It didn’t take long before he transferred to a different school … overseas.

We knew it was over once he left the States, though we still emotionally leaned on each other via e-mail for much of the school year, and had a pseudo-relationship.

As inevitably happens, though, you meet other people, and even the pseudo-ness goes away. He met someone first, and I found out suddenly when calling him one night. His roommate informed me he was at his girlfriend’s place. Ouch.

Around that time, he e-mailed me one of those precious and idealistic notes, full of heart, to the effect of, “Remember I’ll always love you.”

Life went on, as it always does, even when you don’t want it to. He and I occasionally exchanged messages, and I remember forwarding one to my girlfriend and asking for her interpretation. “Well, it’s clear he still loves you, but with the ass part of his heart.”

Sometimes it’s easier when people choose to hate you altogether. Being half-ignored, half-blocked, low on the totem … when you used to priority No. 1? Another cause of heartbreak.

In middle school, I had a best friend who my mother deemed a bad influence. Twenty years later, I take this to mean that I behaved more like an immature teenage brat while cohorting with this friend. My mom had (has!) a pretty low tolerance for immaturity.

In the same vein, The Conductor had a set of behaviors or habits that I found amazing and endearing, but that felt contrary to stories he told about himself. His explanation was that I alone brought out this unique behavior in him.

It wasn’t until I divorced that I understood what a significant part of our behavior—and quite possibly some long-held beliefs about ourselves—is driven by what is really a specific dynamic between two people.

It seems cliche to say that no two relationships are alike, but for anyone who digs into the reasons why, it can be alarming how much guilt and shame we carry over things that are (or were) intrinsic to the energy and development of the relationship—and will never occur again with another person.

I will never separate from another man for the same reasons that I divorced my husband. And I’ll never be the same kind of wife (for better or worse).

Says George Bernard Shaw: “The only man who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew every time he sees me, while all the rest go on with the old measurements and expect me to fit them.”

Or: You can’t step in the same river twice.

Yet each of us is driven to seek patterns, to create meaning out of chaos, to have cause and effect, to reason and rationalize. How else can we know how to properly act and protect ourselves? To be mature? To save face?

The study of Zen has always been attractive to me because it never presumes. It treasures the no-memory, the ability to have a fresh pair of eyes. Or to be a “new” person as soon as you wish it.

And there is an innocence (some would say naivete) in that approach—but don’t we all crave it? Don’t we all wish to rebirth and recreate—to shed skin when we’ve outgrown it? How often does the world allow for it? How often do we succeed?

Perhaps the people who bring out our best change over time, and/or we love those who bring out our worst. This, I would argue, leads to heartbreak.

From The Way of Zen by Alan Watts (which I find myself re-reading and re-reading for fuller comprehension):

We learn, very thoroughly though far less explicitly, to identify ourselves with an equally conventional view of “myself.” For the conventional “self” or “person” is composed mainly of a history consisting of selected memories, and beginning from the moment of parturition. According to convention, I am not simply what I am doing now. I am also what I have done, and my conventionally edited version of my past is made to seem almost more the real “me” than what I am at this moment. For what I am seems so fleeting and intangible, but what I was is fixed and final. It is the firm basis for predictions of what I will be in the future, and so it comes about that I am more closely identified with what no longer exists than with what actually is!

It is important to recognize that the memories and past events which make up a man’s historical identity are no more than a selection. From the actual infinitude of events and experiences some have been picked out—abstracted—as significant, and this significance has of course been determined by conventional standards.

During high school, for a brief period, I switched to disk, and promptly lost every disk by the time I graduated. So I got smarter, and started a habit of only journaling by hand.

A recent discussion with friends sparked the question, “What is your most valuable physical possession?” (I think we were talking about e-books vs. physical books—and that I would have no problem getting rid of every last book on my shelves if I could get a digital copy with my annotations.)

I knew the answer right away, though I was half-ashamed to admit it: my journals.

It seems a strange ego problem to so highly value one’s own solipsistic (and too often angst-filled) notes on life. As an adult, though, my journals have also started to include bits of ephemera, memorabilia.

I rarely go back to old journals, except when maudlin. Or when seeking threads of thought (patterns) that span years and years, a glimpse into some core self or deeply held direction, if such a thing exists at all.

But the biggest thing they’ve taught me is how stupid I can be, how I can get stuck in little loops, chasing my own tail … all the while consciously hoping I’ll snap out of it. It is pathetic to observe one’s past self despair at a continued despair. I marvel at the unnecessary angst. I spot horrible mistakes that I even wrote about as mistakes, as they happened.

The journals become symbols—motivations—to act without angsting so much, and to stop churning the past.

Now that I’ve identified something in my life as being-too-important, I have an urge to destroy its presence and power (and since I’m still driven to journal, to burn future entries as soon as I’ve finished with them). They are an outlet for, or a release from, delusions of the mind; they are not pointing the way forward.

From The Way of Zen by Alan Watts:

It was a basic Confucian principle that “it is man who makes truth great, not truth which makes man great.” For this reason, “humanness” or “human-heartedness” was always felt to be superior to “righteousness,” since man himself is greater than any idea which he may invent. There are times when men’s passions are much more trustworthy than their principles. Since opposed principles, or ideologies, are irreconcilable, wars fought over principle will be wars of mutual annihilation. But wars fought for simple greed will be far less destructive, because the aggressor will be careful not to destroy what he is fighting to capture. Reasonable—that is, human—men will always be capable of compromise, but men who have dehumanized themselves by becoming the blind worshipers of an idea or an ideal are fanatics whose devotion to abstractions makes them the enemies of life.

Almost all these patients had known, for some time, that they had a terminal condition. Yet they—along with their doctors—were unprepared for the final stage. … Surveys of patients with terminal illness find that their top priorities include, in addition to avoiding suffering, being with family, having the touch of others, being mentally aware, and not becoming a burden to others. Our system of technological medical care has utterly failed to meet these needs, and the cost of this failure is measured in far more than dollars.

And  … here’s a transcription from multiple lectures that Alan Watts gave on death. (Do a search on YouTube for “Alan Watts” + “death” for snippets):

We live in a culture where it has been rubbed into us that to die is a terrible thing. And that is a tremendous disease from which our culture suffers, and we notice it firstly in the way in which death is swept under the carpet.

This is one of the major problems in hospitals—when a family conspires with the doctor to keep from grandmother the knowledge that she is dying. Grandmother suspects that she is dying but probably doesn’t really want to know for sure and her family talk with her in such a way as to say, “Well you’re probably be getting alright in a few weeks” — because they have this funny feeling that it’s important to build up courage and hope. And so they become liars and the mutual mistrust develops. … So the person is left to die alone, suddenly, unprepared, and doped up to the point where death hardly happens. And there is no derivation from it of the peculiar spiritual experience that can come with death.

… We don’t know what to do with a dying person. … Is death sickness? Or is it a healthy, natural event like being born? … Death isn’t terrible. It’s just going to be the end of you, as a system of memories. And so you’ve got a great chance before it happens to let go of everything. … And if you have anything to say that you’re hanging onto, say it. …

The moment comes when this thing called death has to be taken not as some ghastly accident … The main thing is the attitude. Death is as positive as birth, and should be a matter for rejoicing because death is the symbol of the liberation. …

What’s it like to go to sleep and never, never wake up? … It’s not going to be like being in the darkness forever. It’s going to be like as if you never had existed all. Not only you, but everything else as well.

I went to Hell—without a fight.

I walked down a long and dark corridor with many others, with my (then) husband next to me. Suddenly the corridor opened up onto a square of a city. It looked like Naples—crowded, noisy, dirty.

A large university was on the square, and I instantly felt hope, but it was grimy, crusty—it hadn’t been used in years. Insects were everywhere, crawling, flying. Dirt dirt dirt.

At some point I found out I had to stay for 26 years. My (then) husband eventually disappeared from my side. All activities and accomplishments from past and current life dropped away. Only people remained, but I couldn’t find anyone I knew. So I stayed in strangers’ apartments. It seemed newcomers didn’t have places to stay.

I didn’t know why I was there. People told me I’d find out soon enough.

There was no music. No eating or drinking. Just smoking. But there was noise—where did it come from? And there were movie houses.

At some point, the term of my stay was lengthened 4 years. I never saw devils (or Satan), or any mention of him. There were no advertisements of any kind. No one was trying to escape. I couldn’t figure out: What do people do in Hell?

I was only able to cry when thinking of people I would no longer see, like my mother. And, before he left me, I cried on my (then) husband’s chest.

There were churches in Hell (many), where people sought a hopeful way out—but could it be hopeful?—and to seek mercy from God. Even in Hell there were many religions, all seeking the answer, “Why are we here?”

I could not remember why or how I had died, or any details about my life.

When my husband and I divorced, we went the DIY route. He ordered legal templates from a website, filled in the blanks, and sent it to the court. A date was set, and we agreed to meet at the courthouse for our appointment with the judge.

Technically, we filed for dissolution, but in any event, we’d already agreed how to split up our property when I’d moved out months earlier—and there wasn’t much to split up, no children to worry about.

The divorce was scheduled on a cold January morning, and since I lived near the courthouse, I walked over. I arrived early and stood at the entrance by the metal detectors.

When he arrived, we proceeded through security together, an echo of our many travels through airports. He’d organized the legal paperwork in sleeve protectors, just the way he’d always prepared our travel documents. We walked from office to office for final paperwork sign-offs before seeing the judge.

I think courts must batch their divorce proceedings. The judge’s waiting area was filled with men and their lawyers sitting on one side, women and their lawyers on the other.

We sat somewhere in the middle, next to each other, and waited. I don’t remember what we talked about, except that he said I looked nice. I had lost weight.

Our names were called, and we entered the courtroom. Within a few minutes—and after confirming to the judge I was not pregnant—it was over. We went to a basement office to pay the bill.

Afterward, he offered to drive me back to my apartment. It was a work day for both of us.

In the car, I noticed a piece of lint on his cheek. I stared at it, in that awkwardness of distant intimacy, wondering if it was okay to touch him. Finally I said, “There is something on your face,” and brushed the lint away.

“A tear,” he said, deadpan.

We saw each other again when it was time for taxes, when he sold the house to a young couple, when he moved out in summertime. He had set aside some things for me, and called to see if I wanted them.

In the bare rooms of the second floor he had left boxes filled with photos from our years together, old mementoes going back to our earliest days, a letterpress wedding announcement.

Not things he wanted to keep.

I picked through the jumble, but took little. I already had my share. I didn’t want to be the sole owner of these memories. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to throw it all out if I left some of it.

Rick playing piano in the lounge of the Indiana Academy

In the same way countries have anthems, my life has an anthem.

I discovered it my junior year at the Indiana Academy, where I lived 4 hours away from home at the age of fifteen.

I’d never been more happy.

It’s where I had my first e-mail account and participated in sensationalized group arguments—where we competed to see who was superior of thought or moral stance.

It’s where I met people who were just as socially awkward and fashionably inappropriate as I was.

And it’s also where I first met my flaws, which I only recognized much, much later.

That junior year I became friends with Rick Steldt, who was a year ahead of me, and unlike anyone else I had met.

I had a serious crush on him—certainly a schoolgirl crush—but I deeply cared for him.

He taught me how to play cards (how to cheat at cards, too), and I came to love piano after many evenings of hearing him play in the dorm lounge—though not everyone was a fan. Whenever he sat down to practice, a group of people would always evacuate immediately. He was learning to play the piano version of “November Rain” by Guns N’ Roses—not the prettiest thing you’ve ever heard. But I grew to adore that song beyond reason.

Rick was a cocky SOB, who wore a dark trench coat when going out for a smoke, often paired with a cowboy hat. But he was also the sensitive type. When he broke up with his girlfriend in the spring, he cried like a boy in the corner of the lounge, next to the piano. He was inconsolable the rest of the year.

When I was a senior, he returned to the Academy occasionally, to spend time with old friends, and to play “November Rain” just one more time.

Later, at college, he sometimes called and we talked on the phone. I had moved past my crush (and back then I thought he never knew about my crush—but of course he knew!), and I stayed on the line as long as he wanted, because he still meant so much to me.

By the time of his 10-year high school reunion, he had died. I wrote in a book for his family how he had taught me to play cards, and that this song, “November Rain,” was like a possession to be carried to my grave.

And such a strange song it is, by a group I don’t even like, sung by a man whose voice is like nails on a chalkboard. But I can’t stop loving it.

Did I choose it, or did it choose me? Just like true-blue writers who suffer with the blessing of talent (writing chose them), I tend to think November Rain chose me.

Indiana Academy Halloween - I'm in the back row, right next to ghost.

I’m now moving through Clay Shirky’s Cognitive Surplus, which begins with a study revealing that the more time you spend watching TV, the more likely you are to be unhappy. That’s because you’re sacrificing “relating” time (or social activities) for passive-alone time (where the TV characters become your “friends” to assuage loneliness).

I’ve been giving this some serious thought.

And I just connected it to another observation: During the times when I’ve been most happy, it was while deeply embedded in a tight-knit social group, where I never even thought about TV, much less owned one.

Those three times:

• High school at the Indiana Academy. By graduation, I was voted Biggest Lounge Rat because I spent so much time socializing in the common lounges (usually playing cards). I never went to my room until it was absolutely mandatory. I didn’t watch even 10 minutes of TV while there.
• Living and studying abroad in the UK. I studied abroad on two occasions, and both times, I was almost always in the common areas, or out with friends. No access to TV even if I’d wanted it.
• Working at the college newspaper. The newsroom did have a crappy B&W set, but no one ever turned it on. I spent all my waking hours there—aside from classes—and retreated to my dorm room only for sleep (but there wasn’t a TV there anyway).

Since leaving college, I’ve never been a huge consumer of TV, but I’ve definitely spent many passive hours watching Tivo’d shows, DVDs or streaming video. I’d like to think the story lines of shows like Six Feet Under or Lost have changed my life—or that I have some control over what I decide to passively consume.

It feels tougher to be as social as I was in college, even though I do think I was happier as a result. As adults, it feels like we’re all paired up (with partners), or obligated to take care of family.

I dream of a time when I can return to a close-knit community, with that deep feeling of satisfaction and meaningful involvement. There’s nothing like it.