion of Othello while bushwalking, and numerous other occasions that do not have a bad boy odour. These weren’t dates either, and hence I should be careful not to romanticise them. I guess what I am suggesting is that it is possible to enjoy time with people that you can engage with, with or without a romantic context, and regardless of whether either party is ‘too good’ or ‘too bad’ for the other.

Crossover Academic

While watching Terence Davies’ documentary titled Of Time and the City (recommended by my supervisor), I came across a fascinating quote by Carl Jung – “You meet your destiny on the road you take to avoid it”. How ironic that I was considering meeting the love of my life through my parents when I couldn’t wait to become financially independent and personally autonomous as soon as I started university. How appropriate that taking the dependent approach has made me realise more than ever how inappropriate it is for my needs, wants and ambitions.

This desire for autonomy has deeper roots. The formative tale I cannot forget is when I, aged eleven or twelve, was in the my parents’ car outside one of their friends’ homes. My mother was complaning to my father about what had just occurred at the party inside. I do not know if my reconstruction of the course of events is an actual fragment of memory, or my mum’s narration of it. What I do recall clearly is a resolve to never let that happen to me. That is an old colleague of mum’s seeing her youngest daughter and remarking that she seemed to have been busy ‘producing’. My resolve, years before I came into contact with feminist theory, women’s issues, and gender activism was to stand on my own feet, kids or no kids.

And now, close to fifteen years later, my resolve is as steadfast as ever. It has been through phases of imbalance when either work or love dilemmas dominated my thoughts. But now, reading bell hooks’ Wounds of Passion, I feel re-affirmed in my love of work, writing, life. Can these passions be balanced with a healthy, long-term relationship? I would like to think that a crossover is possible – that work and love are not so distinct and mutually exclusive after all. If I can aspire to interdisciplinarity in my career, it is surely applicable to every other aspect of my existence. In a single day, I can love, work, bead, cook, write and reflect. An academic does not have to live in an ivory tower. I will choose not to.