We agreed that being virtuous had more to do with conforming to societal standards than falling on either side of good or evil. Virtuousness is what we assume to be good-- eloquent, kind, sympathetic. But, all the virtue in the world won't combat the evil in it. Eloquence won't stop people from killing each other and sympathy won't uncover the roots of inequity. They are qualities we want to see, that we assume are reflections of one's motives and purpose. Virtue requires an audience, to watch and to comment on the virtuous character.
Goodness, on the other hand, can be none of those things. Goodness can be clumsy, inarticulate, and seemingly cold. Goodness is driven by the desire to remove evil. A good person doesn't need an audience and is often times better suited to act without one. It is by nature dirty and violent. It is emphatic and painful, because being good often means being able to feel evil. It necessitates making that hard decision, being completely honest to the point of vulnerability, and taking responsibility for every action. It means being aware that a decision will hurt someone you love and still being able to do it and not turning your back on the pain you've caused, all because it had to be done.
He and I struggle with this constantly. Both of us had led pretty virtuous lives. We are, by our own nature, people-pleasers, and thus, easily fall into the trap of adhering to social mores. In recognition of this, we have been struggling to find ourselves and act as we are, rather than as we should be.
He spent the last year learning to be alone, because his fatal flaw is that he hasn't been. He's always had a companion, a cheerleader, a lover... we couldn't get along because he couldn't relate to my life, a life that had spent much of its time in solitary confinement while he was sleeping with a different girl every other day and building relationships now and again. I wanted him to find his own strength, a particular type of strength that would enable him to stand up against me, his Achille's heel.
"I learned to be happy without you."My year has been spent doing the opposite. My fatal flaw is my blind dedication to independence and self-sufficiency. I could never share my life with him, because sharing it equated to losing it. It was a year of learning to be more open, to be more honest, to not hide myself behind clever words and a lot of hand gestures. It was a year of trying to learn how to love somebody and be happy with somebody who wasn't him.
All these growing pains, just so one day we can say to each other I love you. I choose you. All of this, to be able to know that with all of the potential configurations of people, relationships, and love, we still only want each other. This way, our relationship isn't by default, but by conscious choice; we don't see each other because we don't know how to be with anyone else, but because we know that we are the only ones we want to be with.
Whether a year is long enough to be apart is the golden question-- particularly if it's a year where half of it is spent talking everyday (twice, actually). I believe his growth, and mine, is still purely theoretical-- we've never been apart where the risk of really losing each other was real and tangible. We have to continue with the possibility without ever seeing each other again, because to do otherwise, to do as we have been doing, is cheating. It's a risk that makes my heart stop, because I have the potential of losing one of the most important things in my life.
So, we give each other another six months of being alone and being with others. Six months before we say a word to each other, because speaking to each other is dangerously euphoric and we fall back into old habits and unravel into each other. Six months, because he will leave and he has to say good-bye before he does.
We've both said it out loud now. We can't be in each other's lives until we are ready to only be with each other. Any other way and we endanger our goodness.
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