Valentines Day memories, another fear and a Friends reference

My head spins. Writing this was difficult. I wasn't emotional, but rather it's a subject that floats just outside of my understanding. 

13/2 - Politeness is a gag. Social pressure ties our shoelaces to each other and our hands behinds our backs. The expectations of others form the quicksand in which we're trapped. The high expectations of ourselves form the blindfold which shields our eyes. Guilt is oppression, comparison creates an invisible barrier and falsehoods are landmines, because they harm both ourselves and others.

The willingness to avoid expressing feelings is actually a self-destructive device attached by a tight chain around the throat. Societal "normalcy" is a farce. It's a costume the theater production in which we all have a role.

Remove all of it. What remains?

This is the question I face. Who am I? How do I describe that unencumbered feeling I have while riding a motorcycle, other than it's the greatest high I can think of?

I cannot answer definitively because I'm too wrapped up in self-shame, guilt and impossible expectations of myself. I'm held down by the societal "norms" with which I have been conditioned since birth. I'm limited by learned connotations of certain words.

I have said that I'm selfish. That I'm ashamed of myself and my past actions. That my trek to France was selfish in nature. That I wish to experience selflessness! But as Joey Tribbiani once said to Phoebe Buffay much to her disagreement, there is no such thing as a selfless good deed.

Everything we do is selfish. We wander through life searching for the warm and fuzzy feeling that follows when we do a good deed for another soul, thus making it all about ourselves.

The vicious circle.

But there is good selfish, and bad. My decision to come to France was selfish, but because it was something that I needed to do for myself. It was essential, a need, like water, food and shelter. The way I describe my own selfishness, though, has been tinged with the negative connotation due to my tendency to beat myself up.

Because of this, another question comes to mind. How can we truly know who or what we are when we are hopelessly contaminated by self-bias? How do we know what's actually true and real about ourselves? How do we actually know if we're generous or courageous? Loving and adventurous? Brave or cowardly? What is actually real?

And a thought just hit me. Specific details about something I can't fathom are unimportant. What matters is what I know, right here right now.

So, my name is Michael. I'm 26 years old. I'm a writer. I'm a lover. I'm a man who has visited 20 countries and is still immature in many ways. I have trouble expressing myself, particularly with positive emotions, but they're there! However, I'm learning about myself and what I'm doing in this life. I am who I need to be and everyday I will be better at becoming the person I am meant to be.

14/2 - My next flight has been booked. After two previous failed attempts, I'm headed to Oslo, Norway next month. Finally.

I first tried to fly to Oslo in 2015 while I lived in England, but my dissertation got in the way. I tried again a couple of months ago. This time I wanted to fly to Tromso in the far north of Norway in an effort to catch a glimpse of the Northern Lights, but alas I was indecisive.

Norway is one of the most beautiful and mysterious countries I can think of. It's the one place that keeps eluding me, like a thought that's impossible to put into spoken or written words. Its sharp and jagged mountains and fjords are like a silent, majestic beast, forever guarding Scandinavia. Like the Isle of Skye in Scotland, the wildness and ruggedness represent me at my core being. Wild. Primal. Beautiful yet chaotic.

The wildness of Norway will grace me someday, but not this time. I will spend three days in Oslo visiting one of my parents' old exchange students and his family.

15/2 - Yesterday was Valentines Day. As a part of my effort to let the past go, I thought back to one such Feb. 14 when I lived in Visalia, California. Instead of feeling awful, I laughed at my younger self and his severe lack of compassion.

I had been on a couple of dates with a woman that January. She took me to a couple editions of the Loud Mouth Poetry Slam, which was held in a back room of a pizza parlor. She was a beautiful woman. Gentle. Peaceful. Kind. Smile for days. She deserved nothing but the best.

She had even shared one of her poems in front of the whole room. She was a total Goddess for doing that and much stronger than me. I never got the balls to stand up and share my own poems.

I'm writing in hindsight. At the time I didn't feel a spark. I wasn't attracted to her.

On our final date, which was right before Valentines Day, I decided to break it off with her so as not to lead her on and play with her feelings. In my mind, I was doing something to protect her from me. But I was also doing it knowing that her grandfather had recently passed away. She was emotional. She needed a rock to lean upon. She needed a comforting presence. That person...was not me.

I gave her the gutless go-to line we spineless men always use in this situation. "I hope you understand, but I think we should just be friends."

She was rock-solid in the moment, playing it casual. But even then I knew she was crushed into a million tiny pieces because I could see it in her eyes...I never spoke to her again. Think about it. I broke up with a woman a day before Valentines Day who had just lost her grandfather.

This memory came back to me because I wish to make peace with it. It's part of my past and I accept it. I accept that I was (and am, to an extent) cold. I don't mean to be. Sometimes my actions just signify that I'm a jerk. So, please, laugh at my past. I definitely am.

And recall to the first paragraph in this post when I wrote about "the expectations of ourselves," because this is important. I have such high expectations of myself that I'm afraid of letting myself down. It's a fear! 

I write about myself as if I'm a scumbag who hasn't even remotely come close to minimum expectations. There are ideas in my head about what I should be doing at this point in my life, and none of them feature me in my current situation. I do compare myself to others and what they've accomplished.

Discard all of that. Time to rewire my thinking.

This is not a race. I'm exactly where I should be, nowhere else. I was meant to move to France and meet the most interesting person in the world, to know him on a deep level:

Me.

Suddenly, the sole purpose of learning French seems so shallow now.

Until next time.