Where I'm At

I'm going to try to describe where I am at. Not where anyone or anything else is at, but me. Because, me, only capable of being me, is the only thing that I can control in my mind.

So I will begin there. I am able to only control me. No one else. Not Jonathan. Not Peggy. Not Mary, Gretchen, Hilary, Oliver, Brooke, no one. ONLY me. That means that I am under no obligation to make their life decisions. I have no entitlement to say that what they are doing is not allow, that somehow I am ordained with power. I'm not. I never will be.

So now that I've made it clear that I have no power over anyone else, that means that my life should be more simple than it once was. I should be able to breathe a sigh of relief that I suddenly don't have to make anyone else's decisions except my own. Jon can continue to take whatever drugs he feels. Hilary can screw whomever she pleases. Gretchen can have school be her boyfriend and not smoke weed. I have ZERO say in what they do.

But that leads to point two: I worry. Excessively.

And I have called that anxiety to a medical doctor. They have tried to give me medication to subdue my tendencies to clean (which I enjoy, mind you), to take away my urge of worrying, to somehow medicalize me into a state of calm. I would love a pill that would mellow me out but not somehow take away my love for compulsivity. After all, I enjoy a clean house. After all, I enjoy being meticulous and making sure I've done a good and well-appreciated job on tasks I'm assigned. I want to make sure I've got things right. I want to double-check the door to make sure it is locked, to make conversation with people who don't have it, and when in conversation with people, to be fully attentive and to also be a very giving talker and always explain in vivid quality.

Why, then, are any of these things bad?

Answer: they are not.

I am not going to take a pill, but I want to get help. I worry so much that Jon is the reason my life has been turned inside out, but it is not a person that can do it, but what you allow yourself to do to yourself. So, obviously, this removes any blame from a Mr. Jonathan Briceño. Jon isn't to blame--only I am.

And that means a couple of things.

1) Do I want to pursue things further with him? I am the only one who can answer that question. Sarah can't, no one else can.

2) How do I keep his stressors external from mine when I have always been taught and brought up to take on others burdens? Although this is a very "religious" principle, it is also the familial life I grew up in. People take on others' burdens all the time. I held my mom while she cried for no reason. I looked into my father's eyes and saw the hurt I caused through verbal whiplash.

I stop at this point and reflect. The reason that I need affirmation so much in my life, or in simpler terms, that I like to be praised and given acknowledgment, is because I've never felt that any of my accomplishments were really worth it. It is the mentality of the eastern culture in this sense, that humility results in never feeling quite good enough because the entire group needs to see benefit, that everyone needs to find some form of contribution and happiness.

So when I clean, I want others to praise me and praise that conquest because it benefits me, but also benefits them.

So when I sing, I want others to praise the fact that I have confidence to sing rather than critique my intonation, and join along with me.

So when I ask someone what they did in a day, I get an answer that tells me a story and makes me want to learn more, but then goes the extra step in asking about me, proving that they aren't just caught up in telling, but also desire to listen.

See, I know these things are pretty simplistic, but I've really had trouble extracting these simple things from others, particularly Jon. And that is difficult to understand for me. People do a good job in listening and telling me things, like what I'm doing is wrong or right in their mind.

But Jon gives me this idea that he is too caught up in the pace of his life that mine doesn't matter. That he doesn't have the energy.

And for once, I feel self-absorbed. I feel like my needs of talking, having playful sex and going for walks suddenly shouldn't matter as much. I don't like when people make me feel self-absorbed. I am a fucking college student. I said in my keynote to the Sophomores in Convocation, "This is the last time in our lives that you can be selfish." So why then am I not being selfish? Is it possible I am being so selfish that I don't see it?

Jon said that he hasn't had me as a "good friend" in the last month. That i haven't been understanding enough. What do those words mean? They have such a negative impact, and yet they have no direction. It is just a stab to the heart, not one that tells me how to sew it back together.

I don't like treacherous conversation like that. I like one that serves a purpose, a goal, and has a end result. To talk for an hour about discontentment and then say, "I have to go to work now," seems really fucking counter-productive. "Talking once does not solve a month's worth of problems and unhappiness, Andy."

Well, shit. What have I done up until this point?

I rewind in my mind. When did I become this person with these expectations? Are these expectations wrong?

The first time I met Jon, I said that he was so different--maybe even too different--and yet he captivated me. I saw a boy who had little but was proud of it. I saw a boy whose culture mattered to him, and a family he'll never abandon. I saw a boy who was stretched to the limit, plagued by demand from the outside world, his parents, and even by himself. He has been stretched to the ends of the earth with expectation he has created.

And I, Andrew Keating, cannot do anything about it. I don't control his actions nor his circumstance. I don't control his heart condition anymore than I control the dose of meds he puts in his mouth. I don't control the wind or the rain anymore than the clothing he chooses or the path he takes to Van Hise.

GET OVER IT, ANDY. You are powerless against anything except you and your circumstance you place yourself in.

I've realized that I hurt myself and Jon by stepping away in the fashion I did. Not having him there was so utterly painful that the abandonment got the better of me. It was like PEOPLE program, only he was available to me. If you dangle the meat in front of the dog long enough and he doesn't get it, he is bound to either fuck you up or walk the fuck away devastated. I guess I chose both.

I left the boy in a text message. The boy tweeted the day before he was in the ER. I could have lost him the previous day. Anything is possible, even if it sounds melodramatic. I think the pain and the fear of him being hurt, of having an obstacle I couldn't control in his life was just too much. What's more, he didn't invite me in to even know, let alone help. We as humans like to defer to help before we even know the full extent of the issue or problem. So, here's how it works out in my mind:

Jon had a problem.
He didn't tell me about it.
I felt hurt because I was not told.
At the root of the hurt is the feeling of not being worthy enough to know, feeling incompetent, and having no control over it.
I get angry and Jon because I'm angry at myself.
Jon minimizes the problem to me, and says I am overreacting.
I get more agitated that I am now being told that my emotions are trivial and somehow not worth acknowledging, and thus feel more pushed away.

So, it was the breaking point. I walked away from Jon when he may have needed me the most.

...and it turns out he did.

His mother was dispatched. She flew out to take care of her son, her little boy that she has made strides to protect. As he grows up, mistakes that she may have made in his past suddenly seem reversible by protection in the present. People screw up all the time, but it is when they make valiant efforts past it that show true love and care.

His mother was beautiful, prideful, determined. I had the pleasure of meeting her.

I always had hoped this day would come, but not because the boy I fell in love with called her sobbing on the phone, screaming in agony, "I want to give up." I wanted to give up and I did. I gave up on the relationship between the two of us, but I never realized that by giving up, I also gave up on Jon.

See, I need to pause here to think. Jon tells me he needs no one else's support or affirmation. He doesn't need to be encouraged because he knows what his end goals needs to be, wants it to be, and what it should be. Why, then, does me walking away create such a divot? And taking that a step further, why is it that he doesn't recognize it? I'm terrified that even when I go away, it goes unnoticed because I have no proof of vulnerability.

I have functioned off of vulnerability many times. Look at what I did to Erik. Look at how I have manipulated people over the course of my flirtation to just see how far I could push them to succeed, to dream bigger, to do better, to make me feel better? I have exploited so many people, and yet no matter what I do, I can't make this boy I love feel that vulnerable visually.

There are people who internalize everything. There are people that externalize everything. We have Jon as the former, and me as the latter. We have one fucking huge dichotomy.

So, as his mother and I sit at a table while Jon busts his ass for customers, it occurs to me that Jon's life does revolve around very different goals and ambitions, and that his life is not as simple or easy as mine. I get college paid for. I have a great job that pays well. I have a major that I don't work hard for in. Jon's life seems to be the inverse of that.

And I want to help him. "But Andy, you can't help me."

And he's right. I can't help him. It is not incompetence, nor is it a lack or overabundance of love. It is merely that I cannot do the tasks he needs to do in his life for him. These struggles are his and his alone to bear. The only thing that I can do is try to reassure him that I'll be there after he's surpassed the obstacles.

This means no sex whenever.
This means sometimes not seeing him.
This means being okay with him having a drink or a smoke for decompression.

But even as I type these, I feel like a housewife who has just accepted that her partner will just be the way he is and love him for that. Do I really see myself compromising completely at age 20 when I look at Jon?

The scary answer is yes.

Jon makes me want to raise a family with him. He makes me want to cry so hard when things go wrong, and smile overabundantly when things go right. When our relationship clicks, it clicks. When it falls into disharmony, it's like we can't press the breaks together. I just go over the edge and hurt and cascade it onto him. I crush his fragile body and it kills me.

His mother recognizes that Jon's life is just as fragile and chipped as I hope to. Jon has kept people he loves in the shadows because he doesn't want to worry them. What he doesn't know is that we are already worried before he tries to hide actual causes of worry. Our boy may be dying. Our boy wants to give up. It is in our humanity to want to reach out to him, help him, be there, listen, cry with him, hurt with him.

There have been too many times when I could have walked away from him. But now I know why I didn't all those times--because I had this big test to go through and figure out.

It hurts to realize all of this. It hurt to realize all of this sitting across from Mrs. Briceño. It hurt to see her in such awful circumstances. It felt so good that she backed me on some of the feelings I have for Jon, the protection mechanisms I deploy against him and myself. "Go, go, go...always pushing himself to the limit," his mother confessed to me. I hope he knew just how much it took for her to fly out to Wisconsin to check on him. I just pray that he starts to see some light on issues regarding him and me through his mother, that somehow some of the crazy things I say and do make sense now.

But, like I said, I cannot control what he thinks, believes, or what he says or hears. I am only in control of me. Me alone.

This feels like a good place to stop and reflect overnight. I think I've made some great progress just by writing out these feelings. I will do this one more time before I arrive back in Madison.

I would like to see Jon Sunday evening and feel refreshed and ready to explain myself.