proteanme

A while back I was dating this femme, who I’ll call C, and around the time of one of our first dates she happened to be dog sitting for a friend. C told me that she was convinced that this dog was her spirit animal. I asked C some questions about how she knew that and then told her I didn’t think I had a spirit animal and really I wasn’t sure if I even believed in spirit animals for myself. C told me that maybe my spirit animal was something that was separated from me by such a great distance, like a manatee out in the Caribbean, that I just couldn’t feel the connection. I loved that answer. It was funny and smart and creative and she wasn’t buying into my cynical front.

The other thing that was implied in that exchange is that it was ok for us to have different experiences and we didn’t have to validate them for each other in order for the experience to be real to us. It’s like I don’t believe in ghosts but my mom swears she’s been visited by the spirit of her grandmother, and who am I to say she wasn’t? It’s not like I can claim to have knowledge of the whole crazy range of human experience to say that it’s not true. I know I could extrapolate out from this position in an unhelpful way, but what I’m trying to get out is how we open up our experience of the world to include another person’s experience, especially when it doesn’t fit in with how we see things or do things. I’m pretty sure that’s where connection happens, that’s where you get this great opportunity to develop compassion and empathy. But if you’re like me you need some help. You need someone who doesn’t buy into your knee jerk contrariness or someone who doesn’t take your cynicism too seriously, which is a tall order for anyone and I can get en-fucking-trenched for sure. But I’m trying harder and harder to have better sense of humor about my own prickly nature and to stop myself, when I can, from putting my foot in my mouth and more quickly make a repair when I do.

I don’t know what exactly has got me fired up on this topic. As I re-read what I’ve written I’m not sure I’ve even really gotten around to whatever point I wanted to make. I’ve been thinking a lot about where I fit it and where I don’t and how hard it can be to really connect with someone. I meet someone new and I start telling them my stories and they start telling me theirs and sometimes that seems like all it is – an exchange of stories. But sometimes something different happens and I realize we’re not just swapping stories, we’re trying to figure out if we can cultivate some shared experience, which can be super challenging when confined to just a conversation.

Hmm. . . I’m posting this more to practice being a little exposed. I don’t I think I’m on to anything profound, but maybe in a couple days I’ll come back and figure out if there’s something else I’m trying to say.