heart over head

when i was younger i tended to wear my heart on my sleeve. every joy, every slight, every achievement and every disappointment was felt deeply and intensely. now, if you've  been even a casual reader of this blog, you may be thinking that that acorn has definitely not fallen even a micrometer from that tree here in my mid-life. you might be right to a degree. what is different is, because of the power of the emotions i've felt, in large part due to changes in my emotional makeup, i've at least tucked my heart to the underside of my sleeve and put a sweater over my shirt.

how so? well, in the past i'd say if i had a feeling, i pretty much trusted it as gospel and went with it. as tends to be the case with most of us when we are young, i believed my feelings to be an entirely accurate reflection of reality and then i would act accordingly; however, as i shared in the entry brain chemistry , with the onset of bouts of acute depression that began in my early adult years, i started seeing that how i was feeling might not be the best barometer for what was taking place and certainly should not guide how i should react in kind (this is a very good thing because i am certain i would not be around today to type this blog. you all do think that is a good thing, right?). so over the years, i've tried to bring much more of my head, i.e., logic, to thinking through a situation and much less of my heart.

now to the male readers of this blog, there is probably a strong resonance with that approach (to the female readers, please do not read that as my stating that women are over-emotional or incapable of applying logic to a situation. i'm just saying that most men, at least in western culture, are guided to eschew feelings in favor of logic). there are times however that the heart should rule over the head. this entry is about one such occasion.

i'm not sure if i've shared here that last year michael and i entered into a civil union (which does beg the question that in the dissolution of such a relationship, is that called an "uncivil disengagement"?). i am leaving the particulars to undoing that specific matter to michael, primarily (and likely unfairly) because i feel like he's the one that got us into that mess in the first place.

you see, when we discussed getting back together, michael indicated that he wanted a real commitment in the form of a marriage or civil union. we discussed it over the month or so that followed and next thing i knew we were off to a courthouse in a neighboring state to get our license. truth be told, i was fine with the relationship as it was and the closer we got to the actual day, the more uncertain i became about taking that next step. this is when my head kicked in.

"you're just nervous. you've said you wanted to be with michael for the rest of your life. you told him you would do this. plus, what would it say to him if you told him that you didn't want to make this kind of commitment?" what would it say indeed? perhaps that, while i cared for michael, even then i was not completely certain if the relationship would work and that maybe involving courts and judges and legal paperwork was not the action to be taking just yet? so i pushed my feelings to the side, went with the logic and now i'm left with just one more thing to do to be completely out of the relationship (btw, i got further confirmation of maybe this wasn't the right thing to do when our after the event meal was a trip to a burger joint and that night we watched a movie and went to sleep. yes, no wedding night. and i should add here that one of the problems we've had was that there haven't been any "wedding nights" for quite some time. just sayin'.)

it's a tricky balance going with your head vs. your heart. and maybe the secret is to stop seeing them as adversaries and start making them allies. let emotion make the rational decision more meaningful and memorable. let reason inform the emotional choice so that it is sound and consequences have been thought through. that might be the ticket. what i do know for certain is that when determining whether or not to do anything that concerns making vows to another person, please be sure that your heart is in it somewhere.