X Marks the Spot

I'd like to make a graveyard for my ex-girlfriends. Well, not them - but for the ghosts of their past selves that I dated - I guess my ghost could go there, too. I would like to visit their graves from time to time to properly mourn or absorb the impact of their passing from my life.

Maybe having a place to go to mourn them would help with my fear of the end of relationships. It seems to hurt more because no one died.

I'm digging a new grave. I am terrified of the end of another relationship and I haven't been able to end it for the past year and a half in which I've periodically been trying to end it. I still have so much pain from my last relationship termination. I can't stand that I'm about to hurt someone I love in a similar way that I was hurt by someone I loved. I am scared that I won't follow through yet again, which will only hurt both of us even more.

I was madly in love with my last girlfriend (the one before my current) and we barely argued until the last two months we were together. It was a joyous, loving, sweet and relatively fun relationship (I was writing my dissertation for three months of it, though, and it was only nine months long.) It was the first relationship where I truly believed it would last the rest of our lives - I thought we were pretty much perfect together and I thought she felt the same. She didn't seem like the type to break up with someone - she had dated the girlfriend before me for three years and only broke up with her because that girlfriend treated her badly or it was a bad relationship, anyhow. It still angers me that she broke up with me so easily when she put so much time and effort into making the bad relationship work. The only thing that I could think that really explained why she broke up with me was that I moved to San Francisco (and she said she'd love to move back to SF after she finished her doctorate in Pittsburgh) - but I told her if that was why I would move back to Pittsburgh for her. I wasn't lying. I was that in love with her. She told me she didn't want me to move back to be with her, that she probably would've broken up with me had I stayed, too.

It's been five years since that ex and I broke up. She's been dating her "new" girlfriend for 4+ years now and she's been trying to get pregnant for over a year. They've lived together since she started trying to get pregnant. It hurts because her girlfriend is luke-warm at best about starting a family while I dream of it - and dreamed of having one with my ex. Everytime we try to have a friendship I end up having feelings for her that are so strong that I almost believe we could get back together - that she would somehow realize what she's missing in me and break up with her girlfriend and ask me to move back to Pittsburgh to start a family with her. It's near delusional. (Once she meant to call me delusional but she said something about enjoying my "illusions"... I couldn't help laughing - if I was a magician (or illusionist) I would've made her magically fall back in love with me!)

When she broke up with me, I swear I was truly just broken. I couldn't trust any feelings of love in me or anyone else - certainly not anyone else. I don't know if I've even gotten over that since I haven't really believed in my current relationship since about a month after we started dating when I started to detect some abnormal behaviors. But for that month, I truly thought I could believe in love again.

When someone dies, it's already understood that no explanation will really suffice - even if you know what happened that made them lose their life - cancer, getting hit by a train, heart attack, etc. If it was unexpected, like an accident, you usually don't get the chance to say goodbye. But a break-up is never that clean of a cut. Or at least, not usually - especially for lesbians, I think. First, you do get to say goodbye. Second, even though no explanation will ever really suffice, you think you could figure it out if you dig deep enough...and maybe, even, you could then "fix" it (as in, reverse it.) At least, this is how I've experienced break-ups. Except for one time, I've always been the one to be broken-up with (with maybe a couple of neutral ones where we both felt it was right to end it.) Oh, I guess there was another time but that was an abusive situation and I still wanted it to work but I had to end it because I was being used so dramatically. So I don't think that counts.

In any case, just about all of my break-ups have been messy and painful. Usually, the relationship is damaged beyond repair - or at least just damaged such that there is always the lingering unease if/when we run into each other. It fades with time and if there was any friendship in it to begin with. But even then, I think there's still this slight burn to the relationship like someone got hurt more than the other and remembers it. Usually, it's me. Some of my exes just didn't like me as a person - not hated but we weren't really friends and aren't now. I guess I don't like them that much, either. But it still burns a little to be rejected, you know? I haven't even spoken to or heard from or of the one ex I broke up with because I wasn't in love with her. She might hate me. I definitely hurt her. That was 13 years ago now.

I don't want to end this relationship badly. I don't want it to hurt - but it will. It's been really hard to even talk to her about how the relationship doesn't work well, so we haven't been able to address the issues except when I accept full blame for anything. I'm afraid she won't let me break up with her in as loving a way as possible. I'm afraid she will just clam up and shut me out immediately. In some ways, I understand that. I don't think I could fully accept a break up if it were done in a loving way - maybe it's harder that way. Maybe it would be easier for her to just hate me (and maybe she will) but it wouldn't be easier for me that way. And I don't hate her - I love her, in fact. I just don't think we should be together for many reasons that I don't feel I need to explain here. I don't really want to have to explain them all to her, either, since some reasons might be hurtful to her.

I did it. Tonight, on the phone. I didn't mean to - I meant to wait to talk to her in person - like tomorrow afternoon.  But I've been so anxious and sad about it that I started crying when she asked me how my week had been. I wouldn't tell her what is was about - just that I wanted to talk to her about it in person. Then she asked if I was breaking up with her and I said I just wanted to talk to her in person - then she knew.

Morning of January 29th: I broke up with my girlfriend last night. I'm hurting. I felt a little free for a little while and now I'm just hurting. I might feel free again but I always miss her in the morning.

Science Funk

I'm in a funk at work. I just don't feel like doing it anymore right now.

Does this happen to you? I know that writers get "writer's block" and artists sometimes struggle for inspiration...can I describe my science funk as similar to those phenomena?

Maybe I just need a vacation to release me. I think I'm over-worked and the pay-off is missing yet.

I worked a lot last week trying to collect the data from my first real experiment (that concluded two months of work) at my new lab/job - until midnight last Wednesday (over 13hrs), until 8pm on Thursday (11hrs) and until 7pm on Friday (9hrs). My analysis resulted in either an intermediate or no effect. The experimental design had some flaws, too, so it needs to be repeated. However, a collaborating lab got positive results using different cells indicating that I'm basically barking up the wrong tree. But I still have to repeat my experiment to get a definitive negative result (unless it isn't negative and then that would be more complex).

Not only that. But then there's just this constant feeling of swimming upstream lately. My boss - who I like - keeps telling me how I could be doing things better - which I know is her job but it feels crummy because I feel like I've already been changing things to make them better but I get no kudos for that because she didn't know me before and my old boss who did know me doesn't see my improvements and even if he did he isn't the type to give kudos (one of the reasons I was less fond of him).

I want to go to the beach and lie down under the blue sky. I want to feel the fine, white sand between my toes. I want to walk into the crystal-clear, still Caribean Sea until it reaches my chest and turn in circles, feeling the warm water gently ripple around me. I want to breathe in the warm, salt air. I'm tired. I want to be invigorated again.

Is it a burden?

Does it matter if it is? Do any of us have a choice?

My head is spinning since watching the movie about Facebook - "The Social Network". I definitely think it's an entertaining movie. I don't think it's "the first great ... movie of the 21st century" as it has been touted in previews. Actually, the quote is from a blog post by Lou Lumenick on the New York Post's website reviewing the movie and where I've written the "..." is inserted "fact-based". That's worth pointing out - it refers to the fact that the movie is still fictional, but closer to non-fiction since it is "fact-based". One would not need to describe a non-fictional piece of work as "fact-based" since it's already implied in the term and it would thus be redundant. In any case, that's something to remember and consider when thinking about the movie and any relation to reality.

I will try to keep it in mind, myself, while I write this post.

Many of the reviews, and even Mark Zuckerberg, himself, have been saying that the movie sheds a negative portrayal of Mark, the founder and CEO of Facebook. I, however, didn't find his character in the movie as deplorable. In fact, I kind of saw myself in him. The character - and I don't know if this is how the real Mark Zuckerberg acts and, in fact, it's likely that he doesn't act this way because I think it's probably more the actor, Jesse Eisenberg - talks really fast and self-assuredly which obviously implies he thinks fast and constantly. He has a brilliant mind - smart and fast. He even understands social situations - he just doesn't navigate himself through them well - well, at least in this version of the "truth".

Mark gets frustrated when other people can't keep up with him and the way he thinks. He gets bored with "small talk". They sound a bit arrogant, but I can understand these feelings. However, I have, in recent years, realized the necessity of disguising these feelings. I still get frustrated because I hate repeating myself and I feel like I have to do that a lot more with other people - not repeating myself because they didn't hear me, but repeating whole conversations because they didn't quite grasp it yet although I will have thought we came to the conclusion already - which is inevitably what it is but sometimes other people aren't quite there yet. I mean, I'm just quick at thinking, I think. And I spend all day thinking so I guess I exercise that part of me often so it's in good shape. (And I'm quick at learning - I only need to learn something once for me to understand it - most of the time. Sometimes I continue to understand something more and more with each lesson, but most of the time I almost fully grasp something right after be taught it the first time. At least I believe I do which I also think is part of the whole success thing - you need to be self-confident.)

Let me get to the point: I feel that in order to be a historically significant person - someone who can honestly be considered great and remembered for all time - you have to sacrifice social and domestic life. I felt like the character of Mark Zuckerberg was lonely and eventually all alone at the top. (I think this is one of the contentions of the real Mark Zuckerberg so I need the qualifiers). He seemed unhappy and sad. I also understand it is a bit of a caricature. In any case, I know there's some truth to it. And I feel like that's what I'm doing. I don't have much of a life at all. The more of a "life" I have (this is the personal, social and domestic parts of one's life to which I am referring), the less I have time to work and vice versa. I would like to think I have not made these sacrifices in vain. It doesn't matter, though, because I don't really have a choice now that I've chosen this path - which I didn't know would actually limit my choices rather than widening them.

I don't mean to open the whole "why did I get my doctorate" can of worms. I'll save that for another blog post. I suppose what I'm feeling that I'm trying to convey in this post is that being smarter than the average person, or feeling smarter (if that's all it really is - my own perception of superior intellect), I feel like I am burdened by it to do something great with it - this intelligence, you know? And thus, I must sacrifice the life that I thought I would have - the one everyone is taught they will have - in order to do this "great" something with my life.

The life that I am referring to, if you aren't fully grasping my point, is the one where you go to college after high school, get a job doing something that requires a bachelor's but not necessarily anything particularly specific to the subject of your college major, date around a little but then marry the person who you're dating by the time you're about 30, have kids soon thereafter, and then get consumed by the domestic life of raising a family - you get older, your kids have kids and then you die. Something like that - am I right? I mean, sure, we've been told the more glorified version, but that's pretty much it. And it's true - it happens all the time, like clockwork. I swear I had no idea that it was so predictable - the sudden massive onslaught of marriages that my straight acquaintances had to endure over a few summers between ages 28-31 (ish). Myself, being gay, only had to go to a handful of weddings (if that) - thankfully, to be honest! Weddings are stressful. My brother told me how he had to go to weddings every single weekend for at least one of those summers, if not two or three of them. Now those people are either getting divorced or having babies. Unfortunately, my brother fell into the divorce path - although it was not his choice and I will write another post about the biggest lie out there (about the nature of love) that is destroying people's lives (I am purposefully being dramatic).

Ok, going back to the burden that I feel I must carry out since I am blessed with my mind. I could just blow it all to hell and be a beach bum, you know? But I won't. I don't feel like I can, in fact, because I would get bored. And if I didn't get bored it would be because I was using my intelligence to do something - maybe to discover something, maybe to build something, paint something, etc. etc., and thus, using my intelligence somehow to do something that could be conceived of as "great". So then maybe it isn't a burden. Or maybe I have no choice and it doesn't matter either way if it is or not cause there's no way around it.

To complete my story - or blog post - I will now come back to the movie about Mark Zuckerberg and the making of Facebook. If I could talk to Mark Zuckerberg (the character from the movie), I think I would say this to him:

Hey Mark, yes, obviously you're very smart - some may even call brilliant or a genius if you believe in genius, but here's the thing: you gotta give everyone else a wee bit of a break. They're not as quick as you, but they're still worth knowing, you know? And caring about. So maybe you could slow down and take some time to figure out what it is about them - and the world you have taken for granted around you since you understand how it works so well and easily - and consider the things you cannot ever fully understand like beauty. And love. And inner peace. Then maybe you can find some humility and give yourself a break, too. You don't have to be the best, the greatest, etc. You can just be happy if you want to.

Those are my thoughts. I'm not sure how well this post fits together. I wrote it in several sittings. I'm not positive even if I have completed any thought whatsoever. I just saw myself in him (M.Z.) and so maybe it's really just about me and how I feel about me.