My road-WRITING

I spared myself no pain when we stopped seeing each other for the first time, when impatience over the resolution of my affairs led to a separation and not just an argument.  To save my sanity, I kept our love alive in writing, and that allowed me to keep it alive in my heart.  I risked that she would betray our love.  In fact, it was my duty as her true love to hope that she would find love somewhere else.  And in so doing, I had to accept it was my duty to do the same; but this was too much to ask me.  It is difficult to love anyone else when you love a person so fully.

When we stopped seeing each other the first time…  No, that’s not an acceptable way to put it.  When she stopped seeing me for the first time, I stopped drinking coffee.  It hurt too badly, because one of the special times we had together was drinking coffee in the morning even though her coffee was too strong for me, I would drink it and pretend to love it.  It was not difficult, because my eyes drank her in and everything around her was acceptable as long as she remained the primary focus in the picture.

This story is so full of wrong decisions and misplaced choices that it is difficult, if not impossible to identify one line of them worth pursuing over another.

We erected false barriers, some which should have been heeded and were not and some which should have been torn down but were left in place.

What is a barrier that should have been heeded?  The most obvious to the counselor was the one that screamed, don't get into business with someone who you have defended from the accusations of others.  Someone run out of town on a rail, trailing tar and feathers, is an associate who will leave your hands black and sticky.  Run, my brain told me, but I was deaf.  Innocently I listened to the proposal and the avarice said, yes this will work and will work smoothly and the hot air in Africa laughed as it sang over the Atlantic in ever increasing pitch as summer approached.

What is a barrier that should have been torn down that wasn't?  The bard would say the societal barriers that prevent one from seeking what you know you want, the one that keeps you in place even when you know the place is wrong for everyone involved.  At least it was wrong for me.  

I did not know how to tear the barrier down.  Once, long ago, I assailed that barrier, it is another story that lies even now far in the past.  And I was ridiculed, not intentionally, not with the disdain of racial hatred or contempt; but with a kind hand that knew little how deep the wound went or how high the barrier rose before me.

A good writer writes of strong women and long descriptions.  I was then and have always been lucky to be surrounded by such, a small male boat with low gunnels surrounded by huge female waves, often stormy as a result of my presence as if the audacity of my tiny craft to brave such strong waters were insult enough for anger.

But you know nothing of this yet, nor do you have a picture of me or anyone around me worthy of a dull imagination.  

I am not a good writer.  Perhaps the most I can hope for is to be accepted as a prolific writer which I am in terms of extent if not in terms of art or depth.  My interests, if not my knowledge, cover broad swaths of human nature, history, politics, science and fantasy.  

When we first found each others hearts, if not our reproductive organs, my art woke in the form of letters and poems and the poor stories I wrote were inflamed with the passion that rose in me.  When she left me, my writing was dead, however, the flutterings survived, those dry tomes which were fear filled attempts and volumes of dull professional stuff which paid bills with logic or threat but had none of the lasting effect.  

Great writing requires great sacrifice, as in inherent in great loss.  For me the same is true of the achievement real or imagined virtue.  Love and loneliness for some comes at a great cost. All of those things waited for me, impatiently, but their time was coming soon, the stage was set.

I think now she might, unconsciously, have been trying to manipulate me.  For while her motives were clearly correct for a moral society, her impatience rather than her timing seemed to be the problem to me.

Of course a high performing narcissist is a little more difficult to manipulate by addressing their best interest, since they can justify any actions.

You don’t believe it, but if what they say were purely true about narcissists, then I could not tell you this story, now could I?

Do you want her to be able to succeed in changing, curing the narcissist?   Narcissist don't need to change.  Contrary to what the psychologists would try to make you believe, the general qualities make us charming, driven, and creative.  In general, they embody all the traits that we cultivate in ourselves to meet the very high goals the have to meet in order to protect their damaged self-image and to hold onto it.  A narcissist in trouble is a very dangerous thing, perhaps the most dangerous type of person because the motivation is so unclear unless you know what you're looking for, which is the spider web of self-deceit that is narcissism.  

Are the narcissist free or dependent on others?  

Yes, to some extent are we not all dependent on the views of others.  In my case, I felt much more deeply than you could imagine when I let down someone.  Even the most trivial slight to someone else would send me into a spiral of self-recrimination.  Hence the idea that my own self-interest was all that motivated me would be as silly as all the psychiatric generalizations.  Unless accompanied by some deeper psychosis, the need for the approval of others, to have acceptable conduct in the presence of others, is second only to our need to remain true to our own self-image, which requires us to continually make ourselves better in every respect.  If you think that is a disease, you should ask yourself what the world would be without such sick people.

The old idea that if you are self-reflective enough to even wonder whether you are a narcissist, then it’s highly unlikely that you are is somewhat a discussion of the degree and associations of the condition rather than its presence or absence.

After a long period of darkness, without coffee and without the light that shown from her she called me.  We decided that we could meet and talk. 

She turned on some music and we discussed where we were.  She had, for the first and only time since I knew her, let herself go somewhat.  Don’t get me wrong, she remained the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, but she gained 10 pounds and it showed only because with such a perfectly compact body as hers the weight had a difficult time finding a place to settle.  Her legs were a little dimpled, she had a slight stomach, but it was not fat.  No, she was more like the paintings of Titian, the extra weight making her look healthy and not overweight.  But she was sensitive to it, so I removed only as much of her clothing as I needed to at first, to get my hands into her and only after she had rolled her eyes back in her head did I take the rest of her clothes off and to satisfy her sense of self punishment, lean her over the back of her couch and, in this uncomfortable position for her, for I remember no discomfort on my end, take her from behind while my hands roamed over the roundness of her legs and stomach which meant so much to me and so little to her.