Time for another Brian story, a Tru Life Vorlon adventure:
When I encountered Brian, I was already in a monogamous relationship. And it was nice. We'd been dating exclusively for a some time, and had spent weekends together at each others homes. We had been introduced by friends and had their support.
All was fine.
And then I met Brian.
I was immediately upset. Had a meltdown and was miserable. My partner was there and was very supportive, he recognized I was going through a profound upheaval.
My explanation to him and myself was despite Brian being the 'trigger' it had not much to do with Brian. I was still new to 12 Steppers and had real concerns regarding my sobriety, and my sanity as the AIDS crisis was so rapidly becoming so very much worse. I worked out on my own it wasn't so much Brian as it was the sum of all the people with AIDS I had encountered up to that encounter. So instead of my thinking it was mostly Brian, I decided it was like 1/12 Brian and 11/12 the other 11 people who had passed by that date.
Fairly rapidly, I found I couldn't bear to be around my partner. I was dismayed, I needed his support, I didn't want to go through this mess alone, and as depressed as I was when he wasn't around, it was worse when we were together.
So, I was honest with him, I told him it wasn't fair to subject him to this depression I was in, and in any regard, I wasn't capable of doing it anyhow.
Years pass. My experience with Brian stuck with me even through losing many more friends and acquaintances to AIDS.
In exasperation one day, I said to myself regarding Brian, "What the fuck is it about Brian?!?!?!, It's not like I was in love with him!!"
And then it hit. That was precisely the answer.
I never considered the possibility I was in love with Brian. My partner at the time surely figured it out, and never threw it back at me. I wouldn't have believed him at the time any how. And how could I be in love with Brian ?? He was already gravely ill when I met him. He continued to deteriorate, despite an enormously brave attitude about it he expressed seemingly effortlessly even as the HIV was surely killing him. We never had a happy moment, never dated, I never had the slightest illusion he would recover or even survive much longer than he did.
This is love?
Get out of here. Not even remotely does that comport to any representation of love in books or songs or movies I had encountered.
So off I went, miserable and depressed for years. And finally figuring it out didn't help much. Realizing I had finally diagnosed my condition, there was damn little in y world to suggest a palliative.
Any how, this relates to the topic thusly:
even unaware as I was about being in love with Brian, I couldn't be with another while he was alive. And for years after he passed. Monogamy to me isn't a choice, it is an inherent and salient and inescapable property of the condition called love. Even being released of all conscious societal constraints on 'cheating', I could not do it to Brian. I didn't know why, I couldn't explain it at the time, but it's clearly there as an inescapable fact to me.
So, from my own experience, I have my answer to the topic. it is beyond my ability to mess with it, it just is.
Now, as for the post script, slowly,oh so slowly, since Brian has been gone now for many, many years, I see the possibility. There is reality and truth to that vow "till death us do part", I know it for a fact. But it's been a long time to get there.
As for my partner, (IANMTU) he eventually found refuge in a Catholic religious order. One dedicated for caring for the sick. I knew the first part of what he did for many years, but not the caring for the sick part. That second bit cleared up what to me was a major mystery of my adult life, why did he do join them ??
Discovering the mission of his order was a big relief to me. He had found his niche and I'm not troubled by his choice at all. I could even imagine his (oblique) experience with Brian as being something he viewed as a calling.
The kind frequently attributed to the guy upstairs . . .
When I encountered Brian, I was already in a monogamous relationship. And it was nice. We'd been dating exclusively for a some time, and had spent weekends together at each others homes. We had been introduced by friends and had their support.
All was fine.
And then I met Brian.
I was immediately upset. Had a meltdown and was miserable. My partner was there and was very supportive, he recognized I was going through a profound upheaval.
My explanation to him and myself was despite Brian being the 'trigger' it had not much to do with Brian. I was still new to 12 Steppers and had real concerns regarding my sobriety, and my sanity as the AIDS crisis was so rapidly becoming so very much worse. I worked out on my own it wasn't so much Brian as it was the sum of all the people with AIDS I had encountered up to that encounter. So instead of my thinking it was mostly Brian, I decided it was like 1/12 Brian and 11/12 the other 11 people who had passed by that date.
Fairly rapidly, I found I couldn't bear to be around my partner. I was dismayed, I needed his support, I didn't want to go through this mess alone, and as depressed as I was when he wasn't around, it was worse when we were together.
So, I was honest with him, I told him it wasn't fair to subject him to this depression I was in, and in any regard, I wasn't capable of doing it anyhow.
Years pass. My experience with Brian stuck with me even through losing many more friends and acquaintances to AIDS.
In exasperation one day, I said to myself regarding Brian, "What the fuck is it about Brian?!?!?!, It's not like I was in love with him!!"
And then it hit. That was precisely the answer.
I never considered the possibility I was in love with Brian. My partner at the time surely figured it out, and never threw it back at me. I wouldn't have believed him at the time any how. And how could I be in love with Brian ?? He was already gravely ill when I met him. He continued to deteriorate, despite an enormously brave attitude about it he expressed seemingly effortlessly even as the HIV was surely killing him. We never had a happy moment, never dated, I never had the slightest illusion he would recover or even survive much longer than he did.
This is love?
Get out of here. Not even remotely does that comport to any representation of love in books or songs or movies I had encountered.
So off I went, miserable and depressed for years. And finally figuring it out didn't help much. Realizing I had finally diagnosed my condition, there was damn little in y world to suggest a palliative.
Any how, this relates to the topic thusly:
even unaware as I was about being in love with Brian, I couldn't be with another while he was alive. And for years after he passed. Monogamy to me isn't a choice, it is an inherent and salient and inescapable property of the condition called love. Even being released of all conscious societal constraints on 'cheating', I could not do it to Brian. I didn't know why, I couldn't explain it at the time, but it's clearly there as an inescapable fact to me.
So, from my own experience, I have my answer to the topic. it is beyond my ability to mess with it, it just is.
Now, as for the post script, slowly,oh so slowly, since Brian has been gone now for many, many years, I see the possibility. There is reality and truth to that vow "till death us do part", I know it for a fact. But it's been a long time to get there.
As for my partner, (IANMTU) he eventually found refuge in a Catholic religious order. One dedicated for caring for the sick. I knew the first part of what he did for many years, but not the caring for the sick part. That second bit cleared up what to me was a major mystery of my adult life, why did he do join them ??
Discovering the mission of his order was a big relief to me. He had found his niche and I'm not troubled by his choice at all. I could even imagine his (oblique) experience with Brian as being something he viewed as a calling.
The kind frequently attributed to the guy upstairs . . .
The granting of a pardon is an imputation of guilt, and the acceptance a confession of it.
