Who are you?

By Steve Gordon

I watched one of my favorite movies tonight in “Bridges of Madison County.” I found it searching on TV and even better was it was without commercials and I caught it right from the beginning. After it was over I felt I had to write something because of how this movie makes me feel.

My first wife in our very short marriage (where I was mostly away at sea on the submarine in the Navy) used to call me stone face. My second wife said she didn’t feel loved or appreciated in 23 years before we split up. My VA therapist and I talk about my emotional detachment.

In general I am not openly emotional about anything and I am not a touchy feely person. Walking or sitting and holding hands with my wife or just a hug made me feel uncomfortable. It is like taking things for granted, taking love for granted I guess.

Foreigner has a song “I Want to Know What Love Is” that intrigues me. “I want you to show me,” the lyrics continue. It makes me wonder if I ever knew or know what love is. So how is it I turn into a wet noodle with movies like Bridges, or “Somewhere In Time” and some others where privately watching them the emotions come to the surface?

While taking a shower when not concentrating on getting ready for work I sometimes find myself doing some soul searching and thinking. My therapist once asked if I was dating and I told him I was not. I think I would like to and to have someone intimate in my life, but on the other hand not so much.

To get involved in a relationship means commitment to another person. There are a bunch of factors involved. For starters it takes away the independence I now enjoy to do what I want on my own time table. But I like structure and in those 23 years of marriage I made it work balancing home and family responsibilities with my own personal interests.

I have a friend I go out with to movies and we talk but that’s all there is to it. I think she pretty much likes it this way but we have never talked about it. Bottom line is that this is all it will ever be and that is fine. But in the shower I think about what kind of person I could see myself with and here is the problem. I can’t see myself with anyone other than my second wife and that is never going to happen.

It makes me wonder about the detachment of my emotions and if it actually builds upon itself over time. My therapist has said it is something in the way some people are wired, not necessarily a learned thing and it is something we have to learn to recognize and deal with.

Privately I have cried openly about things in my life and some movies also get an emotional release. I find that I can let go of things easier than many people and it appears to people outwardly it is like they mean nothing.

And at this point I am lost and don’t know where to take this…I guess the question is “Who Am I?” and I guess I don’t have the answer. It is a work in progress.  Do you know who you are?