I am now distraught with sweet, sweet grief in accepting what I do not understand. “Child of weakness watch and pray, find in Me thine all in all.”

Sarah had always made light of the fact that I’m like a robot. After all, I work in code all day at my job. And I’m stable, familiar, and predictable. And I could always be counted on to “do the right thing.” And often I have, how shall we say, limited emotional capabilities.

When Sarah and I recently decided to break up after two and a half years together, we both felt strongly that it was for the best. Things had progressed to the point where we didn’t feel it was right to move on. She didn’t feel understood, I didn’t feel accepted. We didn’t have the self-awareness to pinpoint a growing uncertainty within. We had been through good times and bad, we were different. But at one point, we had piled up more distance and unresolved conflict than we could afford to handle.

I’ve spent the better part of the month trying to get inside my own head and put the words to what’s really going on in me. It’s been difficult to know where to start. The first day I was hurt and angry. The second, I was overwhelmed with sadness. The third, I was numb, and so on, in various little permutations. There are days filled with the humdrum of work, the supportive words of a good friend (perhaps you!) and tremendous freedom. And there are days where I’m honestly pretty miserable, mourning the loss of shared dreams and a companionship dear to my heart.

I’ve read it somewhere that men are often unfairly portrayed as emotionless; they simply don’t know how to express what they feel. True; sometimes I feel that having a precise vocabulary and incredible emotional self-awareness will be the tools I need to heal. But if I let this go on too long, I’ll never write. Of course, I say this with some embarrassment that what’s coming out is completely overdramatic. But I won’t apologize for that… yet.

And in some strange, kinda sick way, it’s kind of nice to feel the pain and know that I’m not a robot. I’m skin and bones, joyously fragile, with little to boast about but the Father who loves me.

I am only starting to learn about myself. Really. There is work to be done that I’ve simply ignored for years. And it’s kind of exciting! What motivates me? What makes me mad and why? Why am I the person I am? It’s so freaking easy to do the daily routine thing: go to work and come back, fill your life with activities and people and events and commuting that you don’t have time to stop and think and just listen.

They say communication is a two-way street, and I’m only figuring out that there is much more to plumb from the depths. And it’s good for the two of us. If I can explain myself and my feelings and motivations better, then Sarah has more than assumptions to go off on.

And at the same time I realize that this journey of self-realization can be twisted into an exercise in navel-gazing. May I know myself not to make myself more than I really am (a twisted shell of the Original design), but to communicate with ever-more honesty.

You just don’t get me.

I wanted you to listen and feel with me.

Stop giving me solutions and just listen to me.

Why are you so quiet?

No, that’s not what I meant.

Are you listening to me?

I want you to want to.

I don’t have to tell you; you should just know it already.

WELL,

Sarah just gave me the Best Valentine’s Gift Ever:

It’s basically like getting the other team’s playbook. Everybody wins, so it’s even better.

Sarah made me an instruction manual for Valentine’s Day. No, seriously. It’s a cute handcrafted book with little snippets of lists of her likes and dislikes, her basic info, and most of all, this mental model and decision diagram of the female brain (well, hers at least).

My logical, rational, Engineer mind rejoices. I love this girl.

On friendship and figuring each other out

What Sarah's helping me realize is that any romantic relationship must be, at its foundation, a great friendship. At the beginning we both assumed we were fantastic friends, which was true in the sense that we'd known each other for a long time and had been involved in similar activities and shared similar worldviews and had mutual friends and similar theologies and had a blast hanging out together. However, I underestimated how much of a "soul-connection" and a chemistry there was to build.

How would you describe chemistry? It's like "clicking" the way you would with your best friend. A friend is someone who knows you, who knows when you're lying, when you're putting on airs or when you're wearing a mask. A friend is someone who you love spending time with, whether it's productive or wasteful. A friend is someone who shows you their humanity and gives you an authentic look at their ugly sides and fears and insecurities. A friend is someone you can be yourself around and know you're accepted for who you are.

Quite frankly, we've had our share of struggles figuring each other out, and that's made us realize that we've got a long ways to go as a friend and as romantic interests. I think we both were frustrated by a lot of Totally Normal friction points. You know, the little stuff that results in conversations which leave neither of us feeling heard or understood. I can be overly rational and logic-driven; she can be overly feelings-centric and impulsive at times. I had trouble adapting to her playful, button-pushing personality and she often felt stifled by my straightlaced by-the-rules philosophy. We come from families with different cultures and generational differences. The list goes on.

We both agree we've got a lot to learn about each other, and it's been hard accepting that fact in light of high expectations. There is that expectation that we're the closest of friends, yet we've had tons of times where she feels like I don't get her. We've been acknowledging that we've really got to give each other a lot of grace and forgiveness in the times when we feel unheard, and we need to be patient. It's been tough, but we know it's worth it.

I'm learning how to be a good friend

I've begun to realize how important it is to be a good friend. As I've mentioned previously, I'm starting to realize how my self-sufficiency negatively impact my friendships and relationship with Sarah. There's a distance that I've maintained with other people, a distance that I easily maintained whenever I got involved with too many activities and gave lame excuses of "I'm too busy" to hang out. Maybe I've got a deep fear of intimacy (maybe, but I don't think it's totally true). Maybe I'm too task-oriented or goals-driven, so much that I have to get involved with 999 different things at the expense of my friendships.

I'd like to change. I'd like to be that friend who knows another at a heart level, who can tell when a friend's lying or hurting without any words. I'd like to kick it with a buddy simply for the sake of kicking it with him, no matter what I'm missing out on. I'd like to be a heck of a lot more transparent with people about my hopes and my fears.

The horrifying depths of emotional intimacy!

I know it means that I really fully open up to Sarah and tell her about my thoughts and insecurities and dreams. It means telling her always what's really on my mind. There's this emotional vulnerability and interdependency that I've never revealed to anybody (except God and my journal) will open up gradually (and when appropriate), with time, to friends and to Sarah.

It's scary, but I know once again it's worth it. It's like I'm slowly able to take a step back and see who I am, warts and all.

But it's actually tons of fun

Seriously. Dating is great. It's loads of fun. I think Sarah's playful side brings mine out as well, and we have a blast from simple things like taking walks (just laughing about random things), to trying out new places to eat (and since our standards are so low, everything's delicious), to playing sports (it's my dream to beat her once in bowling. And tennis). I feel totally at home with her.

One thing I totally like about her is how she reminds me of infinite reservoirs of Grace--every time I tend to get down on myself, she reminds me that I'm not too far away from God's love. And it's because she's grounded in it--she depends on it, like air for breathing. Not only that, but I've been really blown away by Forgiveness. When we wrong each other, we apologize and forgive. And let me tell you that it is the most amazing feeling to be forgiven by somebody you've wronged and it always gives me this sensation that the Father's forgiveness is far weightier and far more significant than I had imagined.

All this to say, it's been a humbling nine months. When I first started dating, I only had a rough idea of what it meant to be working things out to this detail with somebody else. I knew that dating would be awesome and it would be rough. But it wasn't till I actually got up close and wrangled with these issues did I realize how much junk there was to work out in me. Sarah and I have a ways to go, and this process of patiently working things out between us has been tiring, but it has been good.

I'm thankful for this girl.

Related posts

1. Dating 101 I’m going to be candid and share with you some dating lessons I’ve learned (with...

Transitioning from self-sufficiency to dependency

From very early on in my life, I've learned to be pretty self-sufficient. That means that I'd always be doing things on my own, doing things on my own initiative, making things happen for myself, you get the gist of it. It'd be totally me centered: I'm going to do this, and I'll follow it up with that. I'll make my own decisions, and you can ask me about how it was afterwards.

Sarah and I have had our moments where I'd show up and tell her "Hey, I'm going to be doing this on Saturday" with an implicit assumption she wouldn't be a part of it. She'd feel hurt that I'd left her out, and I realize now that I had assumed that she just wasn't interested in them or that I didn't need her help.

I'm learning to invite her into all parts of my life, from the boring mundane things to the big events. Even if I think I can do these things by myself, I'm starting to learn to ask for help when I feel like I don't need any. When I show Sarah that I'm dependent on her, it gives her a way to show me that she cares.

Transparency, and how it's okay to not have it all together

There was a period in our relationship where I felt incredibly insecure about us. I felt like I was losing her, I felt like I was being disrespected or I wasn't good enough, and there was all this crap I was going through.

I didn't know how to talk about it though, so I acted the opposite of how I felt. I acted more confidently around her when inside my insecurities spoke louder. I doubled my efforts of pursuing her when really I was scared. I realize now that by acting like everything was peachy, I delegitimized communication that "something was wrong".

I had somehow constructed this image of a super-boyfriend, who never spoke of trouble but instead slugged through hard times by the force of sheer will and corny jokes. And Sarah could see through all of it--and my inability to articulate how I was really feeling pushed her further away.

After a long, awkward and painful week, we confronted it. By finally admitting to her that things were off, we were free to finally talk about it.

To be continued!

Related posts

1. Dating 101, continued I’m continuing an entry detailing new (and always-humbling) insights into myself, life, God, and affection...
2. In transitions I I’ve been moving in-to & in-between identities lately. As a boyfriend, I’m newly challenged by...

As a boyfriend, I'm newly challenged by the call to care for and serve somebody. And I know I haven't written much about Sarah and my relationship, but I'll say that every day I learn a little bit more about how God loves. I'm reminded what a good gift she is to me. I think I want to describe how things have changed since and what we're looking at now.

As a single guy, I could spend my time wherever and whenever I wanted it. I had freedom. I could think about my future for myself and have a reasonable trajectory to achieve whatever goals I had. Honestly speaking, I had more freedom with respect to my time and my plans.

As a dating guy, life is a bit busier. I spend a lot more time with Sarah. I'm listening a lot more, processing things with her, and she does the same with me. We're starting to think about the future, but negotiating how to walk through it together.

This process of thinking forward, together, is a good process, albeit new to us. It's partially fueled by the inexorable tide of graduation and post-college scariness, and partially by the desire to be with each other. There are challenges to that, particularly as we don't know how our passions and dreams will intersect in the future. I want to have it all marked down and planned out; I want to solve for all the variables before plunging into a commitment. It's hard to plan for the future without knowing how far you should look ahead.

I'm learning that this dating thing is so. much. about. trust. It's so much about trusting in the other to look out for your best, but much, much, more about us both trusting that Jesus knows where he's taking us.

There's a beautiful dimension to this process, and you can find it in the commitment. I think that's the Gospel key that Christian relationships should be characterized by: making a commitment to the other (even when the variables aren't in place), dying to self, looking out for the best of the other, and following hard after Jesus together. I'm slowly, slowly learning.

In the end, we're clinging onto Jesus and praying that he's gonna tell us where to go. I don't completely understand what that means, and a part of me writes it off as naivete.

So much of this is new and scary to me, but another part of it has been there all along, you know? It comes back to the Gospel and how Jesus did it first--we get to model it out now.

It's all worth it. It's totally worth it.

Related posts

1. Dating 101, continued I’m continuing an entry detailing new (and always-humbling) insights into myself, life, God, and affection...
2. Some would say we’re growing up I’ve been slightly scattered lately. I’m not doing too well in school–I’m trying to redouble...
3. In transitions II: I am a dreamer in need of wings I was thinking back to high school today, how idealistic I was (and still am)...