I’ve never been quite able to fully check my emotions in at the door in most any situations. I can and often act on what I intellectually know is true, and then if those actions have an emotional component for me I just deal with it at a later time.
I’ve recently had to deal with such a situation, and it was painful. The situation was being in a physical space at an early March LGBT journalist’s conference in Washington, D.C. with a woman with whom I’d been in a month- long relationship. The woman is a peer journalist who, without explanation or warning, told me our relationship was no longer working for her; that she never wanted to converse with me again.
I’d met this truly wonderful woman at a NetRoots Nation conference a couple of years ago and we hit it off quickly – a conference where progressive journalists, bloggers, politicians and activists gather annually. It didn’t take very long for me and this wonderful woman to warm up to each other, and within a couple of weeks after the conference ending we told each other, “I love you.”
Six months later I received that phone call that ended our relationship. When I asked her why, she told me that she didn’t think it would be useful to discuss it.
To this day I have no idea what happened. Was it something I said? Something I did? Something about me in general? Something about her? Again, I have no idea – when we’d communicated last, everything seemed fine.
But here we were at this conference and in the same physical space for the first time since that phone call. We travel in the same circles – we both knew we’d be in the same physical space again eventually.
It was awkward for both of us. When our mutual acquaintances were in small groups talking, if one were in the group the other didn’t join. And too, we sat at tables far across the large conference room from each other – there would be no accidental pairing of us for conference organized small group discussions.
And, of course, at one point we both crossed paths and caught each other’s eyes. The conference provided us both breakfast and lunch, and when the conference served us breakfast we had gone to the tables where the meal was being served at the same time. We both looked up to see each other mere feet apart. We smiled uncomfortably at each other. I mumbled, “Hi, how are you doing?” She kept her silence, and then we separated and returned to our tables.
I asked one of my friends at the conference whether I should go up to her and tell here I wouldn’t be making a scene and would be leaving her alone, and my friend said, “No, actually just say it without words by not engaging her.” So, that’s what I did; intellectually, it was the right thing to do. Emotionally? I wanted to engage her.
I’d hung my brick-and-mortar world coat at the door at one point in the conference, but hanging my emotions at the door was a different thing altogether. It’s not knowing why the relationship was no longer working for her, and not knowing why she wouldn’t tell me why in that phone call so long ago, that found me passing through the main conference room’s door with emotional baggage.
And knowing that she was, and still is, a really awesome person leaves me both emotionally feeling confused and deeply hurt. I want my emotional door to close on that part of my life with her; I want some closure that answers from her would give me – but at some point the door is going to need to be closed with or without answers.
We all, at some point in our lives, pretty much have to act in some situation or situations as if we’ve checked our emotions in at the door even when we’re still feeling emotional. Being an adult at this conference meant I had to ignore my emotions in the moment, and just push forward. Sometimes pushing forward is all we can do.
