Make Someone Happy

Everyone has heard the saying, “if you love something, let it go.” There's some truth to that, but it implies an impossible choice. It also suggests that your beloved will return one day. As I've already observed, the person you know is gone. She won't come back. Not as you knew her. So, I have my version:

If you love someone enough, you want her (him) to be happy, even if you're not the one making her happy.

The person I loved the most in any relationship was Rachel. She was good to me. She was geeky, she was submissive, she brought out the absolute best in me. But after a year, things pretty much exploded in my face. She was, as I knew the whole time, mentally ill. I don't mean crazy, or developmentally disabled, but she had BPD, PTSD, and a host of other acronyms. I tried to fix her. It wasn't my job, I should have realized, to fix her. That was made all the more clear when I couldn't even fix myself.

For a time, I made her feel safe, and I made her feel happier than she ever did before, when things went bad for me, and I started taking it out on her, she left me.

The turning point, looking back, was when she came to me and said, “you made me realize I deserve to be happy, and I'm not happy.” That's a hell of a thing to hear. To be proud that you changed someone's life for the better, and at the same time, you're making it worse. As would later become a theme in my own life, the very things helping her were also holding her back. Mainly me. But also her mother, and whatever other things with SSI and things that weren't my business.

She didn't just leave me, she stood up to me. It hurt. But I came to realize later, it was the best thing she could do for herself. I'm proud of her for sticking up to me. And that's a hell of a thing to say. I want her to be happy. And I don't have to be the one making her happy. I had a very short email exchange with her mother, and I was surprised that I even got an answer at all. She's living on her own now, and she's happier than she's been in ten years. If you do the math, that also includes the year she spent with me. The longest she had been without being checked into a hospital was that year.

My actions, both right and wrong helped shape her. I helped make her the person she is now. I don't know if she's dating anyone else, but it really doesn't matter. She's happier with herself than she's ever been before. And that's what counts.

Don't think this sentiment applies only to one person. After Rachel, I dated Ariel. Great girl. Heart of gold. But I knew I was damaged goods when I first met her, and she accepted that. But, I left to go to Pennsylvania, in a failed attempt to start a new life, and she had a boyfriend when I came back to New York. But I was OK with that. Said relationship didn't go so smoothly, I understand, but I made it clear I would not sleep with someone in a monogamous relationship. Fast forward two years. She tells me she went to some kinky geek convention, and she either met, or went with some guy (I never did ask), who collared her, led her around by a leash, and made her his pet. She was so happy to be owned. And I was the one that got her involved in “the lifestyle.” I have to admit, I'm a little envious. But deep down, I'm happy for her. I'm happy that someone makes her happy, and it doesn't have to be me.

I could say the same thing about a few other ex-girlfriends, but they don't have as great stories behind them. But, I'll just say that I'm happy they're happy.

One of my best female friends today is Tiffany. She's in an open relationship, and as long as I've been good friends with her, she's been owned. Her Master though, his shit is all apart. He doesn't have a high paying job; he doesn't live alone. He is very guarded emotionally. He wants to get his shit together, he wants to give Tiffany the privacy, the love, the best life that he can give her, but he just can't. Something is holding him back. Maybe it's a lack of ambition, maybe it's a lack of opportunity coming his way, maybe he can't admit to himself how much he loves her--they've both been hurt in the past. But believe me when I say: I'm rooting for the guy.

Tiffany and I have had so many talks about him. About how he can't make up his mind. How he doesn't have an answer for all her questions. How he keeps her at a distance by only texting and emailing her, and literally not giving her his phone number. I see so much of myself in him. He's the Ghost of Christmas Past. He's who I was, and I don't want to see him make the same mistakes I did. But unlike me, he's insecure, and doesn't like when I see Tiffany, and he'd never listen to me if somehow I got the chance.

I value my friendship with Tiffany. She trusts me to do things to her that she wouldn't trust anyone else to, except for her Master. In our own way, I love her and she loves me. But I've asked her, “am I more important to you than him?” And she told me I'm not, which makes me feel better. I don't want to be a “stand-in” for her Master. I want her to value me for me, and I feel the same way about her. I tell her over and over again, that I don't want to push him aside to make room for myself. I want him to be the one that makes her happy, because when he does make her happy, she's never been happier. But, it looks like he's just pushing her away. So, I tell her to do right by herself. Not for me. For her.

I guess that's the strange thing for me. I don't tend to get jealous much. I could not know someone that well, and be a little upset that it's not me that's with her, but I don't know the whole story. The better I know someone, the better I know if I'm right for them. And the more I care about someone, the more I don't need to be the one caring for them. Even my own mother, after Dad left, she leaned on me, and leaned on me hard. I was her rock. I was the person she turned to. I held her up. I encouraged her to get back in the dating pool, I used my wealth of experience picking up girls online to show her how to optimize her profile, and what to expect from the men she dated. (As in, most of them will be lame, but you'll learn to filter them out with experience.) It took a while, but, for now, she's found someone who makes her very happy. And that makes me happy.

Appreciate who you have become.

I was going to title this chapter “appreciate what you have.” As trite, and cliché as that saying may be, it's cliché because it's also true. You should appreciate what you have, whether those are your possessions, the people who love you, or even appreciating the night sky or a sunny day. But ultimately, those things, especially your material possessions, are accessories. They are nice to have, they brighten your day, but, in the end, they can be taken away from you. What can't be taken away from you, is you. 

Which brings me to the more important point: You have struggled every day to become the person you are today. That awkward, uncoordinated, clueless person in school, well that's not you anymore, and you don't owe him anything. The person you answer to you is not “past you” it's “present you.” You should appreciate the person you are, the person you've become, and you only need to hang on to the person you once were as much as you need to remember directions to a place you've already been to. Every part of your past that you hold on to, holds you back.

Every failure is also a learning opportunity. Every failure made you better, and every success proved that you did the work necessary to achieve that success. The one thing that no one can take from you is what you give yourself. That is you. You. Call it a soul, call it a conscious, call it the sum of neurons in your brain remembering past experiences and having the ability to predict future events based on present information. But whatever you call it, it is that voice in your head that knows better than the other voices in your head. It's that angel on your one shoulder. It's your best self. So ask yourself, will I be making my best self proud? Even when things don't go your way, ask yourself, what can you do to become better for it? Don't worry about blame, there's plenty of it to go around. Focus on yourself. And, take note of how your failures now are better than the failures in the past.

The fact is, there will always be problems, and you will always get used to whatever level of success you have, be it financial, personal, or even how fit or famous you are. Appreciate what you have been through. Appreciate the struggles, the failures, the pain, the gain, the rush of success. That has made you who you are. Don't define yourself by who you once were, and while goals are good, don't define yourself as the person you wish you were either. You are somewhere in between, and there's nothing wrong with that. 

The Long Run Hasn't Happened Yet

Go though any major change in your life, good or bad—a breakup, losing a job, being behind in the rent, getting injured, going on a diet, quitting smoking-- you will hear this advice, maybe say it yourself: “In the long run, it's for the best.” Or, “At the end of the day, you'll be better off.” Or some variation of that. Well, ask me in five years how I'm doing. The long run hasn't happened yet.

Here's the cold hard truth: You will not see big gains right away. You may feel a little bit better at first, but that will wear off very quickly. Then, the pain starts. You have to put down the ice cream or the cigarettes; you have to get up before the sun to do your morning run; Money problems, loneliness, heartbreak, the list goes on. You will have to be patient. And patient means not getting what you set out to get, until one day, you wake up and you already have it, you already did it, or the power is inside you, and you wonder if it was there the whole time.

I think Mad Magazine summed it up perfectly in its spoof of The Empire Strikes Back. Yoda, in this version, says to Luke, “The first thing you must learn is patience.” Luke responds, “Patience? I've got plenty of patience! What's the second thing!”

So whatever you set out to do, or whatever burden is on your shoulders, sometimes you have no choice but to wait until you get used to it. The only way out is through.

Let's give a few specific examples before moving on to general points.

Break up: You will continue to miss the person, long after you're “over it.” That person may not be the person you fell in love with anymore, but missing that memory will haunt you for years if you let it. You have memories, you have chemicals flooding your brain. It hurts. And you have to somehow pick yourself up and deal with normal life, and some how put it behind you and find someone else...when you're ready. As bad as you feel, the world won't stop so you can get your shit together. You have to simply acknowledge those feelings, those chemicals, and get used to how they feel. Those missing pieces, those memories, will never fully go away. But you will get used to that pain. And when you get used to that pain, it doesn't affect you as much. As you get used to new experiences, new memories will form, pushing out the old ones to the back of your mind. But remember, just because a relationship doesn't last as long as you expected, it doesn't invalidate the time you had together. It doesn't invalidate the discoveries you made about yourself, the person you became because of their actions (both good and bad--this is your journey, after all). What you choose to do with who you are now is up to you. Maybe you'll never fill that hole in your heart that is shaped like the person you loved. But, the only way to make it up to yourself is to be better with the next person you choose to be with. When you're ready. It won't happen tomorrow. Sorry.

Job Loss: You don't just lose money. You lose the future that came with the job. You will be angry at how well you did that job, and wonder if there will be any other job that so matches your skills. You will be used to the atmosphere of that job, whether it's suit-and-tie or Hawaiian Shirts and sandals. You will miss the people there. You will see the money in your account stop going up, and start going down. You will learn, over time, to better balance your budget, be it buying house-brand shampoo, giving up Lattes in favor of home-brewed coffee, cutting out HBO, and so on. Looking for new jobs is a complete pain in the ass. You will feel squeezed by younger people who made their career decisions earlier in life; you will feel squeezed by people with more experience than you, even former management players, looking for the same positions you are. They are your competition, and they are, in a way, imaginary. Your biggest competition is yourself. You simply have to put yourself out there. Finding a job is a full time job. With shitty benefits. And a long lunch break. Whether the HR person reading your cover letter and resume will spend five seconds skimming your letter, or give it Talmudic study, you will never know. But you have to put yourself out there. You have to put your all into every chance you have, and, paradoxically, let it go as soon as you've sent it, because rejection, or complete disregard, is almost a certainty. And you will have to wait. No matter how much effort you put in, whether you selectively choose the jobs that are perfect for you, or crop dust the job market, sending out thirty resumes every single day, five days (six? Seven?) a week, you will have to wait. And wait. And one day, you'll get that call. For an interview. That's only the second step. And your reward for all this work is, of course, to get up early, drive or catch a train somewhere, and work your ass off 40 hours a week. At least you get paid for it.

Quitting smoking: A teacher of mine once told me a story. He had smoked as a teenager, and long since quit. He hadn't had a smoke in over fifteen years. One day, he was visiting where he grew up, and he found himself leaning against a certain wall, craving a cigarette. He really took notice of that feeling, and how strange it was, that here he was, after all these years, he just had it ingrained in his head that that place was associated with having a cigarette. I've also known people who smoke only when they drink. During the week, they don't smoke, but when they go out and drink, they smoke. When they try to quit smoking entirely, they have to cut back on their drinking, too. When you're a smoker, the entire ritual is a habit. It's a coping mechanism. When you are stressed, you have a smoke: despite the long-term damage to your lungs, it's soothing to take that deep breath and feel the hot smoke in your lungs. You step outside, take yourself out of the situation, and give yourself time to think the problem, whatever it is, over. The cigarette ritual, if you took out the cigarettes themselves, are a perfectly healthy way to deal with stress. But, once that habit is ingrained, it's pretty much set. Think about this, what do you do with your hands, or what do you stuff in your mouth, when you get stressed or fidgety?How do you make friends if you can't go up to someone and say “hey, got a light?” Oh, and that's not even mentioning the nicotine addiction.

Whether you are injured, arrested, or betrayed, whether you learn an instrument, try to turn a hobby into a money-making venture, move to a new town, any change, good or bad, is simply a question of waiting until you notice the change has happened. And of course, there's no guarantee it will work. The long run never happens. Until it already did.

The Truth Hurts. Lying Hurts More

Trust is not something you can put on a shelf and forget about. It's not something you can steal, but it is something you can lose. It can be broken, and it can be repaired, but never be the way it was. Trust is a verb. It is something you do. Treat it like something you do, not something you have.

When you betray someone's trust in you, it also affects them in ways you won't know. She'll doubt herself, blame herself for what she did or didn't do, and hate herself for opening up and trusting you in the first place.

I can't tell you the right way to break up with someone, but I can tell you the wrong way. Don't try to “game the system,” because there is no system, and what you call “the system” is made up of people. And I'm pretty sure it's made up of people you say you care about.

Don't try to schedule a breakup before or after a birthday, anniversary, or holiday (Christmas and Valentine's Day come to mind) because you want to receive, or, avoid giving some gift or physical favor. Just don't schedule it at all. A good relationship should have a continually-evolving, multi-dimensional, omni-directional open system of communication. This doesn't mean be an asshole and say every bad thing about your partner that comes to mind. But when your racing thoughts about your partner are keeping you up at night, it's time to open your mouth and start talking. Don't make a plan B, don't pack your escape pod, and don't even think “it's better to ask forgiveness than permission.” Be kind, be aware, and be open. Just tell the truth, and work it out. And if you can't work it out, then leave with your head held high.

Don't make any subtle hints that you're unhappy with your partner. Come out and say them. If you're going to a strip club, say you're going to a strip club. If you want to try out some crazy kink and don't know how she'll react? Don't just leave your web site history open, what should be open is your mouth. Whatever “it” is, don't fake “it.” Don't roll your eyes, or make little breaths and sighs. Don't go through the motions with a thousand yard stare on your face. If it's done, then it's done. But it takes two people to start a relationship, and it should take two people, not just one, to end one.

Don't drop any bombshells. If you're moving, maybe graduating college or something like that, you don't just assume it'll be over, or assume it'll keep going. You gotta have that talk. You gotta set rules, and if the rules aren't working, don't break them, revise them. Don't start having an affair. There is no fifty-mile rule. No, it won't stay in Vegas. Don't take advantage of the trust your partner has in you. Don't just say you're leaving, grab your laptop and make a run for the door. Or, for that matter, don't just ignore her and hope she goes away.

When you're with someone for a long period of time, or an important period of time, you may find your identity through her. You may find that she validates you in a way you never thought possible. And it can all go away. So if that happens, where does the identity go? What happens to that validation? In a way, you put part of yourself in her, and she puts part of herself in you. You have to treat that part of yourself very gently. It's true that the truth hurts, but hiding the truth will only make it worse.