I feel like the house is wasted on me. Especially this time of year. Don’t get me wrong–I’m as grateful as I can be for my parents’ assistance in acquiring and fixing up the place, but beyond that… One whole wall in my bedroom is still completely bare after four months. I haven’t made the slightest effort to put up anything Christmasy–no tree, no lights. Why? I just feel like I can’t justify the expense. Heck, my DVD player broke a couple of weeks ago and I can’t even justify the expense of a $25 DVD-ROM drive for my ancient computer (the cheapest option) so I can watch something besides my meager library of VHS tapes again. $25 is half a week’s worth of groceries and lunches. I don’t know. I feel the lack of visual Christmas spirit around the house, but whatever instinct embedded in me that compels me to be frugal overrides almost everything else. The house isn’t a shell…quite. Preventative maintenance and upkeep, but it certainly hasn’t made the transition from house to home. I’ve no idea when, if ever, that change will occur.<\/p>\n
I’m commitment-shy. A lot of it ties into a mindset that I have, and I don’t know what to do about it. It’s about compromise, specifically, in terms of life situations and directions. Let me explain. Presently, I’m enrolled in a course of study and headed in a direction that admits very little in the way of compromise. My finances are tightly controlled, my schedule from month to month and semester to semester is wrapped around this rigid academic path I’m following. And even after I’m done, having gotten all my ratings and hours and experience and ready to beat a path to the mission field overseas, life will be much the same as it has been–little foreseeable financial security, possible frequent moves and most likely quite a few highs and lows of spirit along the way. There’s really no other way, at least that I can see, to do things. I’d be happy to be wrong. <\/p>\n
And the implications for any long-term relationship I would enter are profound. My hunch is that any sort of career she would endeavor to pursue would have to be very flexible in terms of location, among other things. If, for example, she were a teacher or a nurse or a businessperson tied down to a specific area, matters would be difficult if we had to move suddenly. And it’s a catch-22 in terms of attraction as well, since those women I’m most strongly attracted to are those who do<\/i> have a vision and direction for their life, even if it’s just over the very near term. But it would be the most difficult situation to mesh and compliment my life to a woman’s with the attribute of a well-formed vision of her own. If there’s a virtue for being direction-less (and this goes for those with underformed personalities as well) it’s that one’s life situation is more malleable and conformable to the eventual partner’s. I want someone who is profoundly individual, then, but in taking that stance I despair of finding someone whose individuality (or at least those parts of it defined by their situation in life) can be maintained while pursuing a relationship.<\/p>\n
Even as I’m typing this, I’m aware that those things (compromise, wholesale career shifts) are not uncommon to marriages and other types of relationships. At the same time, though, I’m met with an overwhelming sense that it would be the last thing I could ask her to do. How could I ask her to put her vision for her life, her dreams on hold for the sake of our relationship? How could I ask her to sacrifice her vision so that mine could go forward? Is this an inevitability? Am I clinging too tightly to my own path in life? Is this all just some sort of arrogant presumption or massive double standard? Or is it a legitimate concern?<\/p>\n
Clearly, I mull over these things far too much.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I feel like the house is wasted on me. Especially this time of year. Don’t get me wrong–I’m as grateful as I can be for my parents’ assistance in acquiring and fixing up the place, but beyond that… One whole wall in my bedroom is still completely bare after four months. I haven’t made the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1006"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1006\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}