A Conversation with Elizabeth
2009
RE: Ruminating

From:          Elizabeth 
To:            Larry
Sent:          Monday, October 19, 2009 10:39 PM
Subject:       RE: Ruminating
 
At 35 to 40 miles an hour on a totally darkened road, with baby deer everywhere, the trip back from the observatory takes close to 45 minutes.  Except for having to be so attentive looking for the glint of deer eyes, it is a good time to ruminate.
 
Thanks for your thoughtful reply.  By that I mean you answered some questions I've long had about you (you/me, you/Julie, you/what you want for yourself).
 
I think many women want a man to literally take care of them.  That is their need, to have someone to do for them and supply all their needs.  They want "Daddy."  Many women seem to also have a need to have someone to "take care of."  That seems to be their need.  They want to "Mother" a man.  Some women seem to combine both.
 
Although I worry at times about old age, or disability, I don't view myself as needing a man to "take care of me," i.e. I don't need a relationship in that way.  Also, while I enjoy sharing and doing for others (at times) I'm not much of a mothering type.  I'm far too independent to want to be taken care of or (although this sounds harsh) to be totally wrapped up in having to take care of someone else (i.e. "mothering" a man who basically never grew up and learned to take care of himself in my eyes).
 
However (a big however), I always feared two things:  One was taking on a relationship and fearing or knowing that I "sort of" knew it wouldn't last and that I would then have to leave someone who truly cared and loved for me.  I guess to put it bluntly, sometimes I saw the end of a relationship in its very beginnings!  I think you made somewhat similar remarks about you and Julie.  The second thing I feared though was "being left."  This second thing was what often led me to the wrong relationships--people who would leave.  That sounds paradoxical, but I knew I was still working out some fear of abandonment, by trying to make people stay who I knew didn't have it in them.  If I could do that, then, the "issue" would be solved.  I accept it as just one of the crazy, counter-intuitive things that I (and lots of other people as well) do with their lives.  I guess it was trying to finish some type of unfinished business, or unfinished family dynamic.  I could talk more about it, but it long ago family stuff.
 
Gosh, I'm sorry I didn't let you know what I thought of you years ago!  I remember when I worked at Alachua General Hospital, you came to see me one day at work.  One of the "ladies" I worked with said to me, "I just KNEW when I saw that handsome young man that he was your beau!"  She was talking about you.
 
Another really strange thing that I can't correct though, is that when I think about you, it seems like my image of you is frozen in time, in the past.  To think of you as you are in the present, I have to think of a picture of you from the present.  Otherwise I'm visualizing you from the 70's.
 
Well, my class is out and I need to go home.  My classes are 6:00 to 9:00 p.m., three days a week, which is nice because usually I can structure the days however I want (although lots of times I have meetings and such, or have to prepare my lessons, or put in office hours).  I'm "supposed" to put in 35 hours "in" the building, but when I teach weekends, I put in 20+ hours in three days, so I tend to shave off time during the week to compensate.
 Elizabeth

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