A Conversation with Elizabeth
1998
Opaqueness & Translucency

From:          Elizabeth
To:            Mixsonl@acm.org
Date:          3/13/98 2:35pm
Subject:       opaqueness & translucency
 
I just got your change of address request. I imagine you've split already. HM is very slow and recalcitrant today and I struggled with it so to either get my mail today and or write. I printed your reply to my "wall" message and took it with me on break. I'm trying to identify my "feelings" and I think I feel a little misunderstood or misinterpreted, and possibly a little trivialized. However, I'm sure that is partly because my third or fourth reconstruction of what had been my early morning ideas and sentiments both truncated and blurred what my original thoughts and words started out to be. Of course, I know that "walls" of varying degrees always exist between people and that doesn't reflect back to me, through your communication, what I was trying to communicate to you. (That is trivial, and I don't think what I was struggling to communicate and apparently didn't communicate too well was at heart trivial. ) I curse losing my first letter, as now I'm feeding off your reaction, as well. While I'm doing nothing to clarify my "original" and "lost" thoughts, I did think at break that not being in a relationship I always have for myself the "task" and "work" of constructing periods of connecting with people within the framework of my solitude. For you, in a relationship, one of your tasks or work is to construct periods of solitude within the framework of being connected in an ongoing fashion. Simplistically, if you want to go hiking and your wife is willing, you have a hiking partner, without having to work excessively hard at setting that up. However, if I want a hiking partner, that requires sometimes a lot of work, or selectivity, balancing a multitude of factors, including what it means to choose any activity with any particular person. For me, however, I would rather, and it has always been my choice now for years, to have the task of finding companionship rather than having to structure solitude within a relationship. I think I may require, on the balance, more solitude often, than relationship. I wouldn't imagine that you would regret your choices re Julie, nor would I imagine you would want the relationship to end--that is why I wrote that I thought of you being single in a non-destructive way--i.e. not really imagining that you were in a state of regret or desire to end anything. Also, I wrote with no regret of my "choices" and the benefits and work involved in them. I think the impenetrability I might have been trying to speak of related more to not understanding fully why I couldn't or didn't "fall in love" with you in the past, especially when the present information, as did the past information, indicates that possibility. I recall so clearly the dis-orientation I felt back years ago when I realized I didn't apparently have the "right" feelings in terms of what you needed, or seemed to. That may be too blunt and unclear, but I remember once you were sort of ill over something, and I realized my feelings of "care" were difficult for me, and their slowness to spontaneously "appear" troubled me--I recall they troubled me deeply--because I thought I couldn't go on with you, without looking at that. Oh well, whether this is translucent or opaque, I feel I needed to ricochet some of this back, as I was left feeling stuck with feelings of a somewhat unpleasant or crossed communication. I also think its obvious that two "identical" people wouldn't make for a good relationship, that a balance of similarities and differences, is of course optimum. Anyway, whatever I tried to say at 7:30 this morning has been mussied up somewhat. Have a good weekend. I'm here until 4:30 CST.
 
"Something there is that doesn't love a wall." Robert Frost.

I think she described it quite well that back then she didn’t have what I needed or was looking for in a relationship. I always thought she was holding back but as she now explained, she just didn’t have what I was looking for, it wasn’t in her, it wasn’t who she was.  But I saw so much in her that I liked, that I wanted, but the affection, the closeness, wasn’t there.  She wrote me a letter in 1974 and said as much..

Elizabeth
1974

And how do I relate to you?  You can see that I really don’t have practice relating in a “real” fashion.  Something valuable you have is growing contacts with other persons, the is relationships, women.  In a way I desperately need to know how they relate to you and you to them.  I have the knowledge of how other men relate-react, which may or may not be of use to you.

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