I'm embarrassed now, in my middle age, to reflect on how quickly I would sometimes quit partners in my younger years. I like to think that with maturity and reflection I would render unto others more patience, understanding, and sympathy than I sometimes accorded them back in the day.
One example, right off the top of my ol' memory bank: Some twelve or thirteen years ago, I dated a man who was handsome, cultured, and talented--he had a flair for writing poetry, for instance. He also happened to be a recovering alcoholic, and had just started his journey towards sobriety very shortly before we met. Things were going pretty well up to one evening where he sat me down and said he had something strange yet important to share with me. He said he had had experiences with UFOs and visitations, citing one moment when he saw a golden orb hovering in his back yard one day, eventually zooming out of sight, and an evening when he was awakened by strange, ethereally beautiful music playing underneath his bedroom window. I didn't know how to respond to these stories. I could tell my fellow was sincere, but I didn't know how to approach the objective veracity of his claims. Assuming they were true, the stories scared the bejeesus out of me--this would intimate a level of reality that I wasn't sure I was prepared to handle, and I wondered if I would be exposed to similar experiences by further intimacy with this person.
My dilemma was temporarily put on hold when my boyfriend voluntarily committed himself to a rehabilitation clinic, knowing that he needed more help in abstaining from alcohol. When he got out, he rang me up at my home, and in the course of our conversation, got very angry at me for no, as far as I could see, provocation on my part. This frightened and upset me, and I felt the situation was messier than I knew how to cope with. When he called back, some days later, he admitted that he had bought a bottle of wine the day he was released from the clinic, and proceeded to get drunk before he called me. He couldn't even remember what he had said, and apologized if anything he expressed had been unpleasant. He went on to say that he realized that he wasn't in a good place then to start on a new relationship, but he hoped we could be friends. I replied that I thought it best if we didn't seek one another out, and I sensed some sadness in his voice as he said okay to this. And that was the last I heard from him.
Today, I would hope that I could extend my friendship to a person like this fellow. If the person were going through some things that I couldn't understand, I would like to think that I would make the effort to understand to the best of my abilities, even if that effort caused a little discomfort on my part. And I would certainly want to be a better support to someone who was trying to better their lives, and stumbling on occasion on the way. I blush to think on how easily I would give up on challenging situations back then, but remind myself that I was young and feeling my way through my own life. I wish this fellow the very best, wherever he might be, and fondly reminisce on the good times we did have (he literally made one of my romantic fantasies, one I had harbored since adolescence, come true).
I don't know how well this anecdote addresses this topic, but it was the first thing to come to mind when reflecting on it.
Scott
