1974

Elizabeth

The week after I got back from Miami I came home and found a note from Elizabeth on the kitchen table.

Larry,

I came by here today, originally to get my bike fixed but got sidetracked on some thinking and stayed quite a while.  

Had skipped breakfast & lunch so had a snack of brownies & your chicken. You were probably counting on it for dinner!  I’ll make it up by bringing you something I cook (a piece of it anyway)! – Sorry, but starved. I needed Atlas Shrugged so I dug it out.  

Was trying to figure out some things, people, etc. If you want we can have dinner Tues. at either place---

I’ll leave it up to you.

Elizabeth

So was the note supposed to make me feel good?  She came by when I wasn’t home, stayed, ate my food but didn’t stay until I got home from work.  The book Atlas Shrugged was hers, she had loaned it to me to read.  She had said it was one of her favorite books and she thought I would like it which I did.  It gave me some insight into Elizabeth as she associated with the protagonist and heroine in the story Dagny Taggart, a woman executive at a large corporation, unusual for the 1800’s in which the book was set.   

The following week she left me another longer letter in which she told me things she never did in person…

Larry:   

The week you were in Miami, when I came to feed the cats, I sort of found that I enjoyed, or found relaxing, the hour I would spend reading the evening paper and playing with the cat, etc.     

I came over here today sort of out of that feeling. I didn’t/don’t want to abuse your privacy but sitting here alone is heard-cleaning, relaxing as I’ve said. I guess I don’t (didn’t) want to disturb you by asking about coming over when you’re not here.

Like how did she think I would feel about her coming by my place when I wasn’t there?  She did the same thing with Fred, even bringing another man…me, did she tell Fred about that?

I think I struggle inside between three men: Fred, you and someone I never met (John Galt!).

John Galt?  Really? Well that explained her previous note about wanting her book Atlas Shrugged back.  John Galt is a mystery man in the book, not being identified by name until the last third of the novel, he is the object of its often-repeated question "Who is John Galt?"  The heroine of the story, Dagny, sets off on an adventure to find John Galt, eventually finding him in a remote valley know as Galt’s Gulch where she falls in love with him.  It turns out John Galt is leading a revolt against the government and makes a sixty page speech in the book about his (and the author’s) philosophy.  I never made it through the whole speech, it was long and boring.  Elizabeth goes on…

I think I also struggle over someone in my past, the John in Amsterdam.  …..  I have discovered and realized that he is a tremendous emotional roadblock in regard to my ability to “go on” to relate to other men. I have never accepted him as “being over.” I have never accepted Fred as “permanent” because of my feeling for John.  Fred caught me when John and I failed each other, mutual two sided unsurmountable failure.  I shouldn’t say caught because Fred was a vacumn inside also and our two emptiness (an emptiness of too much fullness, if you understand) sort of merged.

So she went from one failed relationship, to another then to me which also was failing. Oh, and she misspelled “vacuum”, the one who never misspelled words, I seriously thought of getting out a red pen and circling it.   She goes on about her relationship with Fred, how they were “emotionally shut out-off from each other.”  Yeah, I knew how that felt.  Then she goes on about me.

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.

Wow, now that was something, after telling me how messed up her relationships with other men was, she offers her knowledge of men to me.   Yes, it was clear, she didn’t have any practice of relating in a “real” fashion, then neither did I, she was my first attempt at such.  Boy did I pick the wrong woman for that, I learning about relationships from a woman coming from two failed relationships.  She goes on…

I just don’t need or want anymore relationships unless they (it) includes an honest in depth approach to healthy relating (which must be defined). I need feedback, knowledge (self) and knowledge (of another).  Your thoughts-opinions become more valuable to me as your own complex relationships expands and grows (and you discover yourself or actualize, make real, yourself.)  I think a very big thing I wanted/want from you was/is to share your inner world, or at least the inner impressions you gather of other people, of me, and yourself.  Correction: Maybe it is really your outer world instead, or at least the data you gather about it and then internalize.  What I don’t need and have refused to allow with you had been the creation of a reality between us based on a locked in pair bond that does not examine its own premises…. That is the why’s of our feelings, thoughts, actions, expectations. I would see it as an escapism from reality made possible for each of us by the other.  In a way it would be easier (and I would have a more peaceful life) if I would/could settle back and enjoy you and forget about “the world out there” except as it was needed to build or make stronger our private situation.

You may be growing/moving away from me, maybe I from you. Positive experiences (Melody , Nancy) may be changing you. In a way you seem to be more private and keeping to yourself, but then you have generally always been “internal.”

[Your ego defenses do not allow you to reveal yourself to me, (you take pride in being called “internal”]

Oh Well! Enough, unexpectedly so.  

 In a way I apologize for writing this; these things have been under my mind for a while and our times together haven’t (they never seem to be) conducive to honest conversation.  

Question: Do I press too much?

Well it seems we had one thing in common, we could both could write about our feelings about each other and about our relationships, but we could never talk to each other about our relationship with each other and thus we continued to drift apart.