I’ve long believed that I am supremely flexible when it comes to dealing with life’s necessary adjustments of every sort: the monumental, the disconcerting, the niggling that drives you nuts.
I’m certain of my basic resilience: I refuse to stay down for the count, I am adaptable when it comes to switching cultures, and I am absolutely convinced that people can change – if they want to.
I believe that I am capable of change, that I’m flexible, that I’m open-minded.
But what if I’m wrong?
Am I confusing open-mindedness with flexibility, or for that matter – curiosity with flexibility?
A willingness to change is not the same as executing change. And even with the discipline to allow habits to transform (apparently, something in the range of 66 days are required) – I may be stubbornly clinging to the familiar, and deluding myself that I’m not.
Facing Ourselves (and Our Flawed Perceptions)
Getting used to someone in my space?
It isn’t easy, even on a part-time basis. I’m increasingly confronted with my own willfulness, my desire to be accommodating to the man I’m seeing, and yet my struggle when it comes to actually doing it.
This isn’t with every aspect of life, mind you. And much concerns scheduling – or more precisely – the reality of insufficient hours in the day for what I need to accomplish.
Specifics?
I struggle with anything that interrupts my writing routine. I struggle with noise (I require quiet to write, though not to edit). I struggle with timing of exercise (to do with peak energy, not to mention my work assignments). I struggle with being even-tempered when my sleeping goes haywire.
Making Time for Relationship
Some time ago I expressed the reality – my reality – that dating after divorce is a matter of time and timing.
Single parent? Solo parent? Don’t underestimate how tricky these constraints can be.
At the moment (at last!), the timing is excellent for me. But time? The necessary hours to invest in a relationship? As a long divorced woman raising two kids alone, logistical changes remain exceptionally difficult for me.
- I am less flexible about my writing schedule than I thought – if I wish to enjoy the process, much less work at my most efficient hours.
- I am less flexible about exercise than I anticipated – as mentioned, to do with physical rhythms and professional commitments. (I assure you, discipline is not a problem!)
- I am more flexible when it comes to sleeping – but I know that I cannot constantly steal from sleep in order to “fit everything in.”
I am facing my own realization: I’m not yet willing (or able) to reorganize priorities to the extent that I thought I could or would, and I recognize that some of this is due to hanging on to old routines.
I don’t wish to alter these routines that have enabled me to manage through challenging times.
Giving Up and… Giving Up
I’ve conceded that I need alone time – in considerable quantities. But what if the amount of together time in a couple is too much for one and not enough for the other?
Here’s what I’m increasingly aware of. I’m cranky when I’m pulled in too many directions. I’m cranky if I can’t write – regularly – which is stating the obvious. I’m cranky when my writing is interrupted by conversation – or attempts at conversation.
Hell. That’s a whole lot of cranky.
In my recognition that I haven’t the time for “everything” I’ve always done and a relationship, if I want the relationship – what do I give up?
I continue to tell myself that I’ll find a solution, that it’s always crazier (logistically) when my boys are back from school, and giving up sleep (or exercise) or my own writing are unacceptable alternatives.
Do I throw my hands up in the air and resign myself to shared time that is simultaneously pleasant and stress-inducing because I want (or need) to write rather than meandering through the Farmer’s Market?
Working Through Discomfort
Theoretically, you can’t fix a problem if you don’t know what it is.
I’m not sufficiently flexible. There. I said it. Now I need to address it.
Any new routine results in discomfort. I need to accept that. I need to work through it. I need to communicate clearly when I’m trying to make adjustments (including when I’m failing). I need to listen to the other person involved, and not forget that he has his comfort zone as well that is also surely being stretched and challenged.
Like most women, I am afraid of losing myself to, for, and in another person. I’ve been there before (too often) and I don’t want to go there again.
I also need to earn a living, to rely on myself because that is the fundamental lesson of my past decade, and to write — because it teaches me, it defines me, and it nourishes me.
Nonetheless, I need to be more flexible. Isn’t the joy of a mature, adult relationship worth fighting for, even if the one I’m fighting is myself? Or is that an oversimplification in a complex world? And an oversimplification in a new relationship?
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And so it goes, the quintessential throes of the tortured writer, the artist. It’s a very hard profession to balance with relationships because it can be so all consuming. I have no answers except that I think stepping away from the writing nourishes the writer, which therefore enriches the writing. Except when you’re under that deadline or the middle of that inspirational thought; and therein lies the rub.
Even if not “tortured,” I do think certain professions tend to pose scheduling dilemmas that others may not, at least, not quite in the same way. I agree about stepping away from the writing to experience, but yes, the challenges arise in the unpredictable nature of those ideas, the unyielding element of deadline, and of course, the need to make a buck.
I really do struggle with this ebb & flow … I require a significant amount of solitude and quiet. As a mother of three, the little bits of time I get are treasured and it has been an adjustment to expand my space for a significant other.
We talk about it quite a bit. What we have worked out is that we can be in solitude while parallel. We can share space, but not words. This works for me and we aren’t together so much that we don’t still have our own places.
I have to confess that I’m at the place where I am ready for more togetherness! It’s surprising even to me because I do need the downtime. But with him, there is no pressure, no performance, no requirement. He can (and does) go exercise or play his music while I read or write in another room. Eventually we find our way back to each other and even then are often quiet and inward but touching casually.
It’s a comfortable togetherness that I’ve never experienced before.
I do understand. There’s no rush to be constantly together. It this relationship has what it takes to go the difference, a bit of pull-back and solitude won’t change the tide.
You mentioned his schedule changes with the school year, does he go back to more regurlar hours soon? Perhaps that will naturally provide you with the space you need.
FYI – we tried exercising together and I did enjoy it! But my man is much more intense and needed a higher pace of activity. We tried and it wasn’t ideal. That’s okay.
What a thoughtful comment, Missy June. There’s much to chew over here, and I thank you. (And yes, in a few weeks, the schedule changes and allows me more of that “alone time” I need so much.)
I think your last line is so important. (I’m going to roll this one around in my head for a bit.) We tried and it wasn’t ideal. That’s okay.
Not everything can fall into place. If the most important things do, it really should be okay that others don’t. We do seem to perpetuate an “everything together” view of couples in this culture, and some individuals seem to gravitate toward that more than others. I don’t need that, personally. But some do. And maybe even that difference is, as you say, okay.
When we were living in the loft, we often experienced the struggle of how to find alone time and privacy, not to mention quiet. It is a challenge to balance relationship with life’s other demands. There is something to be said for a routine. It usually becomes one because it works for us. So, I can understand the difficulty in trying to change something that works. But, sometimes we can surprise ourselves – maybe learn something new about ourselves – when we step outside our comfort zone. But, how do we find a balance between independence and co-existing harmoniously? Communication…compromise…and then some…
Sometimes, when my husband can not be interrupted by conversation, I will slip him a note that he can pick up when he is ready. That way, I don’t break his train of thought, but I still get his attention. For me, I don’t like my train of thought to be interrupted, but I will drop just about anything I am doing to listen to what someone else has to say.
Exercise. I am a walker. In the summer, I prefer first thing in the morning before the heat of the day sets in. I have to admit, I don’t like to change this routine. My husband likes many other forms of exercise, but walking isn’t one of them. Now that we live near a lake, he has started to walk a bit more, but then I have to do it in the high heat of the day (which is when he seems ready to venture outside). Even though I don’t love bicycling, I bought a bike three years ago, so that I could join him once in a while. We exercise together about once a week. The benefit – It is a good time to talk.
Unsolicited advice (which I hate): Don’t give up sleep. Eventually, everything else will suffer.
It’s an oversimplification, and you’re being FAR too hard on yourself. It’s not that you’re not flexible, it’s that you’ve designed a life for yourself that works for you.
This is not to say that you don’t want him in your life, but that also doesn’t mean that everything else has to take a back-seat to the relationship. Which, I think you’ll agree, has been a costly mistake for both of us in the past. Which is not to say it would be this time, but that you’re hyper-aware of maintaining the life you like.
I think it just needs to happen more organically. I think you’re making the time and space as you can. I just hope you’ll make a little room for the possibility that it’s not. your. fault.
Thank you for this perspective, April.
I feel like a hypocrite. In one circumstance I want my alone time. In others, I’m the one clinging to togetherness. Ugh already. And that feeling when I want to be with someone and it is not mutual. Terrible.
Yup. I’m just like you. I imagine myself to be super flexible, but the reality is that I have a hard time changing course when I’ve got a plan/routine/you name it. My husband calls me out a lot on this (quite rightly) and I’m trying to get better about losing control (which is what it’s about for me.) I find schedules and routines…comforting.
Here’s to loosening up!
Delia Lloyd
http://www.realdelia.com
Yes, schedules and routines are comforting. I’m not sure I’d thought of it that way, Delia. But they are also what allows us to keep on track with, what many might say, is more than anyone can keep on track.
But somewhere in that mix is a bit more loosening up (as you say).