Mel and Marriage Epiphanies

My sometimes functioning radio actually worked this morning. Instead of my usual curse words that string through my mind when I think of the conniving Boston shitheads who poorly installed my radio, I had pleasant thank yous running out of my lips. I sat low in my seat during my morning commute, ready for some good radio waves.

The usual reactions to radio... A smile scratches the sides of my face when I think of the people who must record the promo commericial... [singing] Jeff and Jen in the morning....CINCINNATI [someone screaming/sings in the background]...Q102!! I want to be the person that yells CINCINNATI in the background, but then laugh sardonically, almost eating the microphone...

Anyway, after an 'DJ APB' is sent out for a stolen inflatable jack-o-lantern in Anderson Township, I unfix my eyes in their upward roll position, and wait until something entertaining came on. I didn't have to wait long. We soon got down to business of discussing real issues concerning modern America and I was not disappointed: Mel Gibson's alcoholism was next on the agenda.

After the locals called in, crying about their bout or relatives' alcoholism, the DJ's question came down to this: Does alcohol bring your true self out or turn you into a completely different person?

Oh, for the love of all things holy - anything you say or do - whatever comes out of you has to come from somewhere. It's not like alcohol is injected with cells that alter your personality.

***

Last night Adonis and I temporarily descended from our usual throne in Bliss and found ourselves in a disagreement regarding a fundamental issue in sexuality. In the throes of debate I wondered to myself, "What is THIS coming out of him? Did I not know/see/realize this before?" I began to wonder, philosophically, how well can you really know another human being.

With Merce, my paid professional affirmer and challenger (aka therapist), I brought up my frustrations of our disagreement and she asked me a series of questions, not pertaining to any issue, but to the patterns of my beliefs, as any good therapist should do. She asked, "What do you think happens in marriage?"

Well, a barrage of answers came flooding in my head, but then one stood out, knocking all the other answers on their ass. And I realized, again, for the 19th time since June 4, 2005 that marriage, the tie between two individuals is a link, not a welding into sameness. Our lives are fused, but not our actual selves, not our core elements of personhood. And thank goodness for that. ("The cypress and oak grow not in each others' shadows," -The Prophet, on marriage)

Hand on forehead, still grappling with right-ness and *ahem* pride, Merce clicking her pen against her mouth, I blurt, "Seriously, though...how can I be wrong? I'm right on this."

Is that what matters?

This unexpected hardness, absolute righteousness reared its enormous head. I did not see that sucker coming.

Merce sends me on my way, with another appointment in 6 days and I walk forlornly to my car, hating the awkward negativity when you know you're -not wrong, but not exactly right - in the middle of something with no defining left and right. Awkward, awkward.

To know and love another human is to embrace a storm with no measure. The person is not the storm, but the act, the trying of the embrace, is the storm itself. A person's roots that hold their basic and conclusive reasoning may be housed in this beautiful thing called the Unconscious (uCon). Not the subconscious, which is underlying and quiet, but the Unconscious - the comatose, unmoving, appearing dead and lifeless to the world.

The uCon is a reality that we all must accept. It is an essential characteristic of the truth that humans will never be and can never be fully known. I mean, seriously, we internalize, deny, and shove experiences and thoughts away at a rate we cannot keep up with. uCon harbors these ghostly ships of feelings and experiences we don't even realize or let ourselves actualize.

I think that alcohol can call those ships to the sea of behavior and force itself into expressions that are sometimes hurtful and dangerous. I also think that sober fear, rites of passage moments, celebration, death, and starkly inane events all carry potential to conjure things in us we did not know existed - realizing depth of love or hate, unpassed grief, unsorted thoughts, and even core private beliefs.

We're walking mysteries, waiting to implode. Lovely. Fan-FREAKING-tastic.

It's nothing to be frightened of, I realized. I think I just forget that a lot in my quest to know everything and anticipate difference and hurt, (not to avoid it, but to know how to deal with it) this piece of inevitability slips my mind. These ships, we've all got 'em apparently, are beyond our tracing eyes and heart.

The unknown or unconscious, unpredictable elements of others/relationships should not move us away from one another. I suppose this is the part of my life where I learn to understand that the grey of life is not exactly about mixing two things into one, but being strong enough to stand the absense of black and white, right and wrong. I can't see his point. He can't see mine. Perhaps our ships are just too fogged up to be seen.

And maybe love can stand the fog.